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Undertoad · 08-21-2011, 03:32 PM

After an hour I gather my second group of friends, and we briefly gather the two small groups into one big group before I leave with the second lot to wander the tents and become more a part of the Thing.

You walk down the major paths between the campers, and larger theme tents offer themes of various kinds. Most of them have hippie-ish names. "Papa John's Tent" "Azzholes" "The Festicles" "HOAGIE" Some are known year after year as the place where acoustic jam sessions happen. Some become anarcho-capitalistic stores where you can buy water and toiletries and snacks. There's an improptu Dating Game tent happening with a miniature PA system. There's some sort of semi lurid wheel-spinning game where the wheel is made out of glow sticks. The sticks have become ubiquitous, and sometimes a nice way to stay with your group - remember who is wearing what pattern of glow sticks.

Roving minstrels sing songs, some folksy but mostly classic rock. Someone dressed as a panda walks along, and people are shouting Panda! Panda! but they can't get the beast's attention. Another person walks by dressed as a hose. No, a hose, like you would find on a vacuum cleaner. Heavily tattooed and painted people are walking costumes in themselves, as are the people in various states of weird dress or undress. For the record, I saw no actual sexual organs but I'm sure I could if I wanted to try harder. At one point there was a topless race for charity.

The Fest has its high ratio of bikini-wearing hot dirty hippie chicks, but it's good people watching just in general, because it contains every age and every type of person. It's now 50 years old, so you have ancient dirty hippies recreating not only their Woodstock, but their first Fests. You also have GenX hippies who recreate their Woodstock '99, and now the children of children of hard core Festers, so pretty much every age is there.

And I was probably one of the more sober people there, but the spirit of community and non-assholishness is so pervasive that there are no fights (at least that I saw) and deep cooperation in most cases. Everyone's committed to being dirty hippies *together* that it is a friendly lawlessness. At one point one of our group dropped his wallet. We were about fifty feet away when we hear his full name being shouted at top volume. Somebody had found his wallet, and decided that the easiest way to find the owner would be to get his ID and shout his name to the skies.

This spirit goes through the entire campsite and so, if you have a question, you can pretty much ask anyone at any tent along the path. In fact you can pretty much sit down at any tent, meet everybody, and have a brief conversation and a beer.

The spontaneous drumming just blew me away. The entrance of the camping area has a sign that says no illicit materials, no percussion instruments, and the Fest is just serious enough about all that to make sure that nobody brings in an RV full of them. Meanwhile half the people are dosing, half the people are drumming and 25% are doing both.

But it's totally awesome, this rhythm of the night. At some point, about 2am, somebody brings out a set of marching band quad toms, and he's really, really good; and the crowd forms around him as for 30 minutes he's the center of all the drumming. Two people with harmonicas are playing along with him, and one person with a bassy drum, and 30 feet away is a group of three bagpipes, of all things. Someone is pointing a bright laser pointer into the sky above it. And it all mixes into one, as the circling, dense crowd has the experience and enjoys the spectacle.

So it wound down with me sleeping on a 2" mattress and a metal bar in my back from 5am to 10am; it seems "sleeps 7" in an RV means that two people get a real bed, and anybody else gets some facsimile that is not really a bed. I would have been more comfy in the tent.

I feel like I've experienced *a* peak. But someday I wuld like to be there at Saturday night 3am for what my friend says is the true peak. I think I'm glad I could wean into it. My first Fest working Security, I didn't visit the camping area at all. The second one, I went through during the day. Now I've experienced Friday night in an RV... maybe next year, Saturday night in a tent. Yeah, work up to that.

08-21-2011, 03:32 PM	#2
Undertoad Radical Centrist Join Date: Jan 2001 Location: Cottage of Prussia Posts: 31,423	After an hour I gather my second group of friends, and we briefly gather the two small groups into one big group before I leave with the second lot to wander the tents and become more a part of the Thing. You walk down the major paths between the campers, and larger theme tents offer themes of various kinds. Most of them have hippie-ish names. "Papa John's Tent" "Azzholes" "The Festicles" "HOAGIE" Some are known year after year as the place where acoustic jam sessions happen. Some become anarcho-capitalistic stores where you can buy water and toiletries and snacks. There's an improptu Dating Game tent happening with a miniature PA system. There's some sort of semi lurid wheel-spinning game where the wheel is made out of glow sticks. The sticks have become ubiquitous, and sometimes a nice way to stay with your group - remember who is wearing what pattern of glow sticks. Roving minstrels sing songs, some folksy but mostly classic rock. Someone dressed as a panda walks along, and people are shouting Panda! Panda! but they can't get the beast's attention. Another person walks by dressed as a hose. No, a hose, like you would find on a vacuum cleaner. Heavily tattooed and painted people are walking costumes in themselves, as are the people in various states of weird dress or undress. For the record, I saw no actual sexual organs but I'm sure I could if I wanted to try harder. At one point there was a topless race for charity. The Fest has its high ratio of bikini-wearing hot dirty hippie chicks, but it's good people watching just in general, because it contains every age and every type of person. It's now 50 years old, so you have ancient dirty hippies recreating not only their Woodstock, but their first Fests. You also have GenX hippies who recreate their Woodstock '99, and now the children of children of hard core Festers, so pretty much every age is there. And I was probably one of the more sober people there, but the spirit of community and non-assholishness is so pervasive that there are no fights (at least that I saw) and deep cooperation in most cases. Everyone's committed to being dirty hippies together that it is a friendly lawlessness. At one point one of our group dropped his wallet. We were about fifty feet away when we hear his full name being shouted at top volume. Somebody had found his wallet, and decided that the easiest way to find the owner would be to get his ID and shout his name to the skies. This spirit goes through the entire campsite and so, if you have a question, you can pretty much ask anyone at any tent along the path. In fact you can pretty much sit down at any tent, meet everybody, and have a brief conversation and a beer. The spontaneous drumming just blew me away. The entrance of the camping area has a sign that says no illicit materials, no percussion instruments, and the Fest is just serious enough about all that to make sure that nobody brings in an RV full of them. Meanwhile half the people are dosing, half the people are drumming and 25% are doing both. But it's totally awesome, this rhythm of the night. At some point, about 2am, somebody brings out a set of marching band quad toms, and he's really, really good; and the crowd forms around him as for 30 minutes he's the center of all the drumming. Two people with harmonicas are playing along with him, and one person with a bassy drum, and 30 feet away is a group of three bagpipes, of all things. Someone is pointing a bright laser pointer into the sky above it. And it all mixes into one, as the circling, dense crowd has the experience and enjoys the spectacle. So it wound down with me sleeping on a 2" mattress and a metal bar in my back from 5am to 10am; it seems "sleeps 7" in an RV means that two people get a real bed, and anybody else gets some facsimile that is not really a bed. I would have been more comfy in the tent. I feel like I've experienced a peak. But someday I wuld like to be there at Saturday night 3am for what my friend says is the true peak. I think I'm glad I could wean into it. My first Fest working Security, I didn't visit the camping area at all. The second one, I went through during the day. Now I've experienced Friday night in an RV... maybe next year, Saturday night in a tent. Yeah, work up to that.