Hardcore and hip hop came together for a weird and wild time at Tough Luvv Fest, held at Mesa Amphitheatre on Saturday. With a long list of acts performing from early afternoon into the late evening, there was an artist for every eclectic taste found in the offbeat crowd.
Atlas arrived as the sun was going down and the energy was picking up. From the eccentric, genre-bending chaos that is Puzzle to the heavy brutality of Jesus Piece, we were glued to the stage as the night went on. Jesus Piece traveled all the way from Philadelphia for their performance and had the mosh pit churning for the entirety of their hard-hitting set.
While they weren’t the headliners of the evening, the main event was definitely a special appearance by hip hop legends Three 6 Mafia. DJ Paul and Juicy J hit the stage to massive cheers from the crowd as they rapped along to all the hits- and there were many to choose from. Juicy J even performed his verse on Katy Perry’s “Dark Horse” to the delight and perhaps slight confusion of the audience before the set concluded.
Tough Luvv Fest ended the night with a final set by City Morgue and those fans still standing gave all the energy they had left to the duo. While the event itself was a wild hodgepodge of acts, genres and subsets of fans, everyone seemed to enjoy the day as they mingled with their favorite artists and saw performances by legends.
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Story and photos by Olivia Khiel
