Show Review – Hopscotch Halifax 2013

By: Emily Thomson

Hopscotch is a two day hip hop music festival. Hopscotch is one of the only All Ages music festivals. 
 
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Day 1 events included rap free styling and dance battles. Some of the people that battle tonight included J Bru, Alfie, Chris Crooks and Quake Matthews. Halifax’s own Quake Matthews even did part of his freestyle on the adorable little girl and dancing little boy in the front row. 
 
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Day 2 had the main event of the festival. Starting off with the finales of the dance battle. The winner left with $500. After the dance battle local favourites Neon Dreams took the stage. Opening the show with a new song people haven’t heard. After performing 2 new songs they performed the first song the released ‘Impossible’. And of course ‘Halifornia’. The performance was full of energy. Although most of the performance the drummer Adrian got smoked out and you could barely see him. The crowd got covered in confetti, a water bottle incident and a member almost falling off stage it was the most energetic show I’ve seen from them. 
 
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Quake Matthews then took the stage with Corey, Matt and Adrian playing with him. Quake played a mix of songs off his newest album Corrado, Book of Matthews and even some of his earlier songs. Quake really connected with the crowd throughout the set. The whole time the crowd was dancing, cheering and singing along. He handed out many CDs to his fans. For Quake’s very last song he did an acapella version of his song ‘We Can Do Better’. He did have some people in tears after that. 
 
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Kayo Guevarra then took the stage. He took the time to talk about his new album and explain the meaning of the albums name S.L.A.V.E ( Serenity Lives Around Virtuous Energy). Again the crowd was singing along and dancing throughout his performance. Kayo connected with the crowd a lot. 
 
This was the first concert I’ve seen hip hop artists be so intimate with the crowd. This festival was defiantly the highlight of my month. I’m already looking forward to HopScotch 2014.