Clarification appended
When Mitchell Louis and his band performed a cover of "The Joker" by the Steve Miller Band, several people dressed as Harley Quinn gravitated toward the stage.
“The crowd was awesome,” Louis said. “They were really engaged.”
On Saturday, people walked the brick streets of Athens dressed in an array of costumes for the Athens Halloween Block Party. Two stages were set up on each end of Court Street where four bands and eight DJs performed free concerts.
Saturday was Louis’s first time performing at the block party after several attempts to make the list the last few years.
“We’ve been trying to get shows here at OU,” he said. “It’s been kinda hard since we don’t have a full band.”
The live music ended an hour earlier this year to maximize safety and cut down on cost, Jonathan Holmberg, a chairman on the Athens Clean and Safe Halloween Committee, said.
“The city is trying to concentrate on starting and ending early,” Holmberg said.
During the block party, Holmberg walked amongst the people in costume to gauge the temperament of the crowd. He said Saturday’s crowd was in a “great mood.” Holmberg could not decide if the positive energy of the crowd was due to the unseasonably warm weather or if partygoers were also celebrating the Cleveland Indians’ run in the World Series so far.
Brandon “DJ B-Funk” Thompson, who is on the Athens Clean and Safe Halloween Committee, also said the weather could have been a contributing factor to the energy of the crowd.
“It’s pretty crazy,” he said. “For the most part, everyone is happy.”
Thompson, who deejayed in the last slot of the night, said he was hoping to see an energetic crowd.
“(I’m looking forward to) seeing the crowd from the stage to Chase Bank jumping up and down,” he said. “I don’t get anything like that (with my usual gigs).”
The DJs performing at Halloween were engaging and spent a lot of time interacting with the crowd, Thompson said.
The techno group Ape Mode played bass-heavy beats while dancers performed in front of them. Audience members jumped and waved glow sticks as the group played remixes of popular songs, such as “Panda” by Desiigner and “Don’t Let Me Down” by The Chainsmokers.
“It sounds good and it’s fun to jump to,” Shelby Hewitt, an Ohio State University students at the block party, said.
Doxcity, a hip-hop jam band from Athens, was excited to play at the block party for the first time.
“We did Boogie on the Bricks this year, so it was pretty sweet to do a daytime event compared to a nighttime event,” Daniel "Tito" Martino, one of the band’s three emcees, said. “This was a whole different crowd, different feel. Great energy on both sides.”
After Doxcity covered Biz Markie’s “Just a Friend,” the crowd continued to sing along, so the band decided to keep playing. The song was supposed to end long before the band cut the track off, Trevor Metzler, who plays guitar for Doxcity, said.
“Soon as we hit into the Biz Markie sh-t, and they just kept going, it was like, ‘All right, let’s keep f--king rolling on that sh-t,’ ” Martino said.
The band Conscious Pilot performed to a crowd of people, some of whom knew the band personally. CJ Nash, who was dressed as “Flavador Dali” — a cross between Flavor Flav and Salvador Dali — said Conscious Pilot used to play in close proximity to where he lived.
“I went to high school with Conscious Pilot,” Nash, a senior studying retail entrepreneurship, said. “They used to play at my house.”
Jake Gust, the bassist and singer for Conscious Pilot, said the group has performed in Athens before, but this year was their first time at the block party.
“It was everything we were hoping for and more,” Gust said. “We’ve got a lot of friends here, and definitely all of them were out here supporting us. It was a great experience.”
At 9 p.m., Holmberg announced the winners of the costume contest. There was a tie for best group costume. A group dressed as characters from the Netflix Original series Orange is the New Black and a box of “Crayzola” crayons won a $150 dollar Visa gift card. The best female costume went to a witch doctor, and best male costume was awarded to a gargoyle. The individual costume winners won a $100 Visa gift card.
“(These costumes) show a lot more creativity and a lot more effort so we like to reward that,” Holmberg said.
Holmberg, who graduated with a bachelor in fine arts from OU in 1984, said he remembers going to the Athens Halloween Block Party when he was in school.
“It’s personal,” he said. “I feel like I’m contributing to making (Athens) a better town and giving back to the community.”
The Post Culture Staff contributed to this report.
Clarification: This article has been updated to clarify Daniel Martino's name.
