Okeechobee Music and Arts Festival 2023: Psychedelic Whirlpool of Transformation
Written and photographed by Matthew Demarko
(of 1000 word mirrors)
“If we’re talking Okee, it isn’t about just the music; isn’t about just the art; and honestly it isn’t even just the people. It’s a mix. It’s something about when all of those energies come together and they synchronize. It creates something so new, so different, something that I’ve never felt at any other festival before.”
- OddlyEDM | 2nd Okeechobee, Untold Amount of Total Festivals
What does it mean for a music festival to be Transformational?
Can this version of you that exits Sunshine Grove be more and not less?
Instead of just physically tired can you feel spiritually awakened?
Instead of egoically self-conscious can you express yourself more authentically? Even back in the real world?
Can you speak with more heart centered softness to those you love, even if it’s with a voice raspy from screaming at the top of your lungs all weekend?
The resounding answer to these metaphysical rhetoricals is a warm-toned YES.
It is the reason why I have gone back to Okeechobee four times in a row, and why I can say in 10+ years of festivals it is the most powerful one I’ve yet to find. And as we go through this Okeechobee Recap Adventure, you’ll see and hear that I am by no means alone.
One prime indicator of Okeechobee transcending the amalgamation of music festival experience is that it doesn’t matter who’s on the lineup - you know it’s going to be as quality as it is varied.
I wandered the grounds like a bliss-drunk child, no semblance of schedule what-so-ever. There’s just an endless kaleidoscope of islands, curiosities, and playgrounds to explore. My curiosity compass was the only guide I needed, save for some of the headline moments best experienced with friends.
And what headline moments they were! Odesza performing their first festival in over four years would be a tentpole feature at any festival, but at Okeechobee, it was a single star in the constellation of amazing musical feats.
Anderson .Paak surprise showing up with the Free Nationals is a barometer reading of Okeechobee’s musical prowess. GRiZ’s residency blossomed while his roots ran deeper than ever, especially going B2B at Incendia with LSDream to close out the festival. And Earth Wind & Fire provided a strong heritage backing for the feel-good atmosphere of everything in between.
As far as a backdrop for all this magic (especially in the United States) you can’t do much better than Sunshine Grove. Nestled among the tropical midlands of Florida, Okeechobee emanates a warm, welcoming vacation vibe unique to the palm tree aesthetic.
“…just coming into this tropical environment and…seeing this beautiful piece of land that was laid before us to enjoy, kind of like an adult playground, it was just magical. It was like each performance just painted its own world…
It’s such a beautiful place, Sunshine Grove. It’s definitely a memory I’ll carry for a lifetime.”
- Dalton Boutwell | 1st Okeechobee, 3 Festivals Total
With sand between your toes and palm fronds on the horizon, the permeating undertones are relaxed, providing a hammock mindset, even amongst the manic cacophony of 3am head banging.
It is on this glowing backdrop that the many worlds of Okeechobee are set.
“What I love about Okee is the sense of wonder and discovery as you go around the grounds. From the pyramid of cans that festival goers were crawling through to hear the rustling vortex of winds, to a statue of a dinosaur with all sorts of mechanical functions…
When you go around you discover new areas, and there’s a sense of amusement and wonder about them. They have cute names, [like] Chobeewobee village.
Every time I felt lost there was something new to explore and discover and delight the senses.”
- Hoop Outlaw | 1st Okeechobee, 6 Festivals Total
My personal favorite (and what I believe sets Okeechobee apart from every other festival) is Aquachobee, the outside-of-security, welcoming beach stage. Again, life just feels more wavy, and you behave in a different manner when there is sand between your toes.
From early on in the day, festival goers can combine their love of beaches and music festivals into one at this locale. While this year the beach was curiously (and perhaps dangerously) devoid of shade, the wine-bag slapping, pool -floaty riding, and playful splish-splashing were ever-present.
At the other end of the cove is Incendia, making for one powerful double-staged inlet, but during the day, Aquachobee is King. The people’s faces don’t lie.
Even with all the joy, I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention the tragic death of Stevie Nguyen, which did cast a palid shadow over the jovial stage Saturday afternoon. While the story is still being parsed out, it is undoubtedly a reminder to look out for your fellow festival-goers at all times.
For those able (and in truth that is most of us), you can donate to his GoFundMe to support this family through this time here: GoFundMe
Moving inland, YogaChobee and the Bamboo Tea Lounge provide some much needed shade and sustenance, whether spiritually or materially.
Having an all day tent like YogaChobee (where, you guessed it, activities like Yoga occur) sets a strong energetic epicenter for further spiritually grounded and mindful practices to take place throughout the entire festival at large.
