A Weekend at Shabang Festival

Photo by Samantha Heller

Once upon a time, Shabang was San Luis Obispo’s best kept secret. Back in 2014, when the festival was first hosted by a small group of Cal Poly SLO students, this festival was barely more than a house show with a mere 40 attendees. But now, people travel from all over California to celebrate the start of summer by listening to some of the best indie rock and DJ acts in the state. 

Shabang is a one-and-a-half-day festival thrown at the beautiful Laguna Lake Park in the central-coast town of San Luis Obispo, a.k.a. SLO. The festival started late in the afternoon of Friday, May 13th, and went on until late in the evening on Saturday the 14th.

Despite the festival’s exponential growth over the past six years, it still has a strong local, communal feel. All of the art, clothing and food vendors are local and independently run. A grand majority of attendees are current or former Cal Poly students, some traveling across the country to party in their old stomping grounds. Every few minutes, someone in our little festival group ran into someone they knew. “Omg, hey!” and enthusiastic embraces were exchanged every hour like clockwork. Many were even friends with some of the performers. We busted a move with DJ Jovella, who turned out to be one of my friend’s friend’s exes. Even the headliners were West Coast locals, such as TV Girl heralding from San Diego and STRFKR coming from Portland, Oregon. 

Shabang had an extremely relaxed feel - a welcome change from the overwhelming intensity of Coachella from last month. My little group spent most of the festival hopping from stage to stage as we pleased. It was very go-with-the-flow. 

We started our weekend off at the Funk Safari stage. Funk Safari was essentially a ginormous empty field in the back right corner of the festival dedicated to EDM. The first DJ of the Festival was local MC Jovella. She played a healthy mix of House and Techno with a sprinkle of Acid Breaks. Although her set began with an audience of only seven people (the five people in our group plus two extra dudes), by the end of the hour, there was a healthy crowd of around fifty attendees moving and grooving like there was no tomorrow. It was the perfect start to the weekend. 

At the end of Jovella’s set, we made our way to the Cuesta Ridge stage, drawn in by the sounds of nostalgic Garage-Band Rock. Huntington Beach local band Creative Differences was bringing the DIY house show fervor and intimacy to Shabang. 

One of the highlights of the day was the silent disco. As you walked through the entrance, you were directed to a table filled with headphones - some glowing red, others glowing yellow. Each colored channel coordinated with one of the DJs rocking out on top of a bus - red for the DJ on the left, yellow for the DJ on the right. We spent a solid hour and a half breaking it down at the silent disco. We even made friends with the other dancers who were on the same channel we were. With our new silent-disco-homies, we formed a bit of a dance circle, each of us rotating into the center to bust our best move. Most went the traditional EDM shuffle, some went the cheesy disco points. I, however, chose the funky chicken because I’m just that cool. We ended up getting so lost in the music that we completely lost track of the time. By the time I looked at my phone, we were a solid 10 minutes late for TV Girl. 

Luckily, we did end up making it to the main stage just as TV Girl started my favorite song of theirs, “Pantyhose.” When I heard the opening chords, I booked it and pushed as far forward as humanly possible. However, I quickly found out that despite being physically closer to the stage, I couldn’t see a single thing. I was surrounded by giants - 6 foot plus men as far as the eye could see. I thought all was lost until I realized that, scattered throughout the crowd, girls were appearing above the crowd, perched atop their homies’ shoulders. Immediately, I turned to my friend Liam and convinced him to let me sit on his shoulders to get a better view. Not only did I get to knock something off of my festival bucket list, but I got to see TV Girl in all of their glory. It was epic. 

