Homecoming Odyssey is UCR’s annual EDM (electronic dance music) concert featuring live performances, a laser show, attractions and food trucks. Presented by ASPB, Odyssey is a major event for students to come to and enjoy. Located at Lot 19, the event allowed students to celebrate their Highlander Pride. Although Odyssey is known to be one of the campus’s smaller concerts, the event was electric and filled with many positives.
In the weeks leading up to the event, ASPB’s marketing team utilized lightning bolts and punk rock lettering, highlighting the electric vibe of EDM. The white and purple electricity stands out with the black lettering and gray background – strong aesthetic designs. Although the lineup announcement did not grab much attention, it still had promises that manifested with the performances. Homecoming Odyssey had brought plenty of hype that overshadowed the small crowd and lack of attractions
Hours before start time, students typically start to line up to get in early and get the free merchandise that comes with these events such as hoodies, shirts and hats. For Homecoming Odyssey, which started at 6:00 p.m., students started lining up at 2:00 p.m. and the line stretched far back as the start time approached. Once the doors officially opened at 6:10 p.m. students ran straight to the merch booth to snag themselves a hoodie or trucker hat. Both free merch options were modeled in a lookbook for students to see on an ASPB’s Instagram post. This got students excited and eager to get their hands on one of the promo items. As a result of this first-come, first-served deal, students did not want to miss the opportunity to get these items.
The line situation is a major issue that ASPB continues to deal with because of the overwhelming number of students who cut lines or wait hours simply to get in. For the first people in line hours before the event, they watched as select students were able to cut into the line and go unnoticed by ASPB members covering the event. Understandably, since this event was smaller, there weren’t as many security guards watching the line compared to Block Party. However, this still frustrates students who had this experience as the line got wider and more congested with people who did not appropriately wait. As suggested by a student in line, “I think they should implement a ticket system to prove they were actually in line and didn’t cut later on when security isn’t looking. I feel like this would be more fair to those who waited in line.”
Once students got into the event, they were able to enjoy themselves with free promotional items from select sponsorships such as Amazon Prime Student, Adobe Stock and Rockstar. Additionally, thanks to donations, students could help themselves to free Bundt cakes, cookies and donuts.
As always with the ASPB live concerts, there was an array of food trucks. These included Burning Buns, with their variety of hamburgers; The Sweet Stop, with mouth-watering desserts; El Ojo de Aqua, whose scent had people craving tacos; and The Tropic Truck, with its Cali-Carribean food. Each food truck had students glancing their way and tempted to buy from its menus.
Compared to past Homecoming Odyssey events, the attractions felt lacking this particular year. Last year, there were more attractions such as the Ferris wheel, a caricature artist, Ballistic swings and Euro bungee. However, all these attractions were missing this year, and instead only kept the 360 photo booth, and the regular photo booth along with adding the LED horns for decorations.
Opening Homecoming Odyssey was OsamaSon, who built the crowd’s hype and energy for the rest of the event. Despite the low energy and lack of crowd due to people still filing in and enjoying other features of the event, OsamaSon kept a high energy that continued to build as his set went on. Although his set was more rap than EDM, he still managed to get the crowd jumping. The artist sang “Trenches,” “Lil O,” “Cts-v” and “Werkin” among many other songs of his. As OsamaSon jumped from one side of the stage to the other and rapped toward the crowd, he got the audience moving, even going so far as to call them out for their lack of energy to get them jumping.
FrostTop had a strong opening that gathered the crowd toward the stage and got them excited for what was to come. FrostTop’s DJ set was exactly what EDM fans were looking for when attending this event. In addition to performing his songs such as “Gemini” and “Vega,” he also played other popular EDM songs such as “dontstopme!” by ISOxo and “Dashstar* (VIP)” by Knock2. Also, he mixed in remixed songs such as “Just Wanna Rock” by Lil Uzi Vert, “Everytime We Touch” by Cascada and “Day ‘N’ Night (nightmare)” by Kid Cudi. Throughout his set, he included plenty of build-ups that made it worth the beat drops of heavy thumps and earth-shattering electronic sounds.
Between FrostTop and Juelz’s set, UCR’s Pipe Band came out to celebrate Scotty’s 69th birthday. Introduced by the women’s basketball team, the Pipe Band played their bagpipes for the crowd in honor of Scotty. After they played, Scotty the Bear and Norm the Navel came out along with a few ASPB representatives throwing shirts to the crowd to get the crowd hyped again for Juelz’s set.
Juelz’s set ended the event with a bang as it continued the hyped vibes for the crowd and never had a dull moment. Continuing with the EDM elements, Juelz starts his set with his song, “High Octane” and continues to remix a variety of other songs such as “In Your Head” by G Jones & RL Grime, “SkeeYee” by Sexxy Red, “MONTERO” by Lil Nas X and “Plain Jane” by A$AP Ferg. By including these famous songs, the DJ got the crowd jumping and singing along to the songs. Typical of a rave, the crowd was jumping around with their hands in the air and even headbanging toward the beat. Juelz even called out to the crowd, “Hey where my UC Ravers at? Make some f*cking noise,” to which the crowd went crazy. As his set went on, some people started to crowd surf and mosh, to which even Scotty the Bear joined in with the students.
Following the event, students had plenty of positive things to say about Homecoming Odyssey. When asked about her thoughts on Odyssey, third-year Vanessa Sosa said “I think lowkey a big upgrade from last year. It was more lively [and] overall it was really good.” Additionally, graduate student Jericho shared his thoughts that “the energy of the crowd was really good especially when Juelz came out. … FrostTop was really good too, he played a lot of music that would hype the crowd up.”
Homecoming Odyssey was a huge success for ASPB as the energy of the crowd remained electric throughout the event. Additionally, the performances catered to that energy and ensured that the crowd was having a good time vibing and head-banging to their EDM sets.
