Dreamscape Festival 2017
Badass Raves is aptly named because they throw some of the most bad-ass festivals on the East Coast including Big Dub, Nightmare, and the one we attended this past week: Dreamscape. This year the festival, which takes place at Camp Ramblewood in Darlington, MD, was moved back from May until the beginning of June. The result of that was picture perfect weather throughout the entire event. Badass Raves events are living proof that quality acts and passionate attendees trump cooker-cutter festivals with big name headling DJs any day of the week. You truly have to experience one for yourself to really understand what they are all about.
Things kicked off slowly on Thursday, June 1 with both the Warehouse Stage and Main Stage are still being built. This year Dreamscape also featured a large outdoor stage which was a welcomed addition and helped to avoid packing everyone into a tight indoor space for some of the more well attended sets.
Friday was when the party really got started and the real fun began. People started showing up in large numbers for both Lumberjack and Ekali. Both acts had a really good set. In fact, Ekali might have had the best set of the entire weekend (and there were a bevy of good ones). Troyboi probably had the biggest crowd of the entire weekend (it was between him and Barely Alive).
Friday featured some major overlapping sets between Keys N’ Krates, Destructo and Boogie T. Boogie T packed out the Pool Stage and had a surprise b2b with Lumberjack by the end of his set to the delight of the crowd.
Keys N’ Krates brought some insane energy during their live performance (which is always a treat) and Destructo played to a 150 person crowd at the outset due to all of the amazing sets going on at the same time, but Troyboi showed up and shortly after, Destructo invited the crowd on stage and turned it into a Boiler Room style party. It was epic.
Chris lake also surprisingly played to a very small crowd (surprising because he was one of the acts we were most excited to see when the line-up dropped). At the conclusion of Friday night, Tre Justice’s set was, on many levels, the highlight of the evening and everyone showed up for it including Boogie T, Lumberjack, and Architekt.
Saturday was one big dubstep day. Aside from the opening set by Bad Ginger, the Main Stage featured dubsteppers Syfer, Kris Cayden, Bommer, Krimer, Dubloadz, Virtual Riot, and Barely Alive. At the Pool Stage, Gypz had a nice crowd and later on, Helicopter Showdown, Mantis, and Delta Heavy kept the dubstep party going.
Despite the fact that Chodegang was playing at the VIP pavilion at the same time, Mantis and Delta Heavy still had large crowds. Chodegang’s set was one big dubstep party, and Krimer went b2b with them which was a surprise treat for everyone in the VIP. There was one major issue at the VIP pavilion once the sun set: bugs! However, as anyone who has been to Summer camp knows, this is hard to avoid and hopefully everyone was well prepared with bug spray (which was also available for free at the medical station).
Around 9:30 pm on Saturday night, the generator at the Temple Stage (in the barn) blew. There was word that they were going to cancel the rest of the sets at the Temple Stage, but the promoters got a new generator, pushed all the sets back by one hour, and the party continued. Professionalism and ingenuity goes a long way, so kudos to Badass Raves for the quick fix!
By the time the Evan Riley went on at midnight, most of the other stages were done for the night already so it was one big party in the barn! Following Evan Riley it was a surprise set featuring Boogie T. Head honcho, 2Rip, and Tre Justice, cut their b2b set short in order for other artists to play longer which was a classy move. Overall it was another amazing weekend of good music, great people, and some of the best festival vibes around. We are already looking forward to Big Dub festival in July!
**Thank you for voting Independent Philly as a four time Top 5 Finalist and 2014 the Winner of “Best Local Blogger” in the Philly Region!**
[Photos by C2H2 Photo]
[Article by Ching Chen and David Miller]
Be sure to “like” Independent Philly on Facebook, follow us on Twitter, follow us on Instagram, enter our contests, and love us in person!
