One of the biggest music festivals New York has to offer happened last weekend. Officially named Governor’s Ball, this three-day festival is something you don’t want to miss out. Over the weekend you had the opportunity to see Eminem, NERD, Travis Scott, Halsey, Shawn Mendes, Post Malone, Lil Uzi Vert, Kali Uchis and many more just to name just a few.
The festival took place right outside Manhattan, which was located over on Randall’s Island. For festival-goers, it was a short ferry ride away from downtown. Once arriving on Randall’s Island you had four different stages to choose from to watch your favorite artists play along with food vendors, beer gardens, and a fantastic festival vibe.
The weather was changing dramatically days before the weekend so some people saw rain, while others saw more sunshine, but nonetheless, it was a fantastic event. It was well planned and for being a big festival in a major city they made it manageable. For example, with the number of people that attend and are at Lollapalooza, things can get hectic, to say the least. I was impressed at how smoothly Governor’s Ball was.
I personally only attended Sunday afternoon and missed some of the sets I was hoping to see, but was blessed to see Aminé leaving the venue in a golf cart and in that split second managed to connect. Shortly after I went in and jammed out to Kali Uchis set. For those that haven’t heard much of her music, do yourself a favor and grab her latest album. She’s very similar to Amy Winehouse!
After, I caught Khalid who seemed to connect his set to the younger kids in the crowd and was excited to congratulate high schoolers that just finished their high school careers. He did his thing and blessed the crowd with his high-quality music. From there I buzzed over to catch Pharrell and NERD jam out. They were energetic and brought an uplifting sound with them.
Lil Uzi Vert was next at another stage so I wanted to get there early enough to get close to the stage. I arrived the stage he was on and started making my way through to the front. It was a challenge because most people that went on Sunday seemed more excited for Lil Uzi than any other artist that day. Lil Uzi Vert came on stage and started his set. I managed to get a few rows from the front. It was chaos. People were jumping up and down, shoving others, sweating, screaming and having a blast. His set was everything that I had hoped it would be as for me too.
There’s just something about going wild and losing your shit during shows that get me going and all of us in the crowd were able to accomplish that during his set. From there, I left his set all sweaty due to the close quarters in the crowd and everyone around me, along with jumping up and down for 45 plus minutes. After we buzzed over to see Eminem at the main stage.
It was incredible to think that Eminem was in front of me. An artist I looked up to and listened to religiously as I grew up as a child. It was very cool. Due to the possibility of being stuck waiting in a long ferry line back to Manhattan, my friends and I agreed that it would be a good idea to get a jump on things and head back to the mainland after a few songs into Eminem’s set.
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It was a successful event and I was impressed at the respectability between all the people that attended. People were friendly and were there to have a good time. There wasn’t politics or trouble anywhere that I saw unless you were looking at the lines of the bathroom as the day went on. LOL. Anyways, I would go again and would recommend to anyone thinking about it to give it a shot!
Austin Howell is a journalist for Respect My Region and Owner of The Real Gentlemen’s Club.
