
Vibes swelled and rolled across Raleigh’s Downtown City Plaza, as Sylvan Esso got comfy 4 years after their first show – ever – at the Hopscotch Music Festival. The duo migrated back to the Triangle from Brooklyn recently; so, surrounded by a tune reminiscent of high school, also embraced the nostalgia of being back on the hometown-adjacent Hopscotch stage. It’s no coincidence – of the festival’s 120 bands, forty percent are local to the state – and bopping from venue to venue as well as hitting the main stages throughout Raleigh can feel like mixing up a CD for yourself.