Full Moon in New York

After enough years sitting muddy and exhausted in the same tents at the same festivals—Melt, Rock im Park, Splash, the usual rotation—you understand why people start looking elsewhere. Damp, hungry, your tent smelling like every other summer body that’s sheltered there, too tired to move. At some point the novelty wears off.

But festivals exist everywhere. You just have to actually go.

I caught the Full Moon Festival on Governors Island in New York recently. There’s something different about it—not in the way that festivals market themselves as different, but in the actual choices made. Vic Mensa, Kelela, ABRA, Selvagem, Connan Mockasin, Axel Boman, Donna Leake, Awesome Tapes From Africa, TOPS. The lineup had architecture, not just clout. A sensibility running through it.

Governors Island helps. You’re actually isolated, on the water, away from the city proper. There’s room to move, art installations everywhere, people who bothered to think about what they wore. The food wasn’t punishment. Nothing felt like it existed because someone received payment to book it.

I’m not sure what else to say. If I’m back on the coast next year, I’ll be going. There’s a difference between festivals that still have something new to say and the ones that just repeat the same formula. This was the former.