WRHU Coverage of Adjacent Music Festival - Aired 6/5/23 {Transcript}

Listen to the audio here: https://youtu.be/xXelA69wnn0

(Photos provided by Adjacent Music Festival and were taken by Skylar Watkins, Dylan Long, Anthony Kinney, Vincent Angiolillo and Steve Garfinkel)

WRHU Hempstead. My name is Juliana Iovino, and this is Alternative Nation on 88.7 FM Radio Hofstra University. Today. I'm here to talk to you about adjacent music festival. Adjacent Music Festival took place over Memorial Day weekend on May 27 and 28 of 2023.

The festival took place in Atlantic City, New Jersey, on the beach. This means that it was right off of the boardwalk, which I'll get into a little bit of that in just a moment. But I would like to say before I start everything, is that this was the first festival that I have ever attended, so I don't have too much to compare to. But I will give you my honest opinion on everything about this festival. So first, I would like to talk about the area.

Like I said, this was in Atlantic City, New Jersey, right off of the boardwalk. And being on the boardwalk was actually very convenient when it came to having somewhere to stay. There was so many hotels right there that walking from your hotel to the venue, which was on the beach, was very easy. And I attended this festival with a few of my friends, so it was nice that we all were able to get a hotel room and then go right to the festival. We were able to park over at the hotel, so we didn't have to worry too much about parking at the festival.

But there was parking options available for people if you were driving from somewhere else that wasn't right off of the boardwalk, going on from there and knowing that it is right off of the boardwalk. There was a great amount of security on the boardwalk that not only helped for the safety of getting in and out of the festival grounds before you get to the festival security, but also just to help guide people if they needed help. So I definitely appreciated that, a lot. Going on with security, though, security itself for the festival was very nice and very thorough.

They checked everything in your bags. There was a strict bag policy. And although this bag policy did get a little annoying at times, I definitely do appreciate it because you know that the security and the festival was really looking out for everyone and making sure that everyone was safe. So at times you were thinking, what am I allowed to bring? Sometimes that got a little confusing, but at the end of the day, you know that they were really looking out for everyone.

So that is greatly, greatly appreciated.

Once you got into the actual festival, you were greeted by a really beautiful sand sculpture of the festival's name on it, which was nice to see. And of course, you had your stages, different booths and different vendors and everything. So next I would like to get into some of those merch booths and some of the vendors. So with the merch the first day, there definitely were some kinks that had to be sorted out with the merch lines because they were very long, very tedious, and they just didn't have enough staff available for those.

It took a very long time for my friends and I to get our merch. And at one point some of us were hopping offline to go get food because we were waiting so long and getting waters and drinks. So it easily took about 2 hours to get merch that first day. However, by the next day they had that all sorted out and there was a much better system to the merch lines. And I actually got back on that line to get some merch and it was so much easier.

Definitely didn't wait as long. I did still wait a good amount of time, but I'd say at most an hour I waited, but honestly, it was probably closer to about 30 minutes. Still not great to wait for merch, but it was much better and it really went by very quickly, so it wasn't too bad. And the line brought you by a bunch of the other merch vendors that were there and artists and everything. So it was nice to have time to look at that while I was waiting.

And as I just said, there was other vendors there that weren't directly through the festival, but there were people that had different band related merch. Some of them were different campaigns and fundraising tables, so it was nice to be able to look at those and have something that was still related to the festival that we were at. Going on from there, I would like to talk about the different food and drink options that they had. So food they had a few food trucks, a few festival foods that were right from there. I didn't eat too much.

You were able to exit and reenter. So I did exit just because of the prices were about what you would expect from a festival. But they weren't too bad. I did enjoy the food that I did eat there. As for drinks, there was many, many bars everywhere, which again, understandable, it is a festival.

They also had different drink companies that were sponsoring the festival, so it makes sense that they wanted to keep up that sponsorship and have a bunch of those drinks available. However, there wasn't a lot of people at these bars since there was so many, so it was easy to walk up to. Many of the bartenders or even just the people at the registers were kind of calling out like oh, get drinks here, get cold drinks here, get water here. And there was such long lines over at the Food and at the Merch that it seemed like that staff was better suited somewhere else than to have so many of those. Also, they probably could have fit more vendors in those areas instead of having so much of those bars there other than just standing on the lines.

