Rapper Big Boi and ska punk band Reel Big Fish will join Cold War Kids and Steve Aoki in this year’s Dillo Day lineup. Big Boi will perform before Aoki’s closing act as the night’s hip-hop headliner.
“We thought it would be fun to have two big names one after the other,” said Vivek Sudarsan, Mayfest’s promotions co-chair and Weinberg senior.
Big Boi is known for both his collaboration with Andre 3000 in hip-hop duo Outkast in addition to his solo career. Some of Outkast’s most popular songs include “Hey Ya!” and “The Way You Move.”
The late afternoon slot will be filled by ska punk band Reel Big Fish, who released their first album, “Everything Sucks,” in 1995. Some of their songs, including 1997’s “Sell Out,” became major MTV hits during the ’90s.
“It’s always fun to have a band that has a little bit of a nostalgia factor,” Mayfest co-chair Darrin Bedol said. “From around campus we heard people wanted something like … more of a festival band, like either ska or a jam band or something like that.”
Bedol said last year, many students wanted to see an electronic act, but Mayfest could only schedule two smaller electronic acts, Kill the Noise and N.A.S.A. This year, Dillo Day will have two nighttime headliners: a hip-hop act and an electronic artist.
“This year, we went into booking kind of laying out what we wanted to do, which was have big hip-hop and big electronic, just because it felt like we were ignoring such a huge part of the student population if we didn’t bring out electronic,” the Communication senior said.
Bedol added that Mayfest placed Big Boi before Steve Aoki because electronic shows can exhaust audiences.
“Electronic shows are so energetic and so dance-heavy that it’s like you go to that and then you kind of want go home and go to bed,” Bedol said.
Mayfest’s decision to create two nighttime headliners is a new one. Janna Kaplan, one of the organization’s co-chairs, said the group hopes the change will improve students’ experiences at the concert.
“The way we look at it is we always want to get the best artists that we possibly can with our budget and considering student interests, and if that means putting things in a different order or adding a different genre, then we’ll go ahead and do it,” the Communication senior said.
