What It Was Like Attending Lightning In A Bottle Music Festival for The First Time [Official Recap]

The 2023 edition of Lightning In A Bottle is offically wrapped and I’m sure most of us who attended are in agreement that this year’s event was sick. I was only able to attend on Saturday, which is day three out of the four, and legitimately had an incredible experience.

Below is our full Respect My Region recap from the event plus a vlog that I put together with help from the homie Curt Wozniak, aka @wozerati on Instagram.

Lightning In A Bottle 2023 Recap

Lightning In A Bottle 2023 was located at Buena Vista Lake which is just outside of the main “city” area of Bakersfield. I honestly didn’t know what to expect, but the festival was legit hosted at a dry, dusty, and hot little waterfront park oasis. I was concerned that I wouldn’t enjoy the festival as much due to the heat and weather but even with the sun and classic festival season dust, everything was beyond wonderful. Inside the grounds was a magical playground with plenty of free water, shade, and a bunch of misters spraying water.

Since we arrived two and a half days into the event and this was our first time attending LIB, I wanted to make sure we checked out every single area of the festival. As soon as we got in the event, we looked at a bunch of the vendors and explored the main stage area where Zhu ultimately performed in front of a packed out crowd. We quickly realized this stage was on one side of the festival and there was much more to explore so we turned around and walked towards the Lightning In A Bottle sign and the other stages.

I’m not much of a lake person these days but there was at least a hundred or so other people playing in the water and floating. It was really enjoyable watching everyone else soak in the sun and splash around. The vibe was truly that of a lake party with all kinds of people and parents drinking, smoking joints, and just vibing in the sun and water.

We continued exploring and found a bunch of great food trucks and vendors. This festival had a surprisingly high number of vegan and vegetarian options compared to other events I’ve been to over the years. Shoutout to LIB Fest for that, plus curating a bunch of great options for the rest of us non-vegan non-vegetarian folks too.

I personally had the FroGo Pineapple Strawberry Dole Whip and some of the Dough Lab pizza and was craving both of those again all night long. They also had the first row of food vendors next to the Thunder stage and the second row of food next to The Stacks stage, and both were playing a bunch of fire music all day and night. Every time I got food the music was hittin’.

The first artist we were able to check out was Canabliss and oh my gawd was she throwing down. The crowd loved her energy and vibed even more with the tunes she was dropping. You can check out some of her set in the vlog down below. After spending some time watching her do her thing, Curt and I continued on and decided to check out the different installations and activations.

Just past the Thunder stage, there was a bunch of festival fashion vendors lined up offering everything from hand-crafted leather goods to kimonos and other types of rave-wear. We discovered an area called The Junkyard that had a bunch of repurposed plane and car parts all over the area. It was sick watching people perform or dance in epic looking planes and buses.

The festival takes place in a lake front park that doesn’t have much in the actual park except park tables and trees. This gave attendees tons of space to walk around, relax, chill, dance, or hang in one of the pop-up structures added to the area.

My favorite areas were the DoLab mixtape house with their throwback hits and The Grand Artique that had a marketplace, saloon, jailhouse, schoolhouse, and a pickle shot vendor. These areas were straight up vibes and offered a refreshing mixup of music for the most part, especially during the day.

There were multiple tent structures with yoga and movement workshops going on. I walked up on some holistic culinary conversations that had people drinking lemon and ginger shots. I overheard a group of girls talking excitedly about this sex workshop they were on their way to. I feel like it’s safe to say that the community and culture building aspects of this event were really well executed.

Curt and I eventually got over into the other two stage areas, The Stacks, and Woogie.

The Stacks was what I would describe as a classic wonk stage. This particular stage area was great and featured handmade wooden structures we could stand on and be above the crowd, lots of bassheads, and a bar that served liquor, beer, and water. Check out our vlog footage to get a better view of what it looked like at night.

The Woogie stage was actually located less than 50 yards away and included probably 7-8 mushroom shaped installations that went up 75 or so feet into the sky. These provided shade during the day and were creatively included in the light shows with each artist’s set throughout the evening.

After hanging at these two stages and getting some quick frozen treats, we adventured back across the festival grounds towards the Lightning stage. Once we arrived we discovered a skating rink along with our friends from Fruit Slabs. We enjoyed some of the roller rink’s tunes and then bounced over to Beats Antique for a quick little 20 minute experience. Beats Antique are legends in electronic music culture and their set definitely cemented them into being crossed off of my bucket list. Their dance troupe was super fire and doubled as drummers and fire performers.

From there, Curt and I adventured over to Tokimonsta at the Thunder stage. The crowd was going crazy the entire time she was on stage, and even more so when she shouted out all of the AAPI homies. I also have to say that this set was notably more rowdy then other Tokimonsta performances I’ve experienced over the years. S/o to California for bringing it and going hard!

The highlight of the evening for me was seeing Zhu at the Lightning stage. Having never seen a Zhu performance live, I was excited to hear the vocals and production in a festival environment. Playing through all of the big hits and dropping a few new ones, Zhu 1000% delivered an incredibe performance and one of the most memorable sets in my festival career. I’ll definitely be going out of my way to catch more of these sets going forward.

DoLab’s creativity with their installations, their curation of performers, and the way they set up the various stages, is truly amazing. They executed an experience that I would describe as the perfect blend of commercial and craft, and I 100% can’t wait to see what they do next. 10/10 can’t wait to attend this music festival again.

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