June 2nd, the blooming summer of 2011 marked the move-in day for the Wakarusa Camping and Music Festival in the rolling hill country outside Ozark, Arkansas at a hilltop venue by the name of Mulberry Mountain. The atmosphere on the first day of a camping festival is something special. Everyone arrives and gets a feel for their new home, and Mulberry Mountain was a very special place for those four days. Everyone on stage brought their best, lesser-known artists and musicians set up everywhere inside the venue and out and peddled their wares or serenaded passers-by, and people bustled around the campsites, set up, decorated, introduced themselves to neighbors, explored their new town of 30,000. The humid Arkansas air was laden with a palpable, light, playful anticipation of what was to come.
Wakarusa 2011 started off with a bang. Thursday night slapped us across the face with a jam-packed opening night schedule that was probably the best of the festival and included performances by:
- Dirtfoot - 1:30pm
- Grace Potter & the Nocturnals - 6:15pm
- Papadosio - 6:30pm
- Buckethead - 7:30pm
- Cornmeal - 9:30pm
- Umphrey's McGee - 10:15pm
- Beats Antique - 10:30pm
- Lotus - 12:30am
- Shpongletron - 1:00am
- Ott - 2:00am
- EOTO - 2:30am
How would we last? Gates opened at midnight Wednesday night, and security and the festival staff did a great job with that first rush. By sunup, the flow of newcomers slowed to a trickle and at least 15-20,000 were already situated. Most of the sleep deprived, glaze-eyed festival goers were too anxious and it was too hot to sleep in the humid, high-90s heat of the first day. Lucky, the schedule for Waka was made with the heat in mind. While plenty of bands played during the day, the majority of the best-known names played between sundown and dawn. So, one could wait out the day in the shade and still see over twelve hours of stellar music daily.
Dirtfoot started Thursday's party off and opened the main stage with their six-man hootenanny straight out of Shreveport, LA. The self-described, “only front porch, whiskey swillin', foot stomping, gypsy, punk, country, grumble, boogie band in the land,” used a xylophone, a washboard, pots and pans, an upright bass, a sax, a guitar, a drum kit and some of the raspiest vocals I've heard in some time to start the festival off on the right foot. They threw down at this opening set and played two more over the weekend.
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| Dirtfoot on the Main Stage 6/2/2011 (photo by Ben Papps) |
Later on in the day, as the sun went down over the hills around 6:30pm, Papadosio, a five-man electro-jam-band out of Athens, Ohio, wowed fans and innocent bystanders alike. Three members of the band play keys, among other instruments, and they are at heart a jam band, but their live sets weave across genres and borrow from electronic influences. As the sun went down and the glow-sticks, -poi, -hoops, -everything came out, the electro-shift seemed fitting as things turned for the weird.
No strangers to the weird, Beats Antique took the stage at the revival tent in front of a crowd that was about to burst with anticipation and put on the best show of theirs I've seen to date. With high energy and a raw, unpolished sound, they deconstructed every track with expertise, melding it all back together into a fresh incarnation of that eastern-influenced electro-jazz that put Beats on the lineup of so many festivals this summer. The well-known, older songs were remixed and chopped up so much that you could definitely couldn't stand still, but you weren't sure which song you were listening to, and the new material was full of crisp high-ends, heavy, womped-out lows and great juxtaposition. By the end, the crowd looked stunned, faces screaming, “How could anyone top that this weekend?”
Cue the corny introduction of Michael Travis, “We are EOTO, ladies and gentlemen: live and improvised electronic music for your ear-balls.” EOTO at Wakarusa were the headliners in my mind. Perhaps not the biggest name on the ticket, but they were one of the handful of bands who played more than one set over the weekend, they closed out the festival with a mysteriously booked “EOTO & Friends” set (who are your friends?!) and they embody the jam-band/folk sound meets the wave of electronica breaking over every genre that presided over Wakarusa 2011. They put on a show worthy of the headliner title. The different musical dynamic that comes from one long festival set, versus two shorter sets at a typical EOTO show, creates a constant, uninterrupted build throughout the entire set.
