Same Same But Different: More Than A Name
Same Same But Different at Lake Perris was like stepping into a small pocket of the world where everyone is friendly by default. Not just another weekend of lights and sound, it was a living, breathing community. A reminder of what it feels like when people choose connection, creativity, and care above all else. Since they keep attendance limited, by the end of the first day, we were already recognizing faces, people I’d danced next to or talked to in line for the bathroom. The festival’s emphasis on intention and connection was felt throughout the weekend. When I lost my shirt early in the weekend, I asked a few staff members if they’d seen it. For the rest of the festival, when one of them spotted me, they’d approach and ask if I had ever found it. I didn’t, but that small kindness summed up the whole weekend.
My best friend Jessi and I attended together. This was her first ever camping festival and (spoiler alert) she “couldn’t have imagined a better one to start with”. We arrived for early entry on Thursday, after the sun had set. This was my first time car camping here; it was dark, and we were tired. The festival staff had told us which campground to go to, but we didn’t think to ask where exactly we should park or how claiming a spot works. After nervously driving in loops around the car campgrounds, we finally found a parking spot that looked flat enough, but we weren’t quite sure if we were allowed to park here. I shouted out my window to the nearest group of campers, and a kind man walked over. I explained that I have never done car camping, and we have no idea what we’re doing. He said it was brave of us to do this in the dark and that the staff would ask us to move from the parking spot, as we were supposed to be on the dirt sites. We didn’t see any way down onto the dirt that my van could clear, so he left his camp and helped us scout an entry down into the campsites. We found a site and again I asked the nearest group of campers, “Can we park here?!” and they were both sweet and reassuring for us two nervous newbies. These two incredibly positive interactions, right off the bat, set off the festival weekend on a high note. Good, kind people were everywhere.
Thursday night programming was a pre-party with Good Society, featuring Lumasi and A Hundred Drums. After a long day and to conserve energy for the packed weekend ahead, we took it easy, catching part of both sets from the back. I was pleasantly surprised to see such a large crowd; it felt like a bonus festival day instead of a pre-party. We wandered over to the food trucks, scoping out our future meal plan, and settled in near the Groove Grove for more restful enjoyment. Groove Grove was my favorite installation last year. Watching strangers get together and improvise music always blows my mind. I thought there were horned instruments, but it was just an incredibly talented singer making trumpet sounds with their mouth! The group we watched was very in tune with each other, setting the stage for the singer to mash up several well-known songs, such as Sunday Morning and Uptown Funk, while other festival goers danced in the center of the Grove. Circling the Grove were comfortable sit spots, an elevated bed-like couch, floor cushions, and benches. We turned in by 1 am and were thankful for the string lights guiding us through the fields back to the campgrounds.
Friday started off relaxing. Jessi and I explored each part of the festival, leaving no stone unturned. The outskirts of the Different stage were lined with vendors, and we took our time. One vendor had beads and EDM-themed charms to make Kandi, where you could fill either a small, medium, or large-sized container with as many beads as would fit.
After spending the day exploring, we split off in the evening for our own solo journeys. I enjoy wandering from stage to stage, spending a moment to soak in the energy of each before moving on to the next performer and crowd. We met up again for the Open Mic Poetry Slam at the Creation Station. Jessi loves to write and loves poetry, so I encouraged her to share her writing for the first time. Of her experience, she wrote:
Before it was my turn, I watched and listened to many really wonderful artists sharing their work and their hearts with us. I definitely cried. As it was coming up to my turn, Know Good started their set. All I have to say is they really do ‘KNOW’ what ‘GOOD’ is because most of the people there shot up like squirrels and sped over to the stage immediately when hearing the first drop. It felt like we were all being taken over by the beat. I struggled to stay in my seat, but the rest of us still needed to share, and there were some supporters who stayed. We just had to do it over, through, or around the music, some people had the ear to do theirs WITH the music. This was such a healing moment shared with this community of accepting and expressive people, making it all that more special.
I was incredibly proud of Jessi’s bravery and how smoothly she delivered her writing. After the last person shared their piece, we went to dance our hearts out to Know Good. In the back of the crowd at the Different stage, there were installations attendees could climb on, one fuzzy car-like installation with a cozy bottom floor and two upper floors, and a jungle gym of metal hoops. Jessi sat in the metal hoop as we watched Knowgood (who was actually incredibly good!) as I danced below, safely with my two feet on the earth.
