By GREG FRANKLIN
Ah, the plight of the modern hippie. In a society where everything is becoming more and more socially acceptable, how does one truly let one’s freak flag fly these days? If you’re within the continental U.S. and have a penchant for expensive camping festivals with pretty diverse lineups, the Wakarusa Music and Camping Festival is a decent enough option.
I went into Wakarusa with equal excitement and reservations. I generally tend to eschew anything with the words “hippie” or “jam band” associated with them as if they are cancer-coated cookies. Dreadlocks, drum circles, frisbies, tie-dyed ensembles are much more fodder for comedy to me than things that I skew toward. Also, 4 days of hot summer music festival, of smelling funnel cakes and hot dogs in the same sniff, of bumping into the great unwashed masses, of cacophonic sounds blending together from multiple stages, of just seeing band after band after band in the heat … well, it’s a test of one’s rock fortitude to try to bring it every day, especially when surrounded by a sea of tie dye, reefer smoke, and a general overwhelming mellowness that even the most staunch punk would have to grit his teeth to not get affected by. I don’t know that I passed, but here’s my retelling of the experience.
Thursday functions a bit as a trial run for Wakarusa; the main (Sundown) stage is not used whatsoever, so all of the music is happening in the various side stages (tents), and none of the acts are enormo-dome level acts. It’s also probably a pretty great thing that they have a day like Thursday to work out the kinks, as NO ONE at all seemed to know where I was supposed to park. After touring every flippin’ campground at Clinton Lake, I finally find a lot close to the entrance and a young lady who doesn’t go all “YOU SHAL NOT PASSSSSS!” on me when I try to park in her lot. Driving around gave me a good sense of the enormity of the festival, and of the general communal spirit of the campgrounds, which really sets Waka apart from other national festivals like Austin City Limits or Bumbershoot, which don’t necessarily encourage that type of squatting experience to go with the music.
I show up at the Sun Up Stage around 4 p.m. to see Boston’s Apollo Sunshine rip through a set of psychedelic folk rock, complete with slapback-soaked Duane Eddy guitar solos and general space-rock insanity. (Side note: Anything that wasn’t the main stage/Sundown was inside a tent, which is a pretty brilliant way to keep festival goers covered up in the shade in the heat of the day, and actually tends to help keep the sound integrity intact, given that outdoor shows tend to sound like they’ve been filtered through a wet cardboard tube. Good planning, Waka folk).
I had seen Apollo Sunshine once before as a four piece, but this time they performed as a trio, and were every bit as jaw-dropping (if not more focused) than they were the previous time. Guitarist Sam Cohen’s chops are pretty astounding, going from hot, country-fried licks on “Today Is Your Day” to more avant-garde riffery on “The Hotter The Wetter The Better,” and bassist Jesse Gallagher shows off his buttery voice and keyboard chops on some jammy take on a Bach (?) piece. The set gets a bit derailed by some sound difficulties (a rented backline bass amp blew up), and then gets simultaneously joyful and uncomfortable when Justin Roelofs (aka White Flight) gets up onstage in a pink yoga-instructor ensemble and started in on his Jesus/Shaman schtick. As enjoyable as it is on record, watching the man grinning ear to ear, pupils dilated and apparently having the universe expand in front of him while banging on a djembe alongside Berklee School of Music grads is grating and ends the set with a little TOO much of a trustifarian vibe, compared with the rest of the band’s solid performance.
I wander around a bit, looking at tie-dyed merch, at guitar straps, places to stash your stash, and casually catching a few songs by Papa Mali and Robert Bradley, finally settling in on the Revival Tent for a set by Limbeck, a barn-storming country rock band from California. Limbeck plays a bit more mellow and reserved set than suual, but they’re also one of those bands that is meant to be seen in a smaller setting (The Replay Lounge or Jackpot tend to work best) where the audience can buy the band some whiskey shots and put them right next to their fuzz pedals.
Alas, behind 10 feet of photographer and “VIP-access” barricade, the band seems distant from the didn’t-shell-out-an-extra-400-bucks-for-free-beer-and-VIP-access, regular-ass people crowd, and it’s hard for both band and fans alike to really plow through that divide. Limbeck plays a strong and varied set of slower, folkier numbers and hell-raisers for an hour straight, trying to fit as many songs in their set as possible, and trying to overcome the general “practice run” vibe of the entire festival’s Thursday installment. With 15 minutes left in their set, the stage manager comes over and gives them the “wrap it up” sign, which was a bit off-putting until it was announced that the granddaddy of all storms was coming through.
There have been whispers all day long about possible tornadic activity, and this announcement (all musical activity being shut down at 7:30 p.m.) finds the hippie terror alert level rise to orange (High Rate of Mellow Harshing), and sees sets by Buckethead (who played the next day on the main stage) and Steel Train (who played an impressive set at the Bottleneck the night before) cancelled.
Advice given to concert-goers, in the face of a possible tornado? “Please seek shelter back at your campsite." Unsure as to how, exactly, a $40 piece of nylon could protect anyone from a tornado, I begin visualizing the world’s largest human chain being made, a big old mass of linked arms showing some of that Waka-unity, standing tall in the face of the storm like some horrible living barrel of monkeys. Alas, it was just a bunch of rain on the first day of the parade, and no human chains were to be had (although I bet there were some killer drum circles and tons of rainstick jokes made back at the campgrounds).
Note: Our photographer's pictures are still winding their way through cyberspace and will be posted as soon as they arrive at the nearest Pitch computer.
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