Saturday’s Shabang was much more hectic. I was lucky enough to show up during the calm before the storm to catch Strange Case open up the main stage. This was my third time seeing Strange Case live, so I feel confident that this was one of their best live performances yet. Lead vocalist, Mikey Netka, crooned with soul and style, adding a sweet honey flavor to Chris Stapleton’s “Tennesee Whiskey.” There seemed to be a renewed energy in the band. At first, I thought it was the excitement at playing their first-ever festival show - which had some role to play. But it turns out that Netka was still riding the high from seeing Paul McCartney, The Beatles legend himself, live in concert at SoFi Stadium the night before. He even took a moment between songs to do a quick “Hey Jude” sing-a-long with the Shabang early-attendee crowd. This was the perfect community moment to hype the crowd up for their closer, “27 Club.”

After the conclusion of Strange Case’s set, I was off to check out the amazing art installations around the festival. In the central part of the festival, there was a small grove of trees where artists had put up a variety of canvases and were creating new pieces in real-time. Most of the artists featured had a flair for the colorful and the psychedelic. 

Some of the other highlights of the central grove were the giant mushroom inflatables - an IG favorite of the festival. There was also a cute little message box that spelled out “HERE” where attendees could record their favorite moments from the festival. But my personal favorite of the central installations was the collection of hammocks provided by the Cal Poly SLO Hammock Club. I was fighting to stay awake at that point, so the hammocks were the perfect amount of cozy. It was the refresher I needed to get on with the most hectic day of the festival.

By the time the rest of my crew arrived on the grounds, the attendee population had quadrupled. Lines for drinks and the bathroom went from nonexistent to extending across the entire festival grounds. Stages that had plenty of room to dance the day before became so tight that they were almost claustrophobic. But with the increase in attendees, there was also an increase in energy. I found myself dancing with countless strangers, chatting it up with people of all backgrounds in the bar line, and just letting the hype carry me throughout the rest of the festival. 

The most intense energy of the festival easily came from the Ska-Funk group Dante Marsh & the Vibe Setters. These guys had a full horn section, hand-percussion, and the vibiest rhythm section of the festival. Frontman, Dante Marsh, was clad in all pastels and had flowers woven into his locks, embodying the care-free spring aesthetic of Shabang. Although before their set I had seen my fair share of people bust some moves, I had yet to see an entire crowd break it down until Marsh’s psychedelic cover of 50 Cent’s “In Da Club.” There was twerking, skanking, crumping, and all flavors and variations of the phrase “throwing it back” in the crowd. 

The same dance-crazed energy continued at the Safari Stage, where college kids were transcending through the powerful techno beats of DJ duo Boiz House. At one point, one of the sax players from the Dante Marsh group joined the stage and started ripping a solo over the beat. The second that sax started blaring through the speakers, the crowd escalated to a new level of frenzy I never thought possible. People were jumping, moshing, and raging with every ounce of their being. The energy even seemed to get a bit sexier for some as make-out sessions commenced nearly everywhere you turned. Three DJs later, at the end of HoneyLuv’s set, the mass exodus began toward the main stage for STRFKR. 

Turns out, there was no need to rush over to the main stage. STRFKR was almost a full hour late. After a seamless two days, the sound and power decided to peter out just moments before the group was meant to take the stage. There were shouts of confusion coming from throughout the crowd. Within only 15 minutes of the power cutting out, people had already started flooding out of the crowd and towards the parking lot. Although the mass exodus allowed us to creep closer to the stage, the sudden decrease in body heat led to a very chilly forty-five minutes of waiting. 

Just as my fingers were about to go completely numb from the cold, I caught a glimpse of the two astronauts of STRFKR taking the stage. They jumped right into their set, making the most of the remaining half-hour of stage time by playing hit after hit after hit. People came rushing back to the main stage, immediately increasing the heat and restoring the energy to its peak level. By the end of the set, both astronauts dove into the sea of people and began to surf the crowd like a perfect wave. 

I was practically floating back to my car after STRFKR finished their set. I was buoyant from the psychedelic power of the music and the uplifting energy from all of the new friends I made. Although my voice was shot and my whole body was sore, I had never felt more alive, more whole.