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BY MATTHEW DEMARKO AND ELIZABETH WINDHAM

It may have not been the official #firstfestivalback, but for many, it was.

Tampa, Florida for Memorial Day weekend sounds crazy enough. But it just so happens Sunset Music Festival is there to complement the official start of summer. I wasn’t sure what to expect for a post-global-pandemic music festival but Sunset Music Festival completely surpassed whatever expectations I had.

Sunset Music Festival 2021 - Photo by Atlanta EDM

Everyone was smiling as the entry commotion began: strangers fanning strangers, compliments raining down in line between neighbors, vibing, kandi trading.

It took all of five minutes before the crowd started to sing “Happy Birthday” for someone. And we weren’t even in the gate yet.

Just to be back in it you could feel the air of gratitude pervasive throughout the crowd. But it wasn’t just us - the artists, one by one after their sets, all grabbed the mic to express the same sentiment. Zomboy stopped the crowd in its tracks when he admitted to being nervous for his first show back in 15 months. But Paz probably expressed it best. During his main stage set he asked everyone to stop looking at him and asked us to just look around - to look at how lucky we were to be back amongst a crowd, with strangers and friends and homies and loved ones. Every single soul participating in the great maelstrom of Sunset Music Festival had gratitude as their backbone and fire in their eyes.

And thus it didn’t feel real walking up to Raymond James Stadium. Watching pasties crossing the street and technicolor shorts flowing through security almost seemed like a flashback more than something we were living post-COVID.

As far as organization and the entry process, everything felt on point and well thought out. It was HOT, but there were mist and water cannons to keep people cool as they eagerly awaited getting admitted into the official festival grounds.

The grounds are comparatively small to other major festivals, but they offer an advantage we didn’t anticipate: ease in getting around from set to set. While a smaller footprint than some, the easily navigated grounds still had four diverse stages to explore with art, vendors, food, and creativity sprinkled everywhere in between.

Immediately upon entering we were greeted with Instagram-ready cool down tents. Whether busting out cameras or busting a move, people flocked to these vibrant teepees for pictures and relaxation throughout the festival.

To the right of that was Horizon Stage, the smallest of the three with an overgrown jungle-net vibe complemented by the pervasive house music. These shuffling grounds were spacious, and the music provided a chiller shake-your-hips-back-and-forth-with-a-smile-on-your-face ambience. Yolanda Be Cool was one of our favorites to play here, and while we were running up and down the pit, the crowd was all smiles.

Heading deeper into the festival, Sunset Music Festival’s giant white letter sign was there for all the memories. This sign was massive and sturdy, supporting any and all crazy festival goers willing to climb and conquer the statue. Things got crazier here than we expected, and it was awesome. At night, the sign came alive with project mapping by Algorhythm Designs, animated in all the day glow neon befitting a tropical paradise.

I doubt many people got to the Eclipse Stage before being greeted by the massive main attraction, Sunset Stage. The stage to house the highly anticipated headliners Seven Lions and Rezz looked gargantuan even from afar. If you missed festival speakers shaking your chest to the core, this was the place to be. While this was the largest stage, it got packed quick.

Daytime highlights included a heart-string-plucking set from Said the Sky, which had more than one eye tearing up on the rail. His melodic blend of EDM was a beautifully appropriate uplifting symphony.

If you’re a dancer who takes shelter in the outskirts, during the day you could be pleasantly surprised by a water cannon from Stage Left that graced everyone with a much needed shower for the souls bold enough to brave it.

But what about when the water cannon wasn’t enough to cool you down? You headed to the perfectly labeled Cool Down Get Down, a totally enclosed air conditioned oasis complete with its own stage and lineup of baddies playing throughout the weekend. Festival highlights include a wild set from Evalution, a Tampa native who’s musicianship sets his mixes far out from the competition.

Some festival goers parked themselves immediately next to the cold blowing air but many others kept throwing down. After all, it wasn’t called the Cool Down Calm Down.

Once you had fulfilled the “Cool Down Get Down” aspect of that stage’s name, you emerged back out into an umbrella-canopied trajectory headed straight to the Eclipse Stage.

The middle child in terms of size, this stage felt like a nod to 2018 EDC Vegas’ Circuit Ground stage with three giant Tentacles that curved overhead showcasing screens that blasted visuals during every set. Having screens continue the lightshow when you looked overhead made the Eclipse Stage a truly badass experience.

The Eclipse stage was a heavy hitter in sound, hosting the likes of Zomboy, LSDream, and 12th Planet. And although it didn’t bear the name, this stage was the real star to catch the sunsets. Every night the solar star would set just left of the stage, creating magical cloudscapes and colors.

A real highlight was the LSDream set that melted everyone’s minds visually and sonically. Getting to experience him here makes it ever more apparent that he chose the perfect stage name.

And when that sun finally set, it was generally time for some main stage antics. The Sunset Stage rivaled most main stages we’ve ever seen. Massive flames; massive speakers. During Adventure Club’s set, taking photographs in the pit had us gasping for breath the speakers hit so hard. You couldn’t wear a hat in front of them. Seriously. They brought the sound. They brought the bass. They brought all the theatrics. Beautiful gypsy-esque dancers on stilts, aerialists, breakdancers, fire and fireworks. This stage felt like summer.

And what’s summer without hydration? We were struck with the frequency and jollines of the security guards handing out water on the rail. We know that this is not a truly unique feature of a festival, but it was no rare sight to see the guards raging and smiling as they gifted out the thirst quenchers. It was just another detail in the rainbowed display of surprises that Sunset had to offer.

Rezz closed out the festival here with her unique blend of haunting and pulsing music. She couldn’t even believe it. “Who would believe a weird hypnotic girl would be headlining this festival?” But her status and captivation from the crowd attests to just how high her hypnotism has risen.

The biggest impact of Sunset Music Festival was not the stages nor the music. It was the community.

It doesn’t seem coincidence that this went so well the same year that Disco Donnie decided to buy back all of the remaining shares of his original company, Disco Donnie Presents (DDP). Praise the Festival Gods and Goddesses that he did. At the height of the Pandemic and as events were disappearing in April of 2020, he made sure to give anxious customers refunds AND secure the staff and vendors payment from the canceled festivals that were a part of DDP. He then made swift moves to pivot within the scene and bring back events any way he could, such as with his “No Parking On the Dance Floor” drive-in series.

We didn’t attend DDP’s “Ubbi Dubbi” but it was the true #firstfestivalback. And seeing how Sunset was arranged, attended and enjoyed, it seems they’ve got a great year ahead of them.

The only downside to Sunset was that it officially ended at midnight (and started late at 2pm). While it was bittersweet, the parade of festival goers out of the stadium and into the streets was an entertaining encore, one big tribe of people chanting and squishing up together.

Uber and Lyft madness could be averted by driving (which is a huge advantage of it being a smaller festival) but as everyone scurried to the myriad of after-parties you wanted to just stop and stare at everything.

Tampa, you covered our clothes with dirt but filled our hearts with love, freedom and joy. Can’t wait to come back next year!