There was crowds here at the festival but as I'm told, it actually was pretty good compared to some other festivals I know. For me, I wasn't too bothered by it. Sometimes when it was the end of the day and one of the headliners was playing, it did get kind of crazy. But again, that's expected of a festival so I won't complain too much about that. And no one was really super rowdy or anything. I didn't think it got too out of hand. So I would say the crowd was pretty good for this going on from there. I would like to talk about the performers that were at adjacent festival. I'm going to talk about the ones that I specifically got to see. But there was a ton of amazing performers this weekend. Great to know that none of them dropped out. So everyone that was listed did perform that weekend.

So first off with the performers, even just by looking at the names you can tell this, but as you're walking around the festival grounds, there was a huge mix of sounds which was actually really nice. Since it is alternative music that was the basis of this festival. It was great to hear anywhere from a little more softer and indie to getting to some of the more hardcore bands.

So I'm going to start off with the 27th that Saturday and the bands I got to see, sadly I did not get to see that many just from timing some work obligations that I did have at the festival and just what I was interested to see.

So. First, I saw the band Thursday. Thursday is a New Jersey native band which was very nice and I have seen Thursday a few times and I can say that they do not disappoint. They were absolutely amazing at the festival. They always sound really good, they have the crowd involved and excited and they just seem like really, really nice people in the band just getting to hear them talk.

After that I saw Paramore which was the headliner for that day. This was my first time seeing Paramore and I luckily got to see them a few days after at Madison Square Garden. And I can tell you that with both performances they were absolutely amazing looking specifically at the festival performance. It was a great time with great songs.

Everyone in the crowd knew all the music and were singing along and excited. Of course, again, it is a music festival, so people were pushing at some times, which did get a little annoying, but it wasn't anything too extreme and there was lots of security around the stage and everywhere to make sure that everyone was safe

Now, that is all I got to see the first day, but the second day I got to see a lot more great performers. So starting off the second day, the 28th, I got to see the band Midtown, who I had seen previously in December of 2022. And again, they do not disappoint. It was a lot of fun getting to see them. They were on the main stage, which was a little surprising to me, but they still had a good crowd, which was very nice to see and it was just a ton of fun. It looked like the guys on stage were having fun. The only thing that surprised me was that the frontman Gabe Supporta, did not play bass. And I know that for my show, he wasn't playing bass because he had an injury with his finger. I don't know if he still has that injury issue. If he does, I hope he gets better soon. If not, I would like to see him play again soon. But he did crowd surf during his set, so that was cool to get to see.

Following right after Midtown was the band Waterparks.

If you have been listening to me for a while, you know that I am a fan of Waterparks. I have spoken to Awsten on the show and I went to go see their show that they had in New York right before the festival. Again, an amazing set. They really had the crowd very hyped. They were on that main stage and they created a big crowd to be able to watch them, so that was a lot of fun. I will say that I was surprised to see that mosh pits opened up a lot for their set. And I think compared to a bunch of them, except for one of the ones I'm going to talk about in a bit, it was probably one of the biggest mosh pits that I saw at the festival, so that was pretty surprising. But again, they have great music. They were promoting their new album, so it was a lot of fun to get to see them again.

After that, there was a small break and then I went to go see L.S. Dunes I've also seen before in Brooklyn back in 2022, and they're always amazing. But sadly, their crowd did get a little out of control, in my opinion, just from the amount of crowd surfing and moshing and the dangers of people crowd surfing into the mosh pits. And I do wish that was regulated a bit more or also just that security had a little bit of a better handle on the crowd size because that was not one of the main stage performances. So they were at a smaller stage and there was much less security over by those smaller stages, which I will say is the only issue that I do have with the security is that there was not enough over there and there was really no definitive barriers over at those smaller stages. So people were just kind of all over the place. You never knew where a mosh pit was going to open up and it just started to spread out onto the sand and was a little difficult when it came to someone like L.S. Dunes to be there. Other bands that weren't as hardcore definitely fit there, it was totally good. There was places for people to put out a blanket and to sit, but for something like L.S. Dunes, I think it just didn't fit as well.

After that, again, I had a bit of a break and I ended up catching the end of Japanese Breakfast set.

Japanese Breakfast was totally awesome, definitely one of the more softer groups that were playing but created a huge crowd and I know some of my friends that I were with were super excited to see Japanese Breakfast. I will say definitely that this group wins for the best merch at the festival. They had beautiful, beautiful merch that even though I didn't see their full set, I was so close to buying. But luckily two of my friends did buy their merch so I can live vicariously through them with that.

