When it comes to music festivals, it's the headliners that rake in the ticket sales.
Perhaps even more important than the headliners are the acts that fill out the undercard of a festival bill. These smaller billed acts are every bit as important in creating a festival's vibe and rounding out your weekend with good music.
SEPTEMBER 22-24 — ATLANTA MOTOR SPEEDWAY
While allocating for such depth on a festival budget isn’t the easiest, Imagine Music Festival seemed to have no issues in creating its 2017 bill.
Boasting one of the deepest EDM lineups in recent memory, the festival caught our attention earlier this year — especially with it’s phase two lineup announcement.
While the headliners (Deadmau5, Pretty Lights, Big Gigantic, Tiesto) are enough to conjure even the most basic electronic fans to Atlanta Motor Speedway — the festival's new, larger capacity venue— it’s the undercard that has many salivating in anticipation.
In this spirit we rounded up the top five undercard acts we’re most excited about to help you better prepare in advance of festival this weekend.
Here are our Top 5 Undercard Acts of IMF:
05. Buku
There are few things in dubstep as endearing as a Bassnectar endorsement, so when Nectar released his official remix for Buku’s “Front To Back” track in March, people took notice. Hailing from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, Buku has helped popularize the genre up north with his remixes and various collab projects. His music is as anthemic as it is bass driven, relying on wonky beats and synths to help deliver the drop.
Playing on the Disco Inferno stage Friday night, Buku is slated to begin a night of heavy bass with Ill Gates and Minnesota set to perform later on.
4. Blunts & Blondes
This past July we got talked to Mike Guard, the man behind Blunts and Blondes. After a spring that took him around the country and put him behind the boards at festivals like Okeechobee, he contemplated his rising popularity and what it meant for his laid back, down to earth lifestyle living in Dade City, Florida. As we near the end of September, and nearing IMF, he seems to be coming into his own. After a Shephard’s show that got him booked by Clearwater police, Blunts and Blondes has stayed busy releasing music and making tour announcements. He dropped two new tracks this past month and will head out on the ‘Mile High Tour’ will fellow dub producer Godd Dubz.
His popularity stems from viral videos taken from his live shows, sets that now regularly feature the long haired phenom joining the mosh pits in the group.
As per usual for B&B’s festival sets, he has ‘dubbed’ this performance the Blunts & Blondes Bass Convention — you can check in on Facebook to join the fun.
3. Minnesota
When I went to Buku Music + Arts festival, I was curious to see who this ‘Minnesota’ guy was and how he got paired in a B2B (back to back set for you EDM newbies) with Space Jesus. In review, Minnesota was more than deserving of the spot.
Hailing from Santa Cruz, California, Christian Bauhofer — otherwise known as Minnesota — has a different vision when it comes to dubstep. As opposed to the formulaic three-note transformer-step, Minnesota’s music explores the melodic side of the dubstep genre. Not lacking any bass, his music is heavily influenced by glitch-hop.
His music is as unique as any act on the lineup, and even the rail-riding head bangers may find themselves dancing along to his distinctive sound.
2. Illenium
The future bass genre has received a boost in the last year, a movement highlighted at last year’s Grammy's where genre poster boy Flume won the category for Best Electronic Album.
Capitalizing on this newfound popularity is San Francisco DJ/producer Illenium.
This name should be particularly familiar to Tampa residents, as he toured the area twice this past summer —first at Sunset Music Festival in May, then at the Ritz this past July. A relative unknown only a year ago, Illenium is now one of the more sought after electronic acts in the country. His affinity for aural and captivating emotional arrangements are reminiscent of ODESZA, whom he cites as one of his biggest inspirations.
Illenium sets are an experience in their own right, and one of the many can’t miss sets at Atlanta Motor Speedway this weekend.
1. NGHTMRE
It’s hard to add NGHTMRE to such a list, as his looming ascent to stardom has him looking more and more like a headliner these days. Over the last year Tyler Marenyi, better known by his stage name NGHTMRE, has quickly climbed the ladder in the trap genre. His career began when he moved to LA in 2014, opting for a career in music in spite of his degree in finance.
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After a strong run of remixes via Soundcloud, he attracted the attention of electronic staple Diplo, who subsequently signed him to his Mad Decent label.
After a strong debut at 2015’s EDC Las Vegas, NGHTMRE began to accrue a loyal following via his live shows and Soundcloud page.
Last year, however, was NGHTMRE’s coming out party. As he released collaborations with fellow Mad Decent signees Dillon Francis, Flux Pavilion, and Zeds Dead, his following grew exponentially and his name began to rise to the top of festival lineup's just like Imagine. When we caught his set in Hangout Music Festival’s ‘Boom Boom Tent’ earlier this year, it was one of the best of the weekend.
After only a year in the mainstream, NGHTMRE sits conspicuously close to the top of this year’s Imagine Music Festival lineup. With this added attention and increasingly impressive playlist of music, this set is sure to be one of the best turned out from this years staggering undercard.
This article appears in Sep 14-21, 2017.
