Our Favorite Aspects from Sonic Bloom [2019 Event Review]

The Unified Field of Sonic Bloom always seems like a place that is continually bettering itself with outstanding stage production, intimate & dank music experiences, ‘mouth watering’ food vendors, and the best of vibes spread throughout the festival. Each year is better and better with the result that 2019 was the best Bloom yet.
For us at The Chronic Electronic working cooperatively with our partners BEN AfterDark, including some new members to help us do coverage at the festival, resulted in an amazing experience! Add that to the radiating vibes that spread throughout the festival and we got a Sonic Bloom weekend that went down in the record books!
We put together a review that covers our favorite aspects of the beautiful and intimate festival:
Stage Production; Unexpected Dank Music; Performing Arts; Visual Arts; Noms (Food); and of course, Hammock Chilling by the Creek and in Nature.
At the bottom of this review we incorporated our Sonic Bloom 2019 Video Recap, which was all shot and put together by Derek M, of Virtual Portal and The Chronic Electronic.
Enjoy our review and hope to see you out on the Unified Field next year!

The Music Lineup for 2019

Stage Production:

The stages at Sonic Bloom are far from basic. Each stage holds an unique and extravagant vibe designed to offer a different kind of an experience. The main stage, the Bloom stage, definitely catered to the main stream type of production, massive, filled with LEDs and a beautiful LED screen that was accompanied by high resolution lasers. On this stage they brought in headliners, Gramatik, Opiuo, Yheti, Spoonbill, The New Observatory, and The Sonic Bloom Orchestra, just a few of the artists that blew away the main stage.

Meanwhile the Meadow stage, on the other side of the grounds, portrayed a more rustic and home grown feel with minimal LED lights and screen, displayed on a beautifully wood-worked stage. The relief in some of the wood panels were lined with LED lights so it gave an extra depth of feeling to the already exotic stage. Here Sub.mission took over where some of the nastiest bass acts came in to show Sonic Bloom just how hard the Unified Field can go with artists like; Khiva, Um.. (who took place for Pushloop who was unable to make it,) Andreilien, and The Widdler, who ended out the Meadow stage with quite possibly one of the his best sets yet!

The last major stage, the Hummingbird stage was the one that held some of the most craziest moments. This was the stage that went deep into the late night hours on Friday, Saturday and Sunday, the Hummingbird stage packed some serious heat considering it was the smallest stage. They had Sunrise sets from Living Light and a 3 hour Yheti set on Sunday morning. This stage was unique as it was completely surrounded by a scrub-oak forest with a big shade structure over the open space for the audience. On the stage, the woodcut Hummingbird Background was iconic, and became the object that the VJ’s projected on in the dark hours. This intricate stage held a special kind of beauty when a 16k projector blasted away high resolution images on it then was mashed together by some of the most psychedelic and mind-bending visual artists.

Bloom Stage-

Meadow Stage-

The Hummingbird Stage-

Unexpected Dank Music:

Not all of the music that was dank over the Sonic Bloom weekend happened at the three main stages. They had a Starwater Stage which was put up right around the food court area and gave people the opportunity to get their food and still feel some awesome beats. Daily Bread came back for a second set and other local talent that is seriously making some crazy moves, Thought Process, pheel., Higherglyph, and more! Of course though, that wasn’t the only place to hold some seriously dank music. At the Yoga D’om, yes the Yoga Dome where during the day there were workshops and yoga activities going on, at night it transformed into something entirely different. A local production, Awaken the Night, brought in some of the hottest up & coming bass and wonky artists for a true underground performance. This whole thing was practically not talked about, you would have to stumble across the artist playing live. But that wasn’t hard to do, considering the dome was surrounded by poppin’ Funktion Ones that, when you stood inside of the doom, you truly felt the bass. Here, some true wookery in the music took place, with Yheti doing a b2b with Of the Trees on Friday night (Saturday Morning) and our friends, Ziim, Quite Possibly, and phLo doing an awe-inspiring b2b Sunday Night. The three threw down some serious heavy hitters coming from all different spectrums – original content from all three artists, hits from Spicy Bois and other face melting underground bass.

Lunch Time & Beats-

Yoga D’om Bass Music Takeovers-

Performing Arts:

Sonic Bloom has always been a festival that pushes the envelope for extravagant performance arts. Being a festival founded by OG burners (Burning Man Veterans,) and with artistic minds, the performing artists that get booked to do their thing are usually top notch. The amount of different types of flows that come in are truly out of this world, including hoopers, dragon-staff, poi, contortionists, aerialists, fire performers, and belly dancers. These artists offer a unique kind of experience to the crowd, showcasing a different kind of artistic skill. Performing artists not only inspire to create but comfort with their almost hypnotizing movements. A true art form that blossoms beyond belief at Sonic Bloom.

Visual Arts:

Art is always a blossoming motion, no matter where it comes from, it can spark emotion and renew life. At Sonic Bloom, they truly go above and beyond by bringing in some of the craziest visual art possible. Showcased art ranged from massive wood walls for painters who created murals, to a plethora of painters scattered through the festival grounds, to random installations that provoked thought. They, as always, had a Gallery hosted right next to the Hummingbird stage that showcased all of the official Sonic Bloom painters.

Noms (Food)

Food has always been a crucial element to the festival life. Going back to the Renaissance Festival times, and probably before, food has always been one of the key highlights at major gatherings. The diets have been evolving and including healthier stuff, the foods of feasts have changed too. At transformational festivals like Sonic Bloom, there are a plentiful of vendors that are eco-friendly and even vegan friendly as well. Offering true vegan foods to meat stacked plates, the food vendors at Bloom hit the full spectrum of noms. Food has the ability to bring people together and make memories. We just want to thank all of the food vendors who worked their butts off in a hot, small, space to give us the moments that made us smile and our tummies full and feeling good.

And of course, Hammock Chilling by the Creek and in Nature, by Good People & Friend

At a camping festival one of my favorite things is being able to sleep and chill in Nature. Sonic Bloom provided that at its finest. If you camped in a certain area, you could either be pretty darn close, or practically on top of the small creek that goes through Sonic Bloom. Last year, due to low rainfall and snowfall accumulations, the Creek ran dry during the 2018 Sonic Bloom, but this year, given the tremendous amount of Snowfall and rain that we received, the Stream was rushing more than normal. The creek running this year gave all the attendees that Sonic Bloom gathering vibe, where the Bloomers came together in the creek to cool off, and rejoiced in a golden festival environment. This gave everyone opportunities to meet new people and be surrounded by the best of vibes. With hammocks, you had total relaxation and to be honest, it is quite easily one of my favorite feels on this planet. Add being at Sonic Bloom, one of our favorite festivals ever, it was just a feeling like nothing else!

Video Recap

Thank you for diving deep into our review article! We also put together a Recap video of the 2019 Sonic Bloom extravaganza! We would like to give a major shout out to Blooming Footprint for doing magnificent work with the media teams and giving us a massive opportunity. As well as Jamie Janover and his whole crew for providing Sonic Bloom and all of the epic creations, memories, and relationships that come out of the Unified Field. Would also like to shout out our collaborators Chase Sexton with BEN Afterdark and Derek Munthe with Virtual Portal. We put together some amazing content and together our coverage of the festival is extremely vast. Hope to see you Bloomers at the next Sonic Bloom!