Thursday, May 27th
The second I swiped that card of mine, I was clocking out for good… not just clocking out from work for the day, or even the next four days, but clocking out from reality, from the stresses of the everyday grind and from the grip of father time himself. I stepped into my vehicle and shed my white-collar garments right there on the spot. Freedom can take on many different forms – speeding barefoot and shirtless out of the parking lot of a job you despise, feeling that weightless sensation as the wheels of your 747 first leave the ground, “3 days of peace and music”. I was airport bound and I couldn’t help but smile thinking about the escort that sat waiting patiently for my arrival at Chicago Midway. Karrin had been charged with complete and total control over all festival preparations this year and I shall never underestimate her skills again. As daunting of a task as this appears to be, she couldn’t have done a better job – all of our camping necessities, pre-cooked food, and copious supplies... not to mention enough beer to throw an Alpha Beta Chi party (already chilling on ice). It was a fairly smooth transition out of downtown Chicago and it wasn’t long before we were cruising into the Illinois boonies on a heat-seeking mission for Chillicothe. Surprisingly enough, we didn’t pass a single Cherry-Top on our approach to
Summer Camp Festival. We did, however, narrowly avoid a confrontation with a large doe who would have surely come out on the short end of the deal.
The festival entrance was hard to miss and even though it was only Thursday night, the place was getting more and more packed by the minute. We meandered into the parking area as a line of lonely volunteers stood waving their flags and flashlights around every which way, lacking any sort of discernible pattern. They stood with a mild-mannered expression, undoubtedly thinking about the music they were missing or the impending conclusion of their shift, perhaps pre-occupied with some form of substance abuse to pass the time. When we finally parked our vehicle, we jumped out, did a quick stretch and began organizing our thoughts. Summer Camp was a bit different than most of the festivals I had been to before. Here, you park you car and then make the long trek deep into the woods to set up camp. The festival gates/security separates the entire parking lot from the festival grounds. In my opinion, camping in the woods is the only way to get the full experience; however, there’s a certain sense of security with being able to set up shop right next to your vehicle. We had to be particularly thoughtful that weekend about the things we brought with us to camp, and the things we left behind. It would be nice to have 100% faith in our fellow festival-goers at an event this size, but you and I both know that will never be true. As we prepped ourselves for our first trip into the grounds, we brought with us the necessities – our tent, headlamps, and a cooler full of food (plus a secret stash of beers buried beneath 6 inches of ice). We slipped by unscathed and found ourselves a comfy little spot deep in the woods, quite a ways off of the beaten path. This spot, at least for tonight, would prove to be quite a tranquil little oasis.
Thursday evening was, for the most part, fairly underwhelming in terms of music. By the time we got our tent set up and headed out towards the action,
30db was deep into their late-night set at the Campfire Stage. A stage which I came to despise from the second I laid ears on it. Had the organizers put a single minute’s worth of thought into the set-up of this thing? The Campfire Stage sat next to the Big Red Barn, on the crest of a hill that extended on a gradual slope downwards for over 50 yards in every direction. If you weren’t standing within 10 feet of the main speakers, you had absolutely no chance of hearing or seeing the action on stage. A simple reversal of this stage’s placement, to a position at the bottom of the hill, would have made sense both visually and acoustically. The people sitting around that campfire were interested in hearing the music, not feeling like they are at show with water in their ears or a big pillow bungeed around their head. 30db was the only act going on at that moment so the crowd was pretty substantial and I wasn’t about to go pushing my way towards the front. It was way too early in the weekend for that. After listening to the inaudible sounds of Jeff Austin and Brendan Bayliss for awhile, we met up with Frazier and Amy and headed inside the barn for
Ivan Neville and Dumpstaphunk. It was good to see old friends again. We sipped on a couple beers while the sounds of some pretty straight-forward N’awlins funk filled the Big Red Barn whose
temperature was nothing but on the rise. We had seen enough. On our way back to camp, we stumbled upon a “secret, secret, set” being performed by local jamgrass rippers,
Cornmeal, in the middle of the woods. Amplification was minimal and intimacy, maximal. Although I was aware of this band, this would be my first exposure to their music. Instrumentation seemed to be their forte and I had no complaints. There were two stand-outs that evening in my opinion – Kris Nowak was absolutely picking my brain to pieces with his jammy, bluegrass guitar as the talented Miss Allie Kral ran her spidery fingers up and down the neck of her fiddle in a fiery fashion that I haven’t seen for quite some time. Allie would prove to be one of the most in-demand musicians of the weekend (along with
Danny Barnes who was, well, everywhere), lending her tightly honed skills to numerous guest performances over the course of the next three days. Just before our departure, a young man behind me turned to his friend and exclaimed “This is NOT bluegrass”. Even he was keen to the elusive nature of this talented group of musicians. This little sneak peak into the mind's of the Cornmealers had me both excited about their Friday afternoon performance, and bummed out about missing their Thursday night set earlier that evening. It was time to call it quits. Karrin and I headed back to camp and had no trouble drifting off to sleep. It had been a long day. And our rest would be vital.
