OffBeat sent our intrepid BUKU team out into the field to capture the vibe and the musical excitement. Here’s writer Dalton Spangler’s experience of BUKU Day 1.

There couldn’t have been a better weekend to usher in the BUKU Music and Arts Project. Gorgeous weather coupled with the excitement of major music festivals returning after two years had everyone oozing positive energy. If you missed the first day or had to spend it all in a vendor tent, OffBeat’s got you covered with some of the highlights to the Fest’s Day One.

 1:40 p.m.: Doors open to hundreds of excited festival goers who begin exploring the grounds, meeting up with friends and laughing. People wear bright clothes or all black with little in between. They’re dressed for the heat as a cloudless sky allows the sun to beat down on the grounds, but a stiff breeze off the river keeps things relatively cool. Emotions run high from anxiety to excitement. The city of New Orleans is bustling in the background with shipping trucks passing on Tchoupitoulas and massive freighters rolling by above the levees.

1:50 p.m.: Purple-haired dancers dripping golden threads march down the middle of the grounds. It’s the Jamettes Krewe parading on the weekend.

2:15 p.m.: As A Hundred Drums takes the stage to kick off BUKU, Gabrielle Watson asks the audience a simple question, “Y’all like dubstep?” The massive 100-foot-tall Skyline stage begins to shake as the bass hits. Her reggae-downtempo music is only the beginning.

2:50 p.m.: At the opposite end of the grounds, a massive sound system strapped to a bike rolls around the “Wharf” and “Choke Hole” stages. Kumarion and REAPER bring the beats to the riverfront as the Riverboat Louis Armstrong overlooks the soon-to-be endless rave.

2:57 p.m.: At the BUKU Project, live art can mean more than just music. Painters on multiple levels of scaffolding each have their blank canvas to fill over the long day. Each piece will be auctioned off, benefiting Upbeat Academy, the music education program for kids.

3:06 p.m.: Singer Fousheé runs out onto the Bridge Stage as the band kicks into a heavy pop-punk style banger. She’s screaming, pulling off sky-high shrieks effortlessly and bouncing around on stage full of energy. The mood changes as the band roll into a smooth pop/R&B track bringing down her vocals to a subdued ballad. After a few slow and mid-tempo songs, she yells out, “I’m Bored!!!” before a fast, two-stepping beat introduces her hit of the same name. She also performed another hit “Deep End,” which has gone viral on TikTok.

4:31 p.m.: There is something deeply uncanny about hearing the words “Hey, you li’l piss baby,” on the same stage Tame Impala will play later that night. But that’s what 100 gecs is all about. The post-ironic, internet meme of a band has performed music festivals online in video games like Minecraft, but the BUKU Project was the duo’s first IRL music festival. It wasn’t clear if they knew exactly where they were, though, as they kept saying things like, “’Sup Coachella, how the hell are you?” or “Lollapalooza! It feels great to be back in Chicago.”

4:32 p.m.: Taking Back Sunday just celebrated the 20th anniversary of the acclaimed emo album “Tell All Your Friends.” Since then, their sound has changed a lot, evolving into a more southern-rock style pop-punk band. Adam Lazzara looks like a rock ‘n’ roll Jack Sparrow swinging his mic around and slapping his knees together.

4:46 p.m.: Wreckno asked the right question when he took the stage at the Wharf. “Who came to throw BUKU-ssy around?” The crowd cheered as he led into the Godzilla theme, followed by a massive bass rip.

4:53 p.m.: A rising DJ in the NOLA electronic music scene, Lady Lavender wrapped up her set in the Ballroom. The space is like your high school auditorium but instead of a polarizing prom, it’s a massive rave complete with light spinners and, of course, Spiderman, taking fat puffs out of a dispo.

6:18 p.m.: SoundCloud rapper Trippie Red quite literally opened with a bang before a suspenseful and winding intro led into an explosion of smoke and cheers. As he hit the stage, the crowd was already shouting his lyrics back at him. He tells the crowd, “Hey BUKU, if you smoking weed make some f*cking noise,” before hitting a blunt on stage to a raging audience.

6:34 p.m.: Crowds swell as more and more people show up. What were acres of empty land early in the day have become endless seas of bodies. A train drives straight through the middle of the festival, splitting the riverside stages from the main stages.

6:50 p.m.: “The Humans. They won’t understand. They communicate in a different way.” REZZ teleprompts this message as she walks up the stairs of her custom-built stage. She stands right at the center of the massive video display behind her. Look into her glowing eyes and you’ll see the kind of performance she’s building— mass hypnosis. A captivated audience can’t look away as swirling, repetitive images entrance them into her dubstep.

7:23 p.m.: As the sun goes down, the stage lights pour over the growing crowds. White balloons dot the grounds and a light-up tree begins to blossom in front of the Skyline.

7:28 p.m.: In the dark, Rezz’s hypnotic beat and visuals have full effect, relaxing both mind and body in a dubstep-inspired trance.

8:09 p.m.: After the sweltering sun went down, the weather started to feel a bit chilly. People began bundling themselves up in tapestries and blankets to keep themselves warm. Maybe it was just all the bodies crammed into one space, but the hyper-realistic visuals of bright blue skies and vibrant green fields made Porter Robinson’s set feel warm. His vocal mods allow him to be both a soprano and a tenor in his performance while chiming away at synths or keys. At one point, he even jumped down to let a fan play a melody on his synth-pad.

8:32 p.m.: A central part of EDM is letting go and losing yourself in the beat. French producer CloZee captured the essence of this by sampling Alan Watts’ “The Veil of Thoughts.” In her lucid song, “Overthinker,” she embraces the reality of the moment and fights the need to live in one’s own head.

9:14 p.m. “I need everybody to put a middle finger up in the air right now,” shouts Ruby da Cherry of the $uicideboy$, “F*ck the rules, f*ck the cops, f*ck the Vatican, f*ck the population, let’s go!” Fire blows out of six cannons on stage at they tear into “Do You Believe in God?”.

9:32 p.m. For an acclaimed bass artist, Liquid Stranger seems incredibly humble and ordinary. He opens his set by thanking the audience and saying he’s had a lot of practice recently on tour. A familiar Mac Miller sample and a stunning light show start the rave-up again at the Wharf.

10:25 p.m.: About halfway through the headline act, Tame Impala, a massive ring of light descends just feet above the band’s head like a giant’s halo. A booming bass rings out as the halo lights up bright orange into the band’s hit “Let It Happen.” The song winds and turns for nearly 10 minutes before climaxing with streamer cannons covering the grounds. The confetti shimmers beautifully in the yellow-green light, lingering like falling ash.

As the night winds to a close, Tame Impala brings hit after hit with “The Less I Know the Better” and “New Person, Same Old Mistakes,” which ends with a bang. For the big finale, they clear the tubes on the confetti cannons as lasers light up the scene making the debris look like flicking lightning bugs. More tomorrow…!