Festival Review: Billboard Hot 100 Fest Brings The Chart-Toppers – Artists Review Day 1

Day 1 of Billboard Hot 100 Festival was FILLED with the up and coming, along with some of your most delicious, pop jams. It felt like a light day thanks to the blaring sun, and the unstoppable energy of the crowd. As people ran from stage to stage to catch acts that could, easily, sell out their own show, Day 1 was for the “day ones” of music.

lovelytheband

Rocking their first fest, lovelytheband took the stage early, and won over the audience with their pop-rock anthems on feeling like life only leaves you kicking rocks. The trio shook their guitars as if they were towels that needed to be dry. They swirled all over the stage like being still was impossible when playing music off their debut: Finding It Hard To Smile. Add on that Mitch Collins has a voice that is steady in its emotive pains, and he has the potential, iconic frontman written all over him. With how he sang and invited the audience to take in the moment, I have no doubt he will define “the moment” soon.

Kim Petras

Kim Petras was perfect for Billboard Fest. No matter how much you say, pop music is all about image or superficial, it still manages to, simultaneously, capture fun and heartbreak, which is brilliant. How can someone describe my “Heart to Break,” while making me dance like I am on the cover of Vogue? I, already, mentioned that the crowd was pretty young for a major fest, but in Kim Petras case is was perfect. She is soundtracking Generation Y and Z’s car rides to the mall and sleepovers with friends. She is young and bubblegum, while also being thoughtful and amiable. Such a definition should be stapled with the word: cool.

Sheppard

Despite a few audio hiccups, this Aussie band persevered in giving the brightness of their sound and songs. Being on the beach, was a perfect location to elaborate that Sheppard is the band you play when you feel and want to be happy. This is not an easy virtue to capture, symbolize, and then sell to a crowd; not everybody truly wants to be happy. Yet, at a festival, this emotion is rampant and, with their sunny keys and the interchanging vocals/ charms of the Sheppard siblings, they, genuinely, are a perfect fit for any festival circuit.

Rae Sremmurd

I cannot describe how deeply impressed I was with Rae Sremmurd’s performance. They are topping charts, but, on stage, they are toppling with charm. They walk and bounce around like they are smiles with legs; consistently laughing, spitting verses, and interacting with the crowd as if we are their best friends. I have NEVER seen two people go out of their way so much to interact with their audience: taking pictures, videos, and dancing with fans, while NEVER missing a beat or verse. It was as if fame and talent were so natural to them that nothing could distract them from including everyone in it.

Taylor Bennett

This rising rapper melts hearts: truly! His match of verbosity with rapidity enthralled the crowd. How can someone give so much thought, detail, and heart at an alarmingly quick rate. Veins would pop out of his neck as he spits his rhythms like he was a human faucet, and clear water/ vision was gushing through him. He, strangely, exemplifies how much we think about the world, but never say that we do. Every person walks around with theories on why this world has failed itself and how it can do better. Yet, not everybody can enthrall a group of people to listen to said theories, and believe in them. Taylor Bennet can do this over beats that prove rhythm and altruism can dance.

Olivia O’ Brien

POP KWEEN ALERT! POP KWEEN ALERT! Like Kim Petras, you watch Olivia O’ Brien, and you say, “Oh yeah, you are going to be on the radio a lot!” Her voice, despite its range, feels straight in the hues and tones of love and heartbreak. She fits right in to the modern-pop universe that toys with the idea of feeling harmless despite being so harmed. Why do good women get their hearts broken by lesser men? The “I hate u, i love u” singer has the tracks that challenge and even respond to this perplexing truth. Moreover, she simply performs; approaching the audience like she came out of it to say, “I feel you, guys. I am you!” You cannot beat that type of relatable.

Phantoms

Is somebody putting a music drug that ignites male, duo DJ partnerships? From Disclosure to Gorgon City, I cannot stop witnessing two guys deciding that they can build empires through pop sounds, and they are not wrong. Nowadays, the producers and composers of music can be as publicly powerful as the singer, and the Phantoms proved that by playing each role. Vinnie and Kyle sing and mix their tracks like top chefs, and people are looking to rhythms as much as words to enact within them a sense of fulfillment: even if for a second. Thus, Phantoms made people full.

Krewella

Krewella rise and shine as “community makers,” which, though they mean it genuinely, it is a fierce strategy. Everybody wants to be apart of a community, and there is no period of time where that desire feels more pertinent then when you are kid: when you are in your teens or twenties, and trying to figure out how you place in a world that can be dissatisfying. No one asks to be born and die, but in-between both we are forced to live, and Krewella LIVE. They are like forces of nature swooping through the stage, and waving flags of proud outcasts. Of course, that message will speak to people, but Krewella’s performance wanted it to exhilarate them.

Halsey

Alright, I love Halsey. I thought Hopeless Fountain Kingdom appealed to the eternal, hopeless romantic that lives in every woman. No matter how much we grow up, there is an inner teenage girl who dreams of being Juliet and is always shocked that love kills her. Halsey manages to emanate that gorgeously tragic aspect of love. She swirls her microphone like she is making a cocktail/ song, and you are willingly drinking its every flavor. With a massive set of stairs, she climbed up and down, changing into various outfits, and discussing what inspires her to inspire. Her capacity to be beautiful and vulnerable, while also being “Bad At Love,” showed the entire audience, especially women, that nobody is saved from love’s thorns. Yet, we should never stop looking for its roses.

Click Here For My Day 2 Review of The Artists At Billboard Hot 100 Festival.