Headstash

Headstash On The Road: Electric Forest Day 4/Wrap-Up

Photo Credit: Jordan August

Don’t care about anything besides String Cheese? Skip to the SCI review.

The weather was at its best of the weekend for the final day of Electric Forest. It was partly sunny, breezy and hot (but not too hot). At almost a full four days, Electric Forest is a long festival, and by Sunday morning, it was starting to take its toll on people. Campsites were littered with napping people getting a later start on the day.

Like Saturday, the day started off mellow with bluegrass and other calmer bands. Zach Deputy called people early to the Sherwood Court to hear his masterful looping, while Railroad Earth got things going on the Ranch Arena.

Railroad Earth - Photo Credit: Jordan August

Earth’s daylight set, like Keller’s the day before, got weary fans to leave the comfort of their tents and get warmed up for the day. Hula hoopers, jugglers and dancers decorated the field.

Keeping things grassy, The Infamous Stringdusters were next back at Sherwood Court, while indie, hippie group Edward Sharpe and The Magnetic Zeroes continued the flow on the Ranch Arena.

Sunday was a bit of a lazy day with almost every artist going on late. Sharpe didn’t come on stage until a full 20 minutes after his scheduled start time. However, it didn’t affect the show, as he got the crowd singing along to favorites like “40 Day Dream” and “Janglin’.”

During the afternoon on Sunday, rising jamtronica stars Papadosio (also going on 20 minutes late) started a dance party at the Tripolee Stage right inside the main gates. As people trickled into the festival grounds, they couldn’t help but dance their way past Papadosio’s killer set.

At the same time on the tiny Forest Stage nestled in the heart of Sherwood Forest, Break Science hosted surprise guest Derek Vincent Smith aka Pretty Lights. The quirky Beats Antique played right up until the start of String Cheese Incident’s final sets of the weekend, more that satisfying the electronic fans for the time being.

Photo Credit: Jordan August

After Cheese, a wonderful night of electronica began starting with Disco Biscuit side-project Conspirator. The band is sounding great these days with Chris Michetti (RAQ’s guitarist) now a permanent member of the band. Throughout their Electric Forest set, they had various drummers sitting in including Adam Deitch (Break Science, Pretty Lights, Lettuce), which made for more of an organic sounding band. Conspirator perfectly combines rock and dubstep into their own genre of music.

Pretty Lights was supposed to take over the stage after Cheese at 11:00 p.m. but didn’t end up going on until after 12:30 a.m. to put on an interesting set that went late into the night. At Pretty Lights’ opening notes, the biggest glow stick war of the weekend broke out – even bigger than any during Bassnectar who is infamous for leading the charge in aerial fluorescent displays.

Photo Credit: Jordan August

The energy in the crowd was palpable. As soon as “Let me hear some noise” was said, the most deafening roar broke out as Derek jumped into dubstep inspired jams. Highlights of the set included a Mungo Jerry “In the Summertime” tease, a cover of Pink Floyd’s “Time” and “I Can See It In Your Face.”

Even though the crowd as a whole was having a wild time, the set was slightly disappointing to true Pretty Lights fans. Derek seemed to be taking the opposite approach than the other artists in catering to the crowd and played mostly dubstep for the first half of his set.

Towards the end, however, Pretty Lights started getting back to his roots.

String Cheese side-project EOTO closed out the festival with a raging electronic set. If Jason Hann and Michael Travis were tired from the killer two-and-a-half hour earlier performance, they sure didn’t show it.

Photo Credit: Jordan August

Hann was rapping every other song and the stage was literally bouncing from how hard they were banging on the drums. They tore through some out-of-the-blue and amazing covers like a dubby “Electric Avenue,” Juvenile’s “Back That Azz Up” and finally closed the set with Chris Brown and Lil Wayne’s “Look At Me Now.” The set was a perfect ending to a perfect festival.

However, the music was not over yet. Following, outside the main gates were three surprise shows by Two Fresh, Big Gigantic and Shpongle that kept people awake and dancing until the sun came up.

Festival Wrap-Up

The festival as a whole was a great success. Coming into it, there was a lot of speculation about what type of crowd would be there and whether the electronic side would take over the festival.

In planning it out, Cheese knew exactly what they were doing. They successfully melded their genre with the electronic and fans of both showed up and had a great time.

Photo Credit: Jordan August

There were just as many old hippie Cheese-heads as there were dubsteppers, making for an interesting blended crowd. I heard a couple people who attended both Rothbury and Electric Forest mention that they didn’t think that Electric Forest had a chance of coming close to the amazingness of Rothbury, but they were shocked at how great Electric Forest turned out.

And let’s be honest, with Rothbury probably gone forever and more time passing every day, its legend will continue to be exacerbated until nothing can ever touch it.

Though the size was much smaller than Rothbury, I can see this festival having a lot of success next year and definitely growing as there is really nothing like it.

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String Cheese Incident - Photo Credit: Jordan August

Cheese continued pulling out all the stops on their final show of the weekend. Set one was one big bluegrass happy hour filled with sit-ins.

Starting the bluegrass right off the bat, String Cheese opened with “Chili Dawg” and then played “Up The Canyon” before they started adding people to the stage like crazy.

String Cheese Incident - Photo Credit: Jordan August

First up, Cheese brought out The Infamous Stringdusters to join them for “Old Train” and “Big Sciota,” then added on Railroad Earth members for “Sittin’ On Top Of The World” and finally Greensky Bluegrass for “Wheel Hoss.”

By the end, there were maybe twenty people crowding the stage – it was truly an awesome spectacle and as Bill Nershi said right after, “That was an excellent jam.”

Songwriter Todd Schaefer sat in next to cover The Rolling Stones’ “Wild Horses” before all of the guests left for the remainder of the evening. Next up, Cheese played a couple of their classic songs, “Way Back Home” and “Looking Glass.”

To close the set, Cheese pulled out a shocker covering The Allman Brothers Band’s jazzy dance anthem “Jessica.” At the opening notes, the crowd went wild because even ABB plays this song only rarely. It was the perfect closer for the first set.

After another longer-than-necessary set break, Cheese came back out with “Rhythm of the Road.” As if covering the Stones and Allmans in one set didn’t prove that Cheese can do anything, they decided to add The Talking Heads to their list busting out “This Must Be the Place (Naïve Melody).”

String Cheese Incident - Photo Credit: Jordan August

Up next, Cheese started playing around and jamming a little bit before jumping into the grassy, dance-prompting “Valley of the Jig.” At the opening notes, a glow stick war broke out, even though it was still very much daytime. This extended version of the “Valley” started organically before getting really electronic and coming full circle.

During “Howard,” Cheese got real funky, toying with EOTO-like sounds and a metallic sounding drop towards the end. The crowd began setting off tons of fireworks with glow stick wars going on in between the bursts.

As the set neared the close, Cheese played the funkiest “Jellyfish” I’ve ever heard. I would have mistaken it for a totally different song if it weren’t for the catchy and very recognizable lyrics.

Before the encore, Cheese thanked the crowd for letting them “expand musical genres and tastes” through Electric Forest, which is the perfect way to describe how all of the varieties of sounds and music at this festival came together. Cheese encored with “Shakin’ The Tree,” during which a blow-up palm tree fell out of the air and hit me in the back. It seemed like fate and the perfect ending to a perfect Cheese-y weekend.

Photo Credit: Jordan August

The String Cheese Incident really threw out all of the stops this weekend and put on a successful festival. The only questions that remained were where was frequent collaborator Keller Williams for a sit-in and where was the epic fireworks show? I guess all that money on the beautiful Sherwood Forest didn’t allow any for the pyrotechnics budget. Maybe next year . . .

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A note from the photographer:

The last day is here and as sad as it may be to have to leave this beautiful place, it’s a relief to know that I will soon enough be in my own bed with my pup. As the music went on and the sun shone down upon everyone, we all took looks around taking mental photographs of the entire weekend.

The weather held out and when the sun went down, the great lake breeze and chill came in with a vengeance. The bands kept us warm as we danced the night away.

Railroad Earth - Photo Credit: Jordan August

It wasn’t until the walk back to camp that things started to sink in. The pack-up begins, the collection of damaged camping gear and old food pile up by the trash cans, your neighbor that owed you $15.00 gone and on his way back to a state you’ll never visit.

RAILROAD EARTH:
A hell of a way to start off today! This band fits into the category of timeless music in my opinion. They are road warriors – they have been around the block and have the chops and catalog to show it.

Today’s set was much more mellow then previous RRE shows I have seen. Being able to sit there for a bit, and get up and dance the music called for it was refreshing.

PAPADOSIO:
What can I say about his band beside they are way ahead of this time. Since my first run-in with them back in 2007, I have been a die-hard fan. They play long songs, and the crowd fed of the music more than I had seen all weekend. It’s a lot of fun to watch a newcomers to this band get blown away the way do.

BEATS ANTIQUE:

Papadosio - Photo Credit: Jordan August

A unique approach to a sound that had been overly drawn out all weekend. Taking the dub-bass infused sounds with some world music accents, Beats Antique has a live show that is unparalleled. The field was packed for the day set (though maybe just to see the gyrations of Zoe Jakes).

STRING CHEESE INCIDENT:
The last and final night started off exactly how my friend wanted it too: all bluegrass, all acoustic. This was a change from the weekend for sure, and you can see the separation of true Cheese fans to other wompers.

Joined by many guests a few songs in, the stage filled up quickly and turned into a hoedown of a good time. Members of Railroad Earth, Greensky Bluegrass and The Infamous Stringdusters turned that green field of grass into a dust cloud of love.

After the guests vacated the stage, the set quickly turned electric and started throwing out all sorts of elaborate jams for the fans to consume.

PRETTY LIGHTS:

EOTO - Photo Credit: Jordan August

The hype for Pretty Lights was much higher then expected. With the photo area packed with 15 to 20 photographers, and twice as many security guards monitoring the stage, I knew that something was about to go down.

The crowd was as electric as the woods themselves. They were pressed so tightly to the gate that I could fit twice as many kids in the frame as my usual crowd shots.

As pupils expanded and the lights dimmed, Derek took the stage with utter confidence. As the intro built and built, the explosion of light from the stage was blinding, the sound of the bass nauseating and the glow sticks were in full flying mode.

Melodic and luscious riffs sandwiched grinding gutter basslines to create an evenings worth of boom. Pretty Lights has set a new bar in the DJ/producer world –he’s truly a talent and now we know why he has become as popular as he has.

As I stood outside my truck to have a little nightcap before bed, I could see the wide-eyed foresters full of smiles and peace – happy that they made it out ok, happy the music was top notch and happy some of that Rothbury feeling was still there.

- Jordan August

 

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Read all our coverage from Electric Forest 2011 in our 2011 Festival Guide.

What did you think about Electric Forest? Let us know in the comments below.