Their hour and a half set Thursday night started off with an electro build that took off like a firecracker, exploding once the beat dropped with one of Hann's unrecognizable, perfectly placed vocals. “Boom!” or something similar. Hann seemed more active on the mic than usual and invoked lines from Back That Ass Up, Do Your Thing, (that's right, a little Isaac Hayes) Down On Me, Roll Out and Scrubs all the while backed up with his own masterful robo-drumming (sometimes using one hand to drum and one hand to mix/mod/loop) and Travis' heavy sub-bass lines and eeking, tuned-up electro licks. EOTO have come a long way since I last saw them about six months ago. Travis has a better grasp over the sounds he's adding to the build before he adds them, and he has a more confident control over the tracks he creates. Or maybe they were just on for Waka. Either way, expect great things from EOTO.
Their hour and a half set Thursday night started off with an electro build that took off like a firecracker, exploding once the beat dropped with one of Hann's unrecognizable, perfectly placed vocals. “Boom!” or something similar. Hann seemed more active on the mic than usual and invoked lines from Back That Ass Up, Do Your Thing, (that's right, a little Isaac Hayes) Down On Me, Roll Out and Scrubs all the while backed up with his own masterful robo-drumming (sometimes using one hand to drum and one hand to mix/mod/loop) and Travis' heavy sub-bass lines and eeking, tuned-up electro licks. EOTO have come a long way since I last saw them about six months ago. Travis has a better grasp over the sounds he's adding to the build before he adds them, and he has a more confident control over the tracks he creates. Or maybe they were just on for Waka. Either way, expect great things from EOTO.
By the end of day one, (or about 6-7 hours into day two) minds had been blown, sleep-deprivation had reached unstable levels and the weekend had only just begun. With the sun starting to peak its way over the hills, it was time for the first rest in over 48 hours. The following days delivered the goods. The strongest sets by:
- ANA SIA Friday 9:30pm
- Dark Star Orchestra Friday night 12:30am
- Bassnectar Friday night 1:00am
- Skrillex Friday night 2:45am
- Ghostland Observatory Friday night 3:00am
- Ben Harper & Relentless7 Saturday 8:00pm
- Thievery Corporation Saturday 10:30pm
- Big Gigantic Saturday night 2:30am
- Vagabond Swing Sunday 5:30pm
- Peelander-Z Sunday 6:30pm
- Zoogma Sunday 8:30pm
- Beats Antique Sunday 10:30pm
- EOTO Sunday 10:30pm
- EOTO & Friends Sunday 11:00pm
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| ANA SIA at the Satellite Stage 6/3/2011 (photo by Ben Papps) |
Beats and EOTO were scheduled at the same time, so fans had a difficult choice to make, or so it seemed. As Beats Antique started their set, EOTO and their gear were nowhere to be found. A festival official announced over the PA that EOTO would be playing about two hours later than expected, after Beats. Perfect.
Beats put on a great set and pulled out the animal masks and guest appearances earlier than usual, making for a raucous good time of a stage show throughout the majority of the set. EOTO took the stage for their 30-minute set prior to the highly anticipated “EOTO & Friends” and put on good show, but it was obvious they were holding back in preparation for the party to come. One by one, Karsh Kale, (on tabla) David Satori, (from Beats Antique on a banjo-looking, sitar-sounding custom instrument) and Jamie Janover (from Zilla on hammered dulcimer) all came out to join Travis and Hann, with Tommy Cappel (from Beats Antique) sitting in on drums for Jason Hann for a quick spell.
The night raged on, as the three prior had, until sunup and beyond, but the official music was over, the vendors were packing up, the stages were coming down, the staff were all but off the hook, and the Wakarusa festival was a raging success once again.
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