On Friday, August 18th, the fifth year of Deep Tropics kicked off at Bicentennial Park. The park is deep in the heart of Downtown Nashville, with the city skyline providing the ultimate backdrop behind the main stage, Meru, and really honing in that guests are in “Music City.”
As guests shuffled in, they had the option to explore an expansive bazaar full of clothing and festival items. Deep Tropics also created a subset of the festival called ‘Deep Culture,’ which housed conversations related to well-being, yoga, and meditation. Keeping with the festival’s mission of being the “greenest festival in the United States,” guests were given reusable metal cups with carabiners attached to be used over the course of the two days.
By far one of the coolest things about the festival is its layout. The main stage, Meru, was geared more towards house music, which was located in the park’s amphitheater. This shielded the acoustics from the neighboring Lotus Stage which focused more on bass music. This allowed Deep Tropics to place the two stages fairly close together, letting festivalgoers easily navigate between the stages. It’s rare that a festival allows you to easily see two artists at the same time.
Detroit house DJ icon, DJ Minx, started out the day with her smooth tracks. She helped set the tone for the day and warmed up the crowd, both literally and figuratively.
On the opposite side of the festival the Nashville native, Subrinse, played their electrifying drum and bass set. Accompanied by their MC, they had the crowd dancing along the entire time.
Denver native, Redrum, followed Subrinse and her intense dubstep performance had the crowd banging their heads and shuffling along. Even though Redrum played earlier in the afternoon, based on her performance, she’ll be a headliner in no time.
Simon Doty was on the opposite stage, Meru, and played a tropical house heavy show. This was the perfect atmosphere for the festival, honing in on its theme; it was certainly a crowd favorite of the afternoon.
On the Lotus Stage, things started heating up with Justin Hawkes’ set. Since he’s one of the biggest names in the drum and bass scene, the crowd flocked to his performance. It was electrifying.
Mindchatter started his show with his hit track “Math” which had the crowd dancing along the entire time. He covered LCD Soundsystem’s “I Can Change” and Peter Bjorn & John’s “Young Folks” which were both unexpected but easily one of the highlights of the day.
Khiva’s set was filled with dubstep tracks that had the ground shaking. She was able to bring out an energy that hadn’t been seen at the Lotus Stage all day. It was one for the books.
LP Giobbi’s performance was the day before her birthday and before she started playing, the crowd was singing “Happy Birthday” to her. She had the crowd dancing her entire show to “All in a Dream”, “Giodisco”, and “Free”. LP Giobbi had a standout set that lifted the spirits of everyone at the Meru stage.
Lunice had an electrifying performance. He started his show by jumping out of the DJ booth and dancing with the crowd. It really set the tone that he wanted the crowd at a peak energy level, which it was.
The producer legends, Kream, took to the stage and had a show filled with big room house tracks. They had the crowd dancing along to their remixes “The Rhythm of the Night” by Corona and “Innerbloom” by Rufus du Sol. The production of their set alone, made it a must see of the night.
Ravenscoon hit the stage and started his performance with an unreleased track off his upcoming album. He played a few more tracks from his unreleased record throughout his show too. Based on his set, his upcoming release is going to be a crowd-pleaser.
Closing out the night, Gorgon City started their set with a rendition of their hit single “Tell Me It’s True” that had the crowd singing and dancing along. They also played notable tracks “Voodoo”, “You’ve Done Enough” and “Remember” which had the crowd wanting more. They were the perfect choice to close out the night.
-words: Caitlyn Derr
-photos: Sam Wilkinson