After them I went to go see Phantom Planet, who I had also seen right before that weekend during that week leading up and they had a super great set and I will say that they had some of the most amazing crowd interaction and just involvement into the music.

People were excited and I was really happy to see that see support for Phantom Planet. So I definitely think they had a really, really great show and a great set following.

Right after Phantom Planet on the stage right next to it was the group Beach Weather. Now if you again are someone who listens in, I also have an interview with Beach Weather, so make sure to check that out. I had not really listened to Beach Weather prior to this festival, I listened to a couple of songs and I really enjoyed them, but I can definitely say that Beach Weather also had one of the best sets in my opinion. They had great songs, the guys on stage were really into it, really interactive, talking to the crowd. I was even sitting there listening to some of the music and adding their songs to my spotify playlist so I could keep listening to it.

Their set was only a few minutes before blink-182 came on. Who was the other headliner for that day, so less people were over there and I heard already a bunch of people online saying that Beach Weather was the hidden gem of the festival. They had a ton of people fall in love with them as I had seen and I know I definitely fell more in love with them getting to see them perform live.

Again, right after that was blink-182, so I went to go see them. I had seen them previously at their show at Barclays in Brooklyn and their show was very similar to that when it came to the set, of course it was all the same and they still put on an amazing performance.

I will say that I did prefer to see them at an arena show rather than the festival just because there was a little more to it and it seemed like they were rushing during the festival one. They did go overtime from their set ending at eleven so it did seem like they were rushing a little bit, whereas in arena they had much more time and they just seemed more into talking to the crowd and everything. But still, amazing set.

I definitely enjoyed everyone that I saw this weekend. I will give the best performance or just what I preferred as an amazing performance to Thursday.

Again, they always put on an amazing show and I just really, really enjoyed this one and I'm lucky enough to be able to see them again in September when they have their performance in New York. So I am very excited to see them again. But again, as I said, everyone did really, really well.

And some honorable mentions that I will say is some of the ones that a lot of people were excited to see that I heard just walking around the crowds and everything was Knocked Loose, Motion City Soundtrack, Coheed and Cambria, Jimmy Eat World, theMovieLife, among many others- and I know definitely Knocked Loose made a huge impression on the festival. If you look at the festival social media you'll see that there was someone in a Pikachu costume that was crowdsurfing during their set and it just went everywhere, the videos, so definitely make sure to check those out if you want to see something cool. That's about it for what I would say for the sets.

Now some final thoughts and what I would fix.

Again, definitely, like I said, probably less bars and more either merch vendors just to alleviate some of that, build up some more food, even just some sitting areas would be cool. Would definitely recommend that. I also think definitely at those other stages that weren't the main stage to have some more security. Also those other smaller stages were right next to each other so it was easy to go from one to the other. But the main stage was so far away you had to go so far.

I sadly missed the end of Beach Weather set because I wanted to get to blink-182's and I know festivals do that again to alleviate some of those crowds and everything, but it was just a little more difficult because it was on the sand. But if that isn't changed for the next year, it's not the end of the world, just something that's a little stressful now to end off. I am talking about next year. So I of course would love to see all of the groups I mentioned return. Even the ones that I didn't see I would love to see them return so I do get to see them next year.

Some ideas though for some headliners I think could be groups like Fall Out Boy, Green Day, My Chemical Romance and then some of those other groups that could be at the festival. I would absolutely love to see The Academy Is... perform. I know that they were playing in the UK that same weekend. So if maybe they did want them to perform and they had that other thing but I would definitely love to see he Academy Is... maybe some more hardcore groups like Pierce the Veil, Sleeping with Sirens, or just some more iconic alternative music groups like Yellowcard or even going to Black Veil Brides would be very cool. Again, these are just some of my thoughts. So if you can check out adjacent music festival if they do come back for another year. This was their first year of the festival and they haven't announced yet if they're going to be having another year of it. I definitely hope so.

I will be there even if I don't end up doing press. I would like to go again because it was just a fun time and especially being able to go with friends, getting to see all the different music groups because it introduced us to a lot of new music and also let us see a bunch of our favorites which was really, really awesome. So hopefully there is another one next year. And it was another great time. It was Memorial Day weekend so it was a good time to be able to drive out there.

But that's it from me. Thank you for listening in. And again, this is Alternative Nation on 88.7 FM Radio Hofstra University. Thank you.