This year, Lauren Linton of Yogatopia hosted the year’s Acro workshops, giving people a fertile playground to lean into the trust of others and stretch their abilities in a way they probably didn’t consider before attending. With neon charisma, Lauren guided everyone from first-timers to experienced “flyers” in levitating and inverting themselves playfully above the grass.
This tent also hosted the ever-popular Drag Bingo, home to raucous laughter and prime examples of uninhibited expression of self through body language and dress.
The Bamboo Tea Lounge next to it provided further opportunities for creativity, granting participants an unlimited supply of bamboo and paint to create whatever their hearts could imagine. Partnered with the free, friendly variety of teas being sampled perpetually throughout the day, this lounge was a safe-haven of peace and tranquility.
But when it was time for peace and tranquility to go by the wayside, the fiery tent of the Here Stage loomed large and loud for all to see. Traditionally hosting the EDM-leaning artists of the festival, Here is an Instagram-post-of-a-stage.
I might vote for this as the most fun stage of the festival. The welcomed shade from the analogously-colored fiery top instilled people with all the energy of the sun without evaporating their life-force.
I say this is where peace and tranquility went to rest, but I can’t talk about Here Stage without mentioning the truly transformational Lightcode set from LSDream that occurred Sunday morning.
I didn’t believe it possible for so many people to feverishly want to attend a sound bath, where LSDream is simply bathing a crowd of still individuals in the sound of his most healing music, but there they were, packed to the very edges of the stage with some brave souls braving the heat just for a chance for the solitary experience.
With his humble charm, LSDream explained it’s best to lie down to receive this set - that the position of lying allows one to surrender even deeper into the experience, which is, to feel whatever it is that we need to feel.
With participants burning incense, palo santo, and sage all around, this was easily the best smelling set of the entire weekend. I made an attempt to lay down for the set myself and receive, but curiosity of the beautiful faces of the crowd got the better of me. As I periscoped up from my prayerful bliss, the healing and emotional release present on people around me was stunning.
And the powerful thing about witnessing healing is that it often heals yourself.
“Okee provided me with an opportunity to begin a healing process I didn’t realize I needed along with a safe haven to feel what I needed to feel…
Meditating and feeling everyone’s colorful energy around me; feeling the warm sun on my face as I let go of the negativity of my past; closing my eyes and focusing on the music and bass resonating in my chest.
The mindfulness and spiritual growth this festival provided me was like no other, and I left Florida with a clearer sense of my limitless potential and better understanding of what my self-worth is.
- Ritu Jayant, 1st Okeechobee, 4 Festivals Total
And while the Portal is an all encompassing whirlpool of the festival, the transition into The Grove is a necessary element to hit the center of the beautiful storm. Walking and traversing through the brief forest, Okee has always played a hilarious batch of palette cleansing jazz-like tunes, clearing the aura musically for whatever you’re leaving and preparing you for what you approach.
The Grove houses the “Now” and “Be” stages, nestled amongst a phalanx of bordering trees. “Now” is the smaller but no less beautiful of the two, with “Be” being the crown jewel Main stage. In actuality the stage decorations are pretty bare bones, however it’s the surrounding canopy and rainbow spectrum of hammocks and bubbles that decorate this area so beautifully.
“What makes Okee so unique to me is just the feeling of pure freedom and joy you get when you walk into the Portal.
I was in the Grove by the Be Stage and…I saw someone pull out one of those old school parachutes, one of the colorful ones…and underneath it there were just a bunch of girls…blowing bubbles, and we were all giggling, and I swear I was transported back to elementary school.
And it was just so beautiful and so freeing and so joyful I just don’t know any other way to explain it. “
- Kii, 1st Okeechobee, 8 Festivals Total
The trees seem to hug the crowd in a gentle embrace as everyone coalesces into one crowd for the big headline events.
If my opening lines of the article seemed to steal from Odesza, it’s because they were. “This version of you simply becomes real. And you’re right here with this version of you, to see things as they really are.”
Odesza’s surgically emotional music injected a soul into the crowd I perhaps have never witnessed before. With tear-inducing wonder and cathedral filling choirs, they led us through an emotionally cathartic ritual that is the quintessence of Okeechobee.
In that crowd, we’re there for more than substances and head banging (which are both fun and present in spades, just not the main facet). We’re there to build community and lifelong friendships; to showcase the potentiality of this human experience in the full spectrum of human emotion and color. And we’re there to do it TOGETHER.
“To see things as they really are.” That we are creatures of love, with a limitless capacity for energy and vibrancy as our birthright. It’s only appropriate that their album (and ensuring set) would lead us, the listeners and dancers, through a rebirth.
“The energy is so healing. It’s so relatable. And to connect to it you literally have to do nothing except embrace in the Here and the Now. And that’s truly what makes Okeechobee Okeechobee, the presence of Be Here Now.”
- OddlyEDM, 2nd Okeechobee, Untold Amount of Total Festivals
