The Vibe is real: In its third year, Okeechobee reminds us why it’s one of the top festivals of the southeast.
While the inevitable influence of corporate encroachment has been felt across the festival industry, it’s refreshing that our Sunshine State acts as home to one of the good ones.
Flowing against this current of corporate takeover is Okeechobee Music + Arts Festival, which this past Sunday wrapped up yet another wildly successful weekend for the third year in a row. In year one, this Florida festival exploded onto the festival landscape boasting an iconic lineup featuring headlining acts across all genres. Kendrick Lamar, Mumford and Sons, Skrillex, and Robert Plant were just a few of the stars that helped sell out Okeechobee in its first year, signaling its potential to be one of the top festivals in the southeast.
Despite this, however, the growing trend of corporate festival culture seemed to loom over Okeechobee, as it has most independent festivals; and it begged the question of how long this unique festival would hold out.
As the lineups for the 2018 festival circuit became more and more interchangeable as they were released, it was worrisome to look at our home state festival of Okeechobee and wonder if it too would give in to this corporatization and become as bubble gum as the rest of the AEG and Live Nation lineups out there (fear of not seeing a profitable return — is a MF, see: Eminem, The Killers).
After yet another resoundingly successful weekend, Okeechobee Music + Arts Festival appears brazenly indifferent to this corporate model, and looks to be not just one of the top festivals in the southeast, but the entire country.
From the moment the gates opened Thursday morning until its tearful culmination Sunday night, OMF18 mustered all the magic of its previous two years and then some.
This year’s rendition featured a redesigned festival layout, improved sound systems for several stages, and expansive additions to Aquachobee, Yogachobee and the ChobeeWobee Village— all to accent a remarkably diverse and talented lineup.
Beyond the amazing lineups and comprehensive cultural experience, however, is an unparalleled vibe that Okeechobee Music Festival has seemed to cultivate in its hallowed grounds known as Sunshine Grove.
Whether it was swinging from a hammock in the charming Tea Lounge, swaying in the wind on the beach at Aquachobee, or exploring the main stages of the Grove, festivalgoers were enveloped in an aura of childlike spirituality and positivity.
As we touched on last November at EDC Orlando, music festivals like Okeechobee provide the opportunity for people to evoke the very best in themselves — incentivizing community, positivity and genuine bliss to every attendee willing to buy into each festival’s unique culture.
At its most basic, Okeechobee Music + Arts Festival offers a playground for its adoring crowd to escape the realities of school, work, and everyday responsibilities — set to the backdrop of the beautiful Okeechobee farm and lake country.
But Soundslinger, the production company behind the beloved festival, takes it a step further by involving fans in the organic and communable aspects that musical festivals were founded on.
This year, Okeechobee partnered with the Clean Vibes Trading Post, which galvanized thousands of attendees into joining the cleanup process, educating them on the importance of environmental responsibility, and even offering fans rewards in return for bagged trash.
Additionally, the festival hosted Participation Row in its ChobeeWobee village, which featured numerous tents housing involvement organizations such as Head Count and March For Our Lives, registering younger attendees to vote and offering opportunities for all to give back to neighboring communities and nationwide programs.
Nearly every fine detail of Okeechobee was centered around this vibe of community and genuity that feels palpable in the air as well as in the music.
This communicable ambience not only seems to elicit the most from fans each year, but as well its musicians— as nearly every set of the weekend left us blown away.
Bassnectar, who opened the festival Thursday night with a one-of-a-kind Full Moon set, delivered one of his more electrifying performances in recent memory Friday night for his second set, where he played his first main stage of 2018.
This came after a prolonging of hype from the 40-year old DJ/producer, who might have had a chip on his shoulder going into the weekend. After his NYE performance in Atlanta was met with some criticism on social media, the DJ lashed back out at fans in a rare tirade via Reddit, citing his right as an artist to curate his sets as he see fits.
If anything, it helped set up Okeechobee for one of the more raucous ‘Nectar performances— where he even opened with a mashup of his famed tune “Bass Head” and Eminem’s “My Name Is” before closing out the festival with a visually and audibly stunning performance of “Chromatek” themed to an audio clip of MLK’s “If You Can’t Fly, Then Run” speech.
Perhaps sparked by the genre’s headliner, almost all of the electronic acts lived up to expectations over the weekend.
Whether you were catching any of the damn-near ethereal sunset sets of Jai Wolf, CloZee, and Big Wild, or headbanging your way through the earth-trembling performances from Illenium, Tipper, Gramatik, or Tampa’s very own Blunts & Blondes— who did us proud by following up his late night Incendia stage set by filling in for the absent Ski Mask the Slump God with an epic mainstage B2B with Nitti Gritti— there was seldom a show that didn't leave you speechless with ears ringing.
This extended to the rock, jam, and R&B acts as well. Headliners Arcade Fire closed out the festival in dramatic fashion Sunday night, while the Roots, Chaka Khan and PoWoW! leader Snoop Dogg failed to disappoint with the annual superstar mashup on Saturday. Additionally, rock acts Foster the People, The Flaming Lips and the jam-electronic collective STS9 all turned out equally captivating performances.
If there was one letdown of the weekend, it was likely the rap portion of the lineup, and even that was still impressive. After late pull outs from Smino, Ski Mask the Slump God, and Joey Bada$$, it was left up to top billed rap act Travis Scott to rep the genre in epic fashion.
After his set got off to a late start, the rapper came flying out the gate with Huncho Jack tune “Go,” then quickly availed to fans that despite an oral surgery that left him with “like 100 stitches in [his] mouth,” that he fully intended on rocking out the Grove in his typically rageful manner.
Even after his vocals became noticeably hoarse in between songs later in the set, he brought up an ecstatic fan to finish out the closing song “Goosebumps,” which sent the Okee crowd into the rowdiest of its few rap moshes of the weekend.
Okeechobee’s 2018 run was filled with countless magical moments like these, so much so that a review or a 1000-word block could not even begin to do it justice. In just three short years, Okeechobee Music + Arts Festival has become an unequaled gathering of music, people and all-around beautiful vibes that contribute to a perfect weekend escape from reality. It has brought fans young and old, jam band-loving and headbanging, and from nearly every continent on the globe to come together under one common love.
The new wave of money flowing into festivals with corporate takeovers has watered down the industry in a way we’ve seen capitalism drive the splendor from so many things, but Florida can proudly say it has a special one in Okeechobee Music Festival.
Not even a few days have past, and we can’t wait to re-enter The Portal again.
This article appears in Mar 8-15, 2018.
