"The World is a Stage..."

At a festival this can seem extremely true.  When you're in the main festival area you're surrounded by stages with an assortment of talented musicians peddling their musical wares to your eagerly awaiting ears.  The crowds at these shows are shows unto themselves, especially during the headlining and late-night performances.  You'll see Jesus, glowsticks, battery powered lights, party sticks, super heroes, angels, and the occasional clown all dancing together and having a party.  Even the atmosphere outside of the main festival grounds (out where everyone is camping) is one of performance.  Vendors are trying to solicit your attention to what they're selling, amateur guitar players and drum circles can be heard all over the campgrounds, and the people heading into the festival are always a source of levity.  You've got Ferris Wheels, fire-dancers and interactive art display provided by the festival that also vie for your attention.

Ferris Wheel through the trees

Interactive Art Display at Wakarusa

As entertaining as all the activity around you can be (and it is entertaining), it's probably not the main reason you're going to a festival.  If you're like me, you're going to see the paid artists.  The ones who get their names printed on the posters, set times neatly curated, and stages set up by legions of schleppers, known as "roadies."  The artists who when they get warmed up can lead a throng of 10,000 festival goers in an intense dance party.  The artists who can soothe you to sleep as you lie in the only open bit of shade you can find in the afternoon.  The artists whose music moves you emotionally, whether it's to tears, to smiles, to feelings of hope and redemption, and all back again.

These boards were washed daily, and the chalk was
provided to allow the festivalers to add to the work

If you've been to more than one festival in your life you know that many artists come back again and again, and there are performances that go down in history.  Many repeat festival goers will recount shows they've seen that were some of the most epic performances by artists such as the 2006 Bonnaroo performance by Radiohead.  Or you get years where the lineup is awe-inspiring to music fans such as Bonnaroo's 2011 lineup for their 10th Anniversary.  Not every show is epic, and some are downright disappointing (Dave Matthews Band at Bonnaroo 2010), but at every festival there's some performances that stand out against the rest either for the way the artist performed, the crowd, or a memorable tid-bit of the show (Steve Martin doing a bluegrass cover of "King Tut" as an encore to his 2010 Bonnaroo performance).  Here's the shows that piqued my interest at Wakarusa this last weekend and why I thought the performances were some of the best of the weekend:


#1 Pretty Lights: 

Pretty Lights getting the show started 

This was the show that everyone was at Wakarusa for.  As the Thursday night headliner, the talk all day was about Pretty Lights and what a great show it was going to be.  I'd seen PL at a Bonnaroo late-night last year, and again in Des Moines at the Val Air Ballroom in October.  I knew there was potential for a great performance, but being on the Main Stage, this was the largest staging area I'd seen for an act like Pretty Lights.  Plenty of room for dancing, but if people didn't show up, it'd be noticeable.  Fortunately it seemed like the entire festival came out to party.

Here you can see the giant beach balls.  To give you an idea of scale,
these beach balls were probably about 10 ft. in diameter.  You can
also see all the party masts and standards people party with.  

Earlier in the day we'd visited the Backwoods Stage to catch a bit of DangerMuffin and on the way into the staging area we passed by the RV camping area.  One of the campsites was busy inflating all manner of inflatable objects from oversize beach balls, to inflatable ducks, fish, dolphins, pool floats and more.  We were a little curious why someone had brought all that, until the PL show was getting started.  About 10 minutes before PL took the stage, there were inflatables being tossed over our heads into the thick of the crowd starting with the giant beach balls and scaling down from there.


Once PL hit the stage, it was on.  The party started in full-force and I was bumped several times over by a group of sorority girls dancing like there was no tomorrow.  Because of their flailing dancing, several of my pictures were ruined because the camera moved and blurred the final picture.  I'd be upset, but I know they were just enjoying themselves and great show PL was putting on.

Being that I'd traveled from Kentucky on Wednesday morning, spent all night Wednesday traveling to Wakarusa, and only napped intermittently during the day, I was not fully energetic for the dance party.  We weren't quite ready to leave yet, so we moved toward the back of the crowd and really started to get a feel for the crowd and the got to really check out the light show on stage.  All in all, I'd have to say this show might be the highlight show from the weekend.

The stage lights for Pretty Lights

Pretty Lights, from afar

#2 Girl Talk:

Girl Talk's light setup, before the show started

Girl Talk is one of my favorite artists out there right now.  I've managed to see GT live twice at Bonnaroo, in Iowa City, and now at Wakarusa.  GT isn't your usual run-of-the-mill DJ.  Actually, during his show he'll often put the words "I am not a DJ" on the light screens behind him.  What GT is though, is a great mash-up artists blending some of the most memorable bits from pop, rock, hip-hop, and more to produce a fresh new party sound.

I was really excited for this show because GT typically releases a new studio album about every 2 years, and his last album "All Day" was released in 2010, so we should be due for a new one soon.  My hope was that he'd either drop the new album before I left for vacation, or that I'd get to hear some of the new stuff he's working on for an upcoming album.  The album hasn't been released yet, but I wasn't disappointed by what I heard.

