The first annual festival bringing together hip hop and electronic music, TRILLECTRO took place Saturday at the Half Street fairgrounds across from Nationals stadium. A unique venue for a new and emerging form of music and festival, the entire day continued with performers on opposite stages.

The main stage had a great sound system and had enough people even early in the day to have energy during all the performances. Here is Tabi Bonney who had a great stage presence with his full band early on at Trillectro.

I spent the majority of the day at the other stage, the huge Red Bull Music Academy Radio truck which doubled as a DJ booth with lights & speakers from top to bottom. It showcased producers such as Heartbreak, Cam Jus and Tittsworth. Every DJ raising the energy and crowd larger than the previous and by the time a storm was rolling in the crowd was too large to be intimidated by it.

Cam Jus

David Heartbreak

Tittsworth

Schoolboy Q

The fastest growing act there would have to Flosstradamus, coming out of Chicago as one the largest trap acts touring they had the largest crowd of the event ready for their set to start. It started great and was an amazingly entertaining show until the volume just seemed to have been turned down to a level much lower than expected for their bass heavy tunes. This was quickly noticed by chanting fans and soon enough both members of Flosstradamus each moved a large floor monitor meant for themselves up to the front of the stage facing the crowd. It seemed to help briefly and was a great statement in my opinion that they just wanted to blast during their set.

Eventually it was obvious their set could not continue and Doug E Fresh cam out with a microphone and told the crowd that the DC police were shutting down Trillectro because of noise complaints and had to abide by them in order to have the festival again. Then even his microphone was turned down by the irritated sound guy who was next to me while taking several of these pictures. Floss then talked and signed some shirts for fans close to the front of the stage and left. It was still a successful event and can only get better in years to come, just have to do something about the noise because getting shut down early really irritated the crowd and Flosstradamus who were still triggering their vocal “Damn Son” sample right up until the speakers turned off completely.