We then made our way to what was both of our most anticipated and favorite sets of the whole festival, Opiuo. I had seen him at Red Rocks with the Opulent Orchestra earlier this year and enjoyed that show so much, I was curious to see what his standalone festival set was like. Spoiler alert: I couldn’t have asked for a better Opiuo experience. We made some friends with the guys in front of us on the rail, Taylor, Bailey, and Nick. Nick had been a fan of Opiuo for 15 years! I haven’t been at the front of a crowd in many years. As I’ve gotten older, I’ve found I prefer space to dance and don’t like to be squished just to see a performer up close. At Same Same, though, people were so thoughtful and respectful of space, so even though we were in the second standing row, we had plenty of room to move around, bounce, sway, and dance as we pleased. When part of the group left, our new friends made space for us all the way up on the rail. Jessi shared:
We switched back and forth riding the rails and we even did stretches together mid-set, checking in with one another, and shared many hugs and screams. I love that we had just met them and barely spoke through all the loud bass, but we had connected through our love of music and humanity. The energy we all shared with each other serves as a reminder that we are all here in this together, and to allow ourselves to just ‘BE.’
Jessi and I split up for a lot of Saturday. I spent the majority of Saturday at the lake, swimming between groups of 5+ person floaties, with music from the Coconut Cove setting the energy. My favorite set here was The Botanist; he is fantastic at controlling the energy of a crowd and sending us on a journey through sound.
While I was lake-bound, Jessi had a Saturday filled with workshops and shared her experience:
Saturday morning all through the night was pure flow. There were ecstatic body-paint sessions by the lake, live painters creating, workshops taking place in all different sections of the festival. You could feel the radiant energies all around you. The Neurodivinity cocoon experience with Lex Woods was the first thing I decided to go to that morning. It was a beautiful group meditation that focused on doing somatic exercises to care for your mental health, and nervous system. I found it so wholesome that we all co-regulated our emotions in a large group, and created a quiet understanding of one another.
The next workshop I attended that day was the Qi Gong – Animal frolics dance party with Ronin. He was teaching us an ancient Chinese health practice that involves imitating the movements of five animals—tiger, deer, bear, monkey, and crane—to cultivate energy, balance, and health. Ronin taught us the movements that we learned, and we were quickly taught to let go, and shake off the weight of what makes us feel limited. We danced together in circles for an hour doing these movements, and allowing our bodies to move freely without a hesitation. I’ll say, the feeling went from curious to cathartic while we embraced the art and wisdom of this practice. Expressed our whimsy, embraced the wild, the unique, and the beauty of nature.
Shortly after the Qi Gong, I attended the Flowstar workshop and finally learned how to spin a flowstar properly in a figure-8. Seeing people fluidly dancing with it and spinning, flipping, twirling the star around their body has me in AWE every single time. It was so great that they included this workshop to give us newbies a chance to try it out, even if we might not be willing to invest in one. There were a number of workshops and activities throughout the whole day and night. The rest of the time was set for us to explore again. We ended up at the kids station where they had a cuteness overload of the little ones dancing and giggling away. There were so many arts & crafts, music, games, a small bouncy castle, and good vibes! We ran around the whole place to hear all of the music we possibly could.
Later into the night at 11pm, we were blessed by the LSZEE set, went to the front and ran into our same Opiuo crowd friends, Taylor and Bailey! We got to enjoy yet another set together, and had a blast with the lasers and visuals being top tier. There was always a deep emotion that stirred up in the audience, you could see that we all felt the music in our hearts and souls.
Sunday carried that relaxed, bittersweet, end-of-summer feeling. Grasping onto the last sweet moments, not wanting it to end. Lightcode, the morning sound bath with LSDREAM, was emotionally impactful and a great way to start the day. Like previous years, it was a hugely popular workshop, and it seemed like all of the festival attendees were there! LSDREAM is insanely talented at evoking emotions through his sounds. His sound bath felt like a journey through time and space. Eyes closed, floating through the cosmos. When we came back to the present and everyone started stirring, many people, myself included, were crying. Lightcode is a cathartic experience and always a highlight of a festival for me.
