"I think that having music festivals like this bonds people. Everybody has a common thing, and all those people get together and we all have an experience together. That’s all anybody’s looking for. It isn’t to hear the Flaming Lips play again or see Radiohead’s light show or any of that, it’s to get together with your friends and have an experience. And if we’re lucky, enough things will happen and some adversity will happen, and something unexpected will happen, and you’ll get tired and you’ll get hungry, you’ll have trouble going to the bathroom, and you’ll lose your car keys. And all these wonderful things will add up to some powerful experience that 10 years from now you’ll say, “Wow, we LIVED!"" -Wayne Coyne
All Good 2011 was a trail mixed bag of beauty, ugliness, malaise, and confusion. I sit here typing this at about 2pm on the Monday following the annual event, now in its 15th year. This was my first visit to Marvin's Mountaintop and I have only moe.down 7 (my only other hippie camping music fest) and anecdotal stories from others to compare my experience to. Rather than wait until the last paragraph to mention it, I feel it makes more sense to mention that a young girl was horrifically killed on Sunday morning of the festival, crushed a football field away from my camping area by a car trying to maneuver the morning dew soaked grass where tents and vehicles were parked all weekend. I didn't personally witness it happening but it was close enough to hear the commotion while my fellow campers packed up for the journey home. My storytelling of the entire weekend will obviously be influenced by the events that transpired at 8:45am on the final day. I do want to make it clear that I did enjoy myself immensely. My group was laid back and fun and 99% of the folks I encountered were friendly and welcoming. If my tone seems a bit somber at times, its only because the tragedy colors the overall story a bit.
Friday: From the moment Ray and I rolled onto the sprawling festival grounds on Friday morning, All Good already felt different than any other musical experience than I have ever been a part of. I usually have my musical itinerary for the weekend mapped out well in advance; this time I arrived relatively unprepared. After determining that we were parked about a mile or so away from the others in our group (who arrived on Thursday), we made a long and sweaty trek through hordes of half naked and tie-dye wearing wookies, going through the motions of what they think a festival is supposed to feel like.
Isn't it odd how much of each of everyday lives is a form of simulation? We go to the gym to simulate lifting heavy things and run on treadmill to simulate going a great distance. This phenomenon is true for pastimes, vacations, and anything considered fun, especially festivals. There is very little difference between normal folks who dress up as Furries at conventions across the states and the desk jockeys and college students who drive hours to remote locations to forget all they've learned about hygiene and drug laws, all for the sake of a shared experience.
I saw very little music on Friday. What I did see was good and about as expected:
Keller Williams played a trippy and high energy afternoon set in the scorching heat. I lost my friends almost instantly when I turned to find beer; this became a running theme of the weekend, but I kind of enjoy wandering around and people watching.
Dana Fuchs ('Dana Fucks' to the critics in my group) was up next and did her best imitation of Janis Joplin to an ever shrinking crowd. I enjoyed her cover of 'Helter Skelter' (which was note for note from her
Across The Universe rendition) while watching the amateur hula-hoop artists surrounding me. Later that evening
Furthur hit the stage about an hour late (this was also a running theme of the weekend). I listened to a bunch of Dead tunes with proper respect and enjoyment before succumbing to the heat and length of the day. I passed out around midnight, thus missing the much hyped
Umphrey's McGee late night set. The assholes with the fireworks around my tent woke me up on a 15 minute rotation throughout the early morning.
Saturday: I am impressed I was able to function as well as I did on Saturday, working on about 2 hours of combined sleep and on a motor fueled by beer, greasy food (the Jerry Rolls were better than advertised), and pure adrenaline. Moe. , booked as a co-headliner on this day, played a special 45 minute acoustic set in the middle of the day thanks to fans apparently downloading a song for some grassroots cause (no one in the crowd seemed to have any idea about this...they just wanted to rock). Avoiding the sun is an art at festivals and the rain that was promised in forecasts never came. Our camping area (a make shift living room consisting of two 10X10 canopies) was rarely empty during the daylight hours and relaxation and silence won out over the 15 minute walk to the stage more than once. We did have our share of visitors of course, usually 22 year olds with basketball jerseys or Dead shirts attempting to sell (possibly phony) narcotics; Molly was a popular name in West Virginia this hot July weekend.
was finally the band to get our group (and most of the concert goers) to journey away from home-base, delighting us all with a spirited set of rock and bluegrass that was a welcome diversion from typical crunchy fare. moe. played a more traditional electric set that seemed to fly by. Body painted coeds (Who needs shirts when you have blue paint?) danced along old hippies smoking bowls and dodging glow sticks. By the time
Primus took the stage the crowd was in constant motion. Those trying to sit on the uncomfortable hill were outnumbered by the droves who just couldn't stand still for a moments time. I got lost in the waves around this point and enjoyed Les Claypool and company's brand of bass heavy weirdo rock. Though I couldn't make out many of the lyrics, the groove of the music was enough to keep me into the set, which raged late into the night.
I left about 20 minutes or so into the
Pretty Lights set, a rave scene that I may be a bit too old or lame to completely enjoy. Having seen
Daft Punk at Lollapalooza in 2007, I wasn't as blown away from Pretty Lights as the throngs of teens and 20 somethings in attendance, who at some point switched out of their hippie costumes for full on rave gear, a strange sight to be sure. The light show and flying glow in the dark paraphernalia was a show within itself. I made it back to camp by 3am, and somehow got a 4 or 5 hour nap before the sun and the heat woke me up.
Sunday: The lineup for Sunday was kind of weak to begin with; Dark Star Orchestra being the only band I had any true interest to see. All weekend there had been talk about leaving early to beat the traffic. When I went to bed on Sunday morning at 3, I still wasn't sure how much of All Good I still had left to experience.
Then as we were taking down our tents (the plan was to pack the tents up and then enjoy the music in the afternoon) word started to spread that a horrible accident had happened. I'm not any type of investigative journalist so if you want details you can read them here. Suffice to say that once word of this reached the masses, the vibe had been justifiably killed. Add to that the fact that we weren't able to find a golf cart cab back to the other side of the mountain (meaning we walked more than an hour with tons of camping gear and a cooler), and Sunday was over as soon as it started.
Prior to 9am Sunday, I have very little complaints about the All Good Music Festival. I found it to be a mostly well run excursion. The music took a back seat to the experience of it all (the heat and lineup were both factors in this) which is odd for me, but I did enjoy myself. I'm sure time and public opinion may morph the tragedy into a finger pointing "could this have been avoided" war of words (the Facebook wall is a hive of emotion right now), but thats to be expected. One can't really bitch and moan about a 'vibe" or "buzz" when a 20 year old (who's last concert was most likely Pretty Lights) is dead.
As we were finally nearing the car, someone on the stage was covering the Dead's Uncle John's Band. Made for nice exit music to a long strange trip of a weekend in the mountains of West Virginia.
The double album is a tricky thing to pull off. There are several generic (albeit most times appropriate) criticisms dealing with the concept of double LP, mostly dealing with time aesthetics, pretensions, self indulgence, and the like. But when the material is there and the musical stars line up the dual disc format is ideal. Minnesota's Celtic rock band, The Wild Colonial Bhoys is, I'm happy to say, a perfect candidate for the double line up. The band, who have played hundreds of shows across the mid-west over the last few years (including a Pittsburgh gig at The Harp and Fiddle in May of 2009) is essentially 2 entities. Most of the time WCB is a 2-piece outfit of Adam on guitar and vocals and Geno on guitar and backup vocals. For bigger fests and recording the band expands to a full band with drum and bass, and of course fiddle to fill out the modern, rich, Celtic rock sound.
