Phila Folk Fest '11 report

[Undertoad]

I only worked security two days this year, so that I could stay overnight in the camping area and get closer to the full experience. My friend explained that the peak of the entire Fest would be 3am Saturday night in the camping area. I decided I would like to witness this personally.

Unfortunately, in order to experience the holy nightmare of the Fest, you have to first experience the unholy nightmare that is parking. It's a farm, so most of the parking is on a hill; and so a great deal of it is subject to the very worst forms of mud. Working Security Friday night to midnight meant that my car wound up stuck on a hill, and so the best bet became staying over Friday instead.

This in turn meant that I was not with the dirty hippies before they had a chance to become dirty, filthy hippies. The Fest is 4 days long, in late August, and only a limited number of the 5000 campers have tickets to the elite showers.

I had two "groups" of friends at this Fest. One my business partner and long-time Fester, who is a Super Expert camper. His tent was erected under a highly engineered tarp ceiling. He pounded four steel rebars deeply into the ground, and attached a series of strategically woven ropes to them, ensuring that the tarp would stay put under any storm conditions. And it worked, because at 8pm on day one, the site was ravaged with a massive storm with 40 mph winds. He confidently stayed there, under it. And as everyone else in the area waited to rebuild, they admired his tarp -- which flapped up and down in the high winds, but never failed, as it was precisely engineered to do.

My other group of friends had a different approach. They arrived in a class-A, $80,000 recreational vehicle that sleeps seven, with indoor toilet, kitchen, air conditioning, sink and shower, running under portable generator.

I decided to go with this second group. But first I was with my elite camping buddy, because he's near the center of it all; and from 12:30am onwards was enjoying a rich diet of beer and weed while enjoying the parade of weirdness that passed by his tent.

And weird it was, because nighttime camping at the Fest is basically a strategic breakdown of the regular order.

The first thing you notice is the noise. It's drumming, strumming, horns, cheers, singing, laughter, raucous whooping, and howling at the moon together in the common square of tents.

It's deepest darkest night in the middle of nowhere, but the area is lit both electronically in the usual way, and with the hundreds of fire pits amongst the tents. Smoke is all around and there is also a light fog in the air which gives the place an incredible glow.

[Undertoad]

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.

[monster]

Sounds fantastic, thanks for sharing. Did you take pics?

[Pico and ME]

Did you write this for a newspaper? Its really good. I so want to go now.

[Undertoad]

I think it may be important that this half of the Fest remains an inside secret.

[jimhelm]

In 1990, the FF coincided with my birthday. Shelby and her friends all kicked in and bought me a Conga drum as a present. I'm looking at that drum as i type this....They gave it to me in a army duffel bag. Shelby and I had our first intimate encounter that very night.

Thanks for the detailed report, Ute. You brought me right back to one of the happiest days of my life.

It IS a great time. Much like a Grateful Dead parking lot scene when they are in the same venue for multiple nights. Did you make any new friends that you will keep in touch with?

[Undertoad]

Well I don't really do that very often. But there may be one dude who joined group #2 that I will meet up with again. I think part of it is, I need to be there longer, and hang out longer during the day instead of working. Working/volunteering, hell with all that, next time I'll just buy my way in.

[ZenGum]

Sounds AWESOME.

I regularly attend an alternative festival called confest. You could check a few you-tube videos for a glimpse.

It sounds quite similar - accoustic music, lots of hand-drumming, oddball freaks wearing whatever, or nothing at all, and maybe 2 or 3,000 people for a week or more so the community gets really stong (and about half are long-term repeat attenders, so we all know each other anyway).

I've seen people completely naked, I've seen them covered in mud and body paint, I've seen them dancing in the puddles in the rain. I've seen boobies with eyeballs painted on them, and a guy with a smiley face on the end of his willie.

I've absorbed theatrical performances, I've joined in percussion jams and danced til dawn around a fire. I've been to music workshops and yoga classes and dance classes. I've been the subject of a Freak-Out by the Mud Tribe Ape-Men. I've politely nodded to an incredible amount of new age BS. One guy