The second I swiped that card of mine, I was clocking out for good… not just clocking out from work for the day, or even the next four days, but clocking out from reality, from the stresses of the everyday grind and from the grip of father time himself. I stepped into my vehicle and shed my white-collar garments right there on the spot. Freedom can take on many different forms – speeding barefoot and shirtless out of the parking lot of a job you despise, feeling that weightless sensation as the wheels of your 747 first leave the ground, “3 days of peace and music”. I was airport bound and I couldn’t help but smile thinking about the escort that sat waiting patiently for my arrival at Chicago Midway. Karrin had been charged with complete and total control over all festival preparations this year and I shall never underestimate her skills again. As daunting of a task as this appears to be, she couldn’t have done a better job – all of our camping necessities, pre-cooked food, and copious supplies... not to mention enough beer to throw an Alpha Beta Chi party (already chilling on ice). It was a fairly smooth transition out of downtown Chicago and it wasn’t long before we were cruising into the Illinois boonies on a heat-seeking mission for Chillicothe. Surprisingly enough, we didn’t pass a single Cherry-Top on our approach to Summer Camp Festival. We did, however, narrowly avoid a confrontation with a large doe who would have surely come out on the short end of the deal.
Thursday evening was, for the most part, fairly underwhelming in terms of music. By the time we got our tent set up and headed out towards the action, 30db was deep into their late-night set at the Campfire Stage. A stage which I came to despise from the second I laid ears on it. Had the organizers put a single minute’s worth of thought into the set-up of this thing? The Campfire Stage sat next to the Big Red Barn, on the crest of a hill that extended on a gradual slope downwards for over 50 yards in every direction. If you weren’t standing within 10 feet of the main speakers, you had absolutely no chance of hearing or seeing the action on stage. A simple reversal of this stage’s placement, to a position at the bottom of the hill, would have made sense both visually and acoustically. The people sitting around that campfire were interested in hearing the music, not feeling like they are at show with water in their ears or a big pillow bungeed around their head. 30db was the only act going on at that moment so the crowd was pretty substantial and I wasn’t about to go pushing my way towards the front. It was way too early in the weekend for that. After listening to the inaudible sounds of Jeff Austin and Brendan Bayliss for awhile, we met up with Frazier and Amy and headed inside the barn for Ivan Neville and Dumpstaphunk. It was good to see old friends again. We sipped on a couple beers while the sounds of some pretty straight-forward N’awlins funk filled the Big Red Barn whose
temperature was nothing but on the rise. We had seen enough. On our way back to camp, we stumbled upon a “secret, secret, set” being performed by local jamgrass rippers, Cornmeal, in the middle of the woods. Amplification was minimal and intimacy, maximal. Although I was aware of this band, this would be my first exposure to their music. Instrumentation seemed to be their forte and I had no complaints. There were two stand-outs that evening in my opinion – Kris Nowak was absolutely picking my brain to pieces with his jammy, bluegrass guitar as the talented Miss Allie Kral ran her spidery fingers up and down the neck of her fiddle in a fiery fashion that I haven’t seen for quite some time. Allie would prove to be one of the most in-demand musicians of the weekend (along with Danny Barnes who was, well, everywhere), lending her tightly honed skills to numerous guest performances over the course of the next three days. Just before our departure, a young man behind me turned to his friend and exclaimed “This is NOT bluegrass”. Even he was keen to the elusive nature of this talented group of musicians. This little sneak peak into the mind's of the Cornmealers had me both excited about their Friday afternoon performance, and bummed out about missing their Thursday night set earlier that evening. It was time to call it quits. Karrin and I headed back to camp and had no trouble drifting off to sleep. It had been a long day. And our rest would be vital.
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