Heat Music Festival

UC Riverside’s Heat Music Festival takes back Saturday
By Breanna Armstrong and Lisa Luna

With over 11,000 music lovers and 16 music artists; Heat Music Festival was a success from the opening DJ to the headliner band, Taking Back Sunday.

The University of California Riverside held the fourth annual Heat Music festival on its campus Saturday, Feb.13. Heat is an annual music festival that falls on the university’s homecoming week. Heat Music Festival’s line-up included a diverse mixture of artists, from electronic musicians to rock bands.

Heat Music Festival contained two music stages and one dance stage. While people crowded around the southland stage listening intently to eight different artists throughout the night, the main stage kicked it off with the band Shiny Toy Guns,who played an hour set that led to every fan dancing and singing along to their songs.

“It is amazing out here tonight, so many people,” Janett Loera, UCR freshmen said. “I think that it’s really cool that all of the students had a discount to be here tonight. I am having a blast.”

The crowd continued to grow as the anticipation rose for The Crystal Method to take the stage. The Los Angeles based electronic duo were full of energy, never failing to keep the crowd wanting more. At the end of their set, The Crystal Method said, “We don’t come out here very often, but I will say we will be back here soon.”

As the bass of the speakers on the main stage vibrated through the crowd, the lights flashed, reflecting off the faces in the front row, and hands were thrown up in the air, Heat Music Festival officially started when Taking Back Sunday took the stage.

Taking Back Sunday began their performance with a classic song, “Cute without the ‘E’ (cut from the team)," sending the crowd into frenzy. As they kept playing, the crowd of fans continued quickly grew into a mosh.



Although it was their first time performing at Heat Music Festival, Adam Lazzara, the lead singer of Taking Back Sunday, told the ‘Banner’ it was their third time performing in the Inland Empire, and “It is absolutely wonderful to be at Heat.”

For Blake Spencer, a CBU senior, it was his tenth time seeing Taking Back Sunday in concert. “I was so surprised that they played that many songs. They had amazing stage performance. I even went to the back of the stage and they gave me the drummer’s set list. It was a great night,” Spencer said.

Heat was a huge success with the impressive light shows on all three stages to set the ambiance, the excitement and the mob of people that gathered across UCR’s campus to share in the same commonality for the love of music.