The final day of IMF 2023 began with the sun promising a warm and dry day as it rose over the Georgia horizon. Do you prefer a morning yoga class or party games to start your day? Imaginers can take their pick thanks to the different areas around the campgrounds. At Shakedown Street East we played cup pong, corn hole and the inflatable games as we waited for the gates to open. It even featured a small stage with an accompanying dance performer to keep the music going.
Dillon Francis B2B Knock2 Broke The Boundaries
This surprising duo was my favorite set of the whole weekend. In March of this year, steadily growing bass trap artist Knock2 released a remix of Dillon Francis’ “Goodies”. Why have the perfect balance of house and bass in one song when you could have a full hour set of it! No matter what you came to hear at Imagine this set had what you wanted. Seeing bass heads and house heads hand-in-hand was truly a sight to see. Everybody seemed to be smiling and it truly broke the boundaries of what genre is. This year the EDM world has seen an influx of artists trying new genres and I hope this collaboration inspires more artists to leap out of their comfort zones when it comes to style.
Chris Lake
For an artist who doesn’t have much stage presence nor crazy visuals, yet is an international club superstar, you know his music speaks for itself. The creative direction of the lasers was beautiful, but all I could really focus on was the memorable melodies that stick in your mind, overlayed with techno patterns of percussive sounds. It’s easy to digest and reaches the soul no matter how intricate the composition. His music is vibrant and colorful and he doesn’t have to rely on accompanying visuals to prove it. Although I previously thought of Chris Lake as an artist for a smaller, more intimate venue, he certainly did not fail to reach the vast ocean of the main stage crowd.
Rezz
One Canadian woman in LED goggles managed to hypnotize around 3,000 people. Isabelle Rezazadeh, AKA Rezz is one of the most iconic characters in EDM today. Discovered and signed by deadmau5 in 2016, she quickly gained a huge fanbase. She has a distinct spacey mid tempo bass style. You hear her work and know its her, a huge accomplishment in a genre that lacks lead singers making them easily identifiable like other popular styles of music. Although she was the last set of the whole weekend, she held the audiences full attention the entire set, and many even begged for an encore. It was the perfect wind down to an amazing weekend.
Overall, Imagine Music Festival 2023 was a wonderful experience. This was my second year in a row attending and watching the festival improve as a whole is very promising and shows how much work was put in to make a weekend full of new friends, exciting music, and new experiences. I look forward to attending for years to come.
