By Judy Won Photography – all rights reserved to photos

My Saturday at Bunbury started off a little late due to the heavy amount of traffic (probably for Fall Out Boy and Paramore), which caused me to miss the first wave of bands opening up the festival for the day. The first band on my agenda was Crass Mammoth, opening up for the main stage that day. Crass Mammoth is a small three piece alt-rock band from Georgia who’s been around since 2009. Their music to me seemed very gritty and raw, with a twist of classic rock. They had the crowd swaying back and forth, moving to every beat of every song. While they were obviously not used to performing for such a big crowd, I’m sure they walked away from that stage with a handful of new fans. Out of a whim, with a little influence from a few other photographers, I headed down to the River Stage to check out Massachusetts’s own Caspian, and I fell in love. They’re an instrumental, experimental post-rock/metal band, and the closest I’ve ever come to seeing Explosions In The Sky. I found myself getting very relaxed and swaying back and forth as I was photographing the band, and watching the rest of their show from the seats. I was surprised there weren’t as many fans in the crowd as I would have expected, but the fans that were there were dancing and yelling intensely at the musicians, telling them how good they were. I would definitely recommend this band to anyone who’s in for a relaxing, melodic night.

Next on the Main Stage was New Politics, a pop-rock trio from Denmark. Who also happen to be the openers for the Monumentour featuring Fall Out Boy and Paramore. I’ve seen these guys once before, and just like last time, they delivered a very fun, energy-packed show. Front-man David Boyd flipped, brake danced, and ran all around that stage, leaving no inch of it untouched. He even hurled himself into the crowd just a few songs into their set. The crowd grew wilder as the band kept playing hits like “Give Me Hope”, “Harlem”, and “Yeah Yeah Yeah”. Right after New Politics wrapped up their set, Kishi Bashi took over the River Stage and filled the river amphitheatre with melodic strung instruments and energetic beats. Kishi Bashi, aka Kaoru Ishibashi grew up playing the violin and went on to college studying classical music becoming a renowned violinist. He’s toured internationally with multiple world renowned artists for many years. His music is very up-beat, happy, indie pop-rock, experimental genre. He attracted a plethora of fans, young and old, and everyone enjoyed every second of his show.

If you haven’t realized my trend for today, I’ve mainly been bouncing back and forth between the Main Stage and the River Stage. Speaking of the Main Stage, the next act to grace the stage was indie-pop band Cults. They didn’t have the same effect their predecessors of the main stage had before them, leaving the crowd in a mellow mood; a very mellow mood. Lead Madeline Follin told the attendees how they were having an unfortunate day prior with travels, which could’ve affected their performance that day. There were a lot of technical difficulties throughout the set, but overall, they performed well, but could’ve had an earlier time slot, possibly on a smaller stage.

Next to grace the main stage was Paramore, who I was unable to photograph. They opened up their set with “Still Into You”, which I personally would’ve thought they would’ve closed out with due to the fact that it’s such a new hit. Their set was soon cut short, from what appeared to be a surprise attack from a skunk who “sprayed (the crowd) with love” according to Hayley Williams. The crowd and the band were in sync the entire night, dancing and singing along together for over an hour. The band was even kind enough to bring up a fan from the crowd to sing “Misery Business” and even gave her her own microphone. The closed the show out with their recent single and catchy hit “Ain’t It Fun”; you could definitely tell the crowd was upset when their set was over.

After their set, Cincinnati natives Foxy Shazam closed out the River Stage for the night. Front-man Eric Nally bounced around so much on that stage, I don’t think I could’ve followed him around any futher. This was their second time performing at Bunbury and what a performance it was. While their stage performance was a site to see, their music was equally as amazing, drawing a huge crowd, having hundreds dancing and singing along. Finally as the night came to an end, Fall Out Boy graced the stage, drawing the biggest crowd for the night, and the entire weekend. I lucked out the be photographing the first song of their set, which was filled from start to end with beautiful, and hot, pyrotechnics. They opened with “Phoenix” and rolled through classic FOB hits like “This Ain’t a Scene, It’s an Arms Race”, “Sugar, We’re Goin Down”, “Grand Theft Autumn/Where Is Your Boy” along with newer hits such as “Youngs Volcanoes”, “Save Rock and Roll”, which was accompanied by Patrick Stump playing a grand piano. They closed out the night with “Thnks fr th Mmrs” and most importantly, and well placed on their set list, “Saturday.”