Taking a fresh look at some of the samples he's used in his shows in the past he re-mixed some of them together in an exciting way.  As good as the albums are, and as much as I love the mixes on there, hearing new mixes of old favorites is still a thing of beauty.  Toward the end of the show GT really got down to business and started mixing together some of the radio favorites from the last few years.  Adele got some play time, and all in all I'm excited to hear what comes out on a new record.

Girl Talk stage lights in action

The crowd was a bit sparse at the start of the show, but it definitely became a jumping place by the end.  GT's show was a Friday night late-night on the Sanctum Stage.  The Sanctum Stage is the festival's main stage that they deck out specially for a late night headliner.  Friday was also the first day we had to deal with rain (it drizzled pretty much all day) and chill, so a sparse starting crowd was to be a bit expected.  And since GT hit the stage about 5 hours later than PL did, the smaller crowd didn't seem so bad.





#3 Railroad Earth


What's the point of going to a bluegrass/electronica themed festival if you're not going to check out some of the bluegrass artists?  There really isn't much of one.  Railroad Earth is a band that can soothe your soul, or bring you to your feet to stomp around with your friends.  We saw them in the afternoon on Thursday, and it was a relaxing show to see.  The sun was shining, and everyone around us was in good spirits, so that made the show even better.

Railroad Earth jamming the afternoon away

This wasn't the most energetic show I've seen from theses guys, but it matched the mood of the afternoon for me, which gave it a boost in brownie points.  Wakarusa 2010 saw Railroad playing at the Revival Tent (second biggest stage at Wakarusa) for a late-night performance.  The only word I have to describe that show is "phenomenal."  They were jamming away with the lights going strong, and really amping the crowd into a frenzy.  Wakarusa 2012 saw Railroad holding down the Main Stage with a precision you'd expect from festival veterans.  This was a great start to the weekend, and really made me excited to be on the mountain again.

Railroad Earth and the Wakarusa Main Stage

#4 Umphrey's McGee


Umphrey's is a festival veteran group that travels the festival circuit annually.  Don't take this to mean that they have nothing going on and can't book shows elsewhere.  Quite the opposite actually.  I've managed to see Umphrey's in Des Moines before, and at both Bonnaroo and Wakarusa and they never disappoint.  My only complaint with this year's performance was that I still have yet to be in a show when they perform one of their famous covers.  I always seem to pick the wrong shows to attend.  Just my luck.

This year's Waka performances seemed to be a bit more on the metal themed side of the music world.  This shows the versatility that Umphrey's works with, that they can pull off a metal themed show and still keep the crowd energized.  Amazingly talented, and if you ever get a chance to see them, I'd highly recommend it.

#5 The Avett Brothers 

The Avett Brothers putting on a great show Friday night

For those of you in the Des Moines area, make sure you get your tickets to the 80/35 Music Fest.  The Avett Brothers are one of the headliners, and they do have a great stage performance.  This was the first show that I caught on Friday due to the weather and such, but it was definitely worth getting out of camp for.

This was a comprable show to the Railroad Earth performance the day before.  Nothing to glamourous, or glitzy, just some solid musicians doing what they do best.  Beautifully arranged show and they did get the crowd into it.

The Avett Brothers headlining the Main Stage

Personal story from the show: I had decorated my camel pack with a few glowsticks for the show, so there'd be less work to do before the Girl Talk set after the Avett Brothers.  Someone must have been a fan of the decorations, because when I got back to camp, I discovered a string of purple beads had been attached to one of my glowstick loops.  I tried to smoke the person out by wearing the beads on my bag the rest of the weekend, but nobody claimed them.  This wasn't the only instance of someone being attracted to my glowsticks.  No less than 3 females grabbed at my glowsticks, all in the presence of their significant other.  Just my luck.


Honorable mentions: 


This is a short list of some of the other artists that we saw whose shows I really appreciated:
-Big Gigantic (One of the best party performances out there. Check out the light show at the bottom!)
-The Motets
-Edward Sharp & The Magnetic Zeros
-The Bright Light Social Hour
-The Travelin' McCoury's featuring Keller Williams
-12th Planet
-Adventure Club
-Gary Clark Jr.

And here's the shows that I've seen before, and if you can you should see:
-That 1 Guy (He built his own instrument and it's....unique)
-Beats Antique
-Tea Leaf Green
-EOTO (Always a party)
-Hot Buttered Rum

That should give you a taste of what you missed out on at Wakarusa this year.  Even though the weather made a mess of things, the artists were consumate performers and the crowds still responded by showing up to shows.  One of the benefits of attending Wakarusa is that it's a very well managed festival.  They're organized with their parking, they keep festival goers abreast of what's going on, and the staff is all friendly and knowledgeable.  If you've got about $250 dollars and you'd like a smaller festival to go to and test out the waters, this would be it.  Don't feel bad if you only know 1 or 2 of the artists on the lineup, as Waka is a great festival for finding new music.  It's how I found the band "The Pimps of Joytime" which is an awesome band from Brooklyn, New York.  If you haven't heard of them, or any of the other artists I've listed above, check them out on Google Music and see what you like.


*BONUS BONUS BONUS*

Here's a couple of videos of some fire dancers performing before The Avett Brothers took to the Main Stage:

And the lights from the Big Gigantic show: