The sun beamed down onto my skin and the strum of the guitars filled my ears. I could feel the bass through the soles of my feet. I was just a couple feet away from the stage where the band gave an unforgettable performance that captivated the audience.

Highwater Music Festival happened on April 20 and 21 from 12 p.m. to 11 p.m. Both days were filled with live music, food trucks, and unforgettable memories. Headliners for this festival were Noah Kahan on Saturday and Hozier on Sunday. It was debatably the best weekend of my life. Saturday consisted of sweltering heat and sweat drenching all parts of my body. This day my friends and I waited seven hours in the same spot to ensure we got a good view for Noah Kahan’s set, and it was all undeniably worth it. While we were waiting we got to see Houndmouth and Fleet Foxes which were both amazing.

Fleet Foxes performed right at sunset when it started to cool down a bit and it just made the whole experience 20 times better. I only really know about three of their songs but that didn’t make it any less enjoyable.

After waiting seven hours, I was drenched in sweat, my legs and back were aching, and I was extremely dehydrated, but the second Noah stepped out on stage all of the pain slipped away.

Leaving the extreme heat of the first day, we thought we would be a little better prepared for day two. To our surprise, we froze until our fingers literally turned purple. It rained all day on Sunday, which we were expecting, but the brisk winds mixed with our drenched clothes resulted in a miserably frigid experience. I was fully prepared to get rained on, if anything it kind of made it fun,
but the cold was borderline unbearable.

We watched Briston Maroney perform at the peak of the storm, so we were all shivering while still trying to enjoy ourselves. Briston is an amazing performer so he kept the crowd going which kept us a little warmer. After he performed we got some food and made our way over to the stage that Hozier would be performing at.

Our view was not as good as it was for Noah but we were lucky to get the view that we did have with the amount of people there. Hozier sounds just as amazing, gorgeous, and beautiful, live as he does recorded which I feel like is kinda hard to come by with male artists. It was mind-blowing how talented all of these artists were.

I tried to stay off of my phone a lot of the time to really take it in and experience it for myself, but I couldn’t pass up the opportunities to record some of my favorites from both sets like “Your Needs, My Needs” and “Work Song”. Despite the weather and our slight unpreparedness, this experience was extremely memorable.

Rain or shine, this weekend will forever mean so much to me.