We wandered around some more, soaked in the art in the gallery and the work of the live painters, before ending up at the lake again for a few hours. Water is my favorite element, and I did not want to leave it. Luckily, someone offered Jessi a lakeside massage, so I got to continue swimming around as she got some much-needed muscle TLC. “I even got the best shoulder massage right on the lake beach, from a person who was just doing them out of the kindness of their heart – it literally felt like a dream.” While she was on the table, I saw a little kid crying in the Lake (with Mom’s supervision, no worries!) and asked if he was okay. He had lost his floatie, borrowed by someone who drifted farther across the lake. Earlier that day, I too had borrowed this floatie, so I felt called to help. Without thinking too much, I decided to swim after it, which, in hindsight, was super ambitious for someone who hadn’t really swum in a decade. A few strokes back to the shoreline, a guy popped out from under the water and asked if I was on a rescue mission. I said yes, for a little kid! He told me to grab his foot and towed me all the way back. Once we got to the standing level of the lake, he disappeared without another word. I didn’t even get his name. It sounds silly, but that interaction has stuck with me. Everyone at the festival seemed to look out for each other, in big and small ways, with no expectations. If you’re reading this, thank you, mystery swimming hero! I was pretty exhausted, and it was going to take me a long time to kick all the way back on the floatie.
After that, we got hungry from all of the swimming. We didn’t need to worry one bit though, because there were more than enough food vendors to accommodate our taste buds! Of course, we decided on the pizza that our noses could not forget from the first night. It was worth it!
Later that night, we were on the rails again for Zeds Dead with someone Dominique had worked with at LAST YEAR’S festival, and it was electric, the ground beneath us vibrating with bass and belonging. Close to the end of the set, I made my way to the side of the stage to dance and spin with my new POI. I was really flowing with the music and movement with people around me, and then a guy suddenly came up to me with a polaroid camera, he took a picture of me, gave it to me and then went on his way into the crowd. So whoever you are, thanks dude!
Both the musical and workshop line-ups at SSBD 2025 were stacked. Thankfully, the two main stages had no conflicts, making it easy to pick a different location to view each set from. If you left the Different stage before the performer ended, you could wait at the rail for the upcoming Same stage performer. We did this for Opiuo, the act I was the most excited for. Other musical highlights for me were Caravan at the But Stage, The Botanist at Coconut Cove, LSZEE (LSDream and Clozee’s project) at the Different Stage, and 8Ö8 at Innerspace.
Numerous art cars of all shapes and sizes roamed the festival grounds day and night. Walking back to camp at night, you might even see a couch filled with people zipping past you, outlined in LED lights. One of the larger cars was jungle themed, with green leaves dangling from the top and rope swingsets that attendees could rock in. At night, we climbed two levels up and watched the crowd and LSZEE from above for a few minutes, before I remembered I was scared of heights and scrambled back down. My personal favorite car was the Scarab Art Car @the_scarab_artcar, which I definitely thought was a UFO for the first few days. My best friend was partial to Aglowgeo, decked out with glowing geometric artwork. On the last night, after the headliners finished and the main stages were empty, all of the art cars gathered on the beach between the Ome and Coconut Cove. Walking between the stages, the art cars, the fire spinning circles, and the various art pieces scattered on the sand, I was reminiscing about my Burning Man experience, albeit on a much smaller scale. Once again, I was home.
Same Same But Different is more than a name; it’s a philosophy. A reminder that joy is part of resistance, that softness is strength, and that love, shared freely, might just be the most powerful thing we’ve got. We are the same despite our differences. It wasn’t even about the music, though trust me, the music was phenomenal. It was about learning, teaching, parenting your inner child, and helping the actual kids who attend see the world in a more radiant, loving way. It was about seeing humans at their most generous. In a time where the world feels like repetitive chaos, where history loops and fractures, this festival was a reminder of what can’t be taken from us: our soul, our love, our light.
We left our hearts on the beach that weekend, and maybe a shirt too.
Tickets for next year are on sale now. We already got our tickets, see you on the beach!