Mayfest Productions hosted the 54th annual Dillo Day on Saturday, providing students a speedway into music, festivities, fun and more.
Students dressed in their best NASCAR-inspired attire in alignment with the festival’s “Dillo Speedway” theme, which was announced in February. With the warm spring weather, many sporty dresses, leather shorts and traffic cones crowded the Lakefill as students anticipated their favorite artists.
Artists performed on three stages stationed throughout the Lakefill, and students had access to food vendors such as Harold’s Chicken, The Fat Shallot and D&D Dogs. Volunteers also provided students with complimentary drinks to combat heat.
Main Stage
To kick off the day, Main Stage spotlighted The Beckfast Club and The Mee-Ow Band, two student bands that won Mayfest’s Battle of the Artists competition at Kahn Pavilion on April 30.
Following student showcases, Jae Stephens took the stage, playing from her discography which features both futuristic melodic pop vocals and 2000s club-girl nostalgia.
To underscore these themes throughout her music, the stage was lit in yellow lowlights, and Stephens’ background dancers dressed in Y2K attire paraded the stage.
Stephens opened with the 2025 release “That’s My Baby” and invited students to listen in on intimate hotline calls between her and past partners to help introduce each song.
Before closing, she invited three randomly selected students on stage to perform alongside her background dancers.
Audience members gathered for the return of artist Daya. Since her 2019 Dillo performance, the electropop artist has released multiple tracks including “Bandit ” and “Bad Girl.”
Daya performed her most recent single, “Hush,” a collaboration with producer TroyBoi. The song is about turning romantic tension into intimacy. Daya closed with her Grammy-winning feature in The Chainsmokers’ “Don’t Let Me Down.” The collaboration is about the vulnerability in relationships. The crowd cheered as the drummer threw her drumsticks into the audience to end the set.
Bienen first-year Joshua Ahn said he enjoyed the vitality that Daya brought to her performance.
“She’s able to bring the energy, she’s able to do crowd work really well, people are reacting to it well and the music’s amazing, too,” Ahn said.
The night closed with Dillo’s most anticipated headliner: Malcolm Todd. Students flocked to capture photos with the indie-pop artist before he made it to the stage.
After going viral on TikTok for his 2023 singles “Art House” and “Roommates,” and signing with Columbia Records in early 2024, Todd experienced a sudden yet steady rise to fame and has been topping charts ever since.
Todd opened with one of his most popular songs, “Earrings,” which has accumulated more than 200 million streams on Spotify. Students swayed to the beat as Todd encouraged everyone to sing along. “Earrings” discusses the isolation of emotional paralysis in a loveless relationship.
While performing in front of a college audience, Todd acknowledged the irony of his failure to graduate from college. To celebrate this pivot in life, he sang “Make Me a Better Man,” calling it his “graduation song.”
Medill and Bienen first-year Jordan Manasse said he appreciated Todd’s energy on stage and found it inspiring.
“I don’t really know his music at all actually, but I really enjoyed watching him perform and seeing his energy on stage,” Manasse said.
Nearing the end of his performance, Todd sang a blast from the past, performing the theme song from Nickelodeon’s hit television show “iCarly.”
Manasse said he was slightly confused by the song choice given that Todd was wearing a Hannah Montana shirt throughout the performance.
“I was hoping he would play the Hannah Montana theme song, considering the fact that he was literally wearing a Hannah Montana shirt,” he said. “But I had a great time, and now, I want to go listen to his music.”
FMO Stage
The day at the FMO Stage began with R&B, jazz and hip-hop artist Nali. With a small yet vibrant crowd, Nali performed numerous hazy, atmospheric hits like “Options” and “Crossfaded.”
Love, both platonic and romantic, serves as an undercurrent for Nali’s sound, as she frequently discusses the beauty of finding your passion, your person and your life’s purpose in her songs.
Near the end of the set, Nali performed one of her biggest hits, “4 U,” a song about desiring a man with a partner. Featuring hi-hats and harmonized vocals, “4 U” is less intense than other songs in her discography.
Weinberg first-year Oluwatoni Ariyo said she did not know too much about Nali before the performance but is now eager to learn more.
“I wish there were more people that came to watch her performance,” Ariyo said. “But, I feel like this is a good way to get people to know her more.”
Although South Carolina rapper Trim could not play at the FMO Stage due to “medical reasons,” according to Mayfest Productions, students watched Cochise perform as the stage’s penultimate headliner.
Cochise united the FMO Stage crowd with the 2021 hit “Tell Em” and 2019 release “Hatchback.” After he encouraged the crowd to form a mosh pit, students formed dance circles and jumped around to the rapper’s sugar-rush vocals. Multiple students crowd-surfed and hoisted fellow attendees in the air.
A large crowd gathered around the FMO Stage waiting for rapper BabyChiefDoit to take the stage. His high-energy performance included pulsing synthesizer beats.
The teenager quickly gained attention for his 2025 song “WENT WEST,” which features a piano melody that builds up to a trap beat.
University of Chicago student Isaiah Edwards reacted enthusiastically to BabyChiefDoit’s trap beats.
“You know what he said, ‘It’s BabyChiefDoit you know what the f–k is going on,’” Edwards said. “We definitely did know what the hell was going on.”
The Burrow
This year, Mayfest announced The Burrow, the newest addition to the festival which aims to spotlight underrepresented musicians in the industry.
Lana Lubany was the first artist to perform at The Burrow, setting a new precedent as the first Arab artist to perform in Dillo history.
Lubany showcased her bilingual discography during her set, performing popular tracks like “CLONES,” a song about self-discovery and finding your own path.
In an intimate moment with fans, Lubany sang “YAFA,” a love letter to both herself and her grandma, who she said was forced to flee from Yafa, Palestine to Nazareth, Israel in the 1940s.
McCormick sophomore Ariana Blake said she appreciated the new representation in sound.
“I’m a huge shoegaze girl, so I love when cultures mix together,” Blake said. “We need to have more Arabic, more Latin, more Black creators on Dillo to represent our student body.”
Next to perform on the stage was Evanston-based indie-rock band Friko. Friko’s music is inspired by an array of rock genres, from noise rock to avant-garde classical.
The band’s performance showcased songs including “Where We’ve Been” and “Tomorrow.” In classic indie-rock fashion, fans encouraged each other to open up the mosh pit as the group played.
Weinberg first-year Jackie Truesdell said he hopes the band’s successful performance will encourage Mayfest to book more indie-rock artists.
“They had a really good set, and it looked like everyone was having fun,” Truesdell said. “Next year maybe there’ll be more demand for indie-rock music.”
Students and onlookers filled the crowd as alternative artist Tiffany Day took the stage.
Day opened the set with her newest release “EVERYTHING I’VE EVER WANTED,” an ode to self-doubt and the emptiness that follows falling in love with someone you falsely perceived as your soulmate.
Shortly after, Day performed another top track, “PRETTY4U,” an amalgamation of pitched vocals, hi-hats and her drummer’s cymbal.
Weinberg first-year Ryan Beck was glad to see Dillo representing a larger umbrella of artists.
“It was very energetic. (Day) did an amazing job,” Beck said. “It’s really sick getting representation for other artists, and making other things more mainstream is important,” he said.
Day’s performance was jointly sponsored by the Korean American Student Association and the Chinese Student Association.
Mayfest’s 54th Dillo Day gave students a much-needed pitstop for all things music, culture and community. NU’s student body came together to watch 15 performances, highlighting distinct music and culture.
Weinberg junior Mia Felt said she deeply valued the opportunity to let off some steam at an institution as academically rigorous as NU.
“I think that as a community we get a collective excuse to let loose, and that is pretty rare on a campus of grinders,” Felt said.
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Email: [email protected]
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