If you haven’t heard of Day N Night Festival, you’re going to want to. Friday September 8, 2017 was the first day of the weekend-long festival giving the fans and artists fresh energy. The day started off with a pretty cool temperature as the Angels Stadium filled with a large, growingly insane crowd. The more the day progressed the more hype the event got. Not only were there dope ass artists performing, but the fans came through with some tight fits – it’s hard to deny the rising popularity in shoulder bags.
We started off the day checking out 24hrs. During his set he brought out Salma Slims and MyNamePhin. The trio vibed well together on stage, but arguably even more dope was the Off-White jacket and (as mentioned before) Off-White shoulder bag 24hrs was rocking.
After 24hrs we went over to the Day stage to see what Leven Kali was bringing. The first two songs started out heavy but there were a few technical difficulties with their backing tracks/DJ. Luckily Leven decided to play the next few songs with just the live band while his DJ took care of the sound issues, which were fixed after just a few minutes. Along with that, the visuals for their set were probably some of the brightest and most vivid of the day – seconded to Travis Scott’s insane show. Leven made it clear he was there to put on a good show for the fans and he backed that up.
Cozz is an artist I personally hadn’t heard about until Friday. The Dreamville signee came correct, and the fans responded accordingly. He had everyone screaming lyrics for “Don’t Knock The Hustle”. His flow and stage presence were on point, moving around with a laid back swiftness. It’s clear why J. Cole took notice to him, just by watching you can tell he was born to do this and only this. Cozz is definitely one to check out if you haven’t heard of him yet.
The duo, They. played on the Day stage right after Cozz, and the energy was just as wild. Hands in the air, crowds getting progressively bigger, it was hard to ignore the amount of excitement the fans had. Once they dropped “Motley Crew” and “Working For It” the crowd just got wilder and wilder. This was one of the performances throughout the day where you could see the passion for performing in the artist.
Right after They. finished up we rushed over to the Postmate stage to check out Miami born artist Pouya. The past year Pouya has put himself on, making himself known. One of my personal favorites of the day, his performance didn’t let down. It was around this time the fans started raging and crowd surfing. Of course it’s against the rules, but when you’re feelin’ it no one can stop you, right? Halfway through his set Pouya hopped off stage to get personal with every person in the front row. Everyone loved it and the smile on Pouya’s face made it clear so did he. After hoping back on stage he brought out Ramirez to accompany the next song in his set.
One of my favorite parts about the day was how the artists connected with their fans. Everyone was there for a good time, no matter who you are – I even watched plenty of the security officers get into the music and have real conversations with fans and attendants. This is what these events are about.
If you came to see Khalid, you didn’t regret that. The 19-year-old Georgia native artist put his heart into his performance and emotions ran wild. If you wanted to hear it, he probably played it. He was accompanied by a live band, like Leven Kali – something you don’t see as often with today’s artists. The use of live drums, bass, and guitar on top of backing tracks adds so much power to a live set. Khalid and his band did a flawless job doing just that. Aside from Khalid’s performance itself, if you looked in the crowd you could see fans living a day they won’t forget.
Another artists bringing the emotional tensions up, and a duo I was excited to see, was Majid Jordan. Majid Jordan’s set mixed extremely well with the visuals they provided for their performance. Similar to a few moments of Khalid’s set, they had a darker feel using minimal lights with bright colors of a smoke-filled crowd. If you’ve seen a Majid Jordan music video then you already have an idea. There was a heavy presence of fog mixing with dark blue and magenta lights, it almost was like a live music video. They played “Every Step of the Way”, and “A Place Like This” – two of my favorites for sure.
Last (but absolutely not least) was Travis Scott. This was the most “planned” performance but the quality and energy was unmatched. A heavy use of intense lighting, fire, and smoke – the visual performance Travis Scott put on left a lot of the fans’ jaws on the floor. After his third song he took flight on an animatronic hawk where he performed the remainder of his set.
If you didn’t get a chance to check out Day n Night fest this year, there’s always next. You definitely won’t want to miss this again. The event organizers did a perfect job curating the line up and getting similar artists together to put on one of the dopest shows of the year.
Words and photos by Trey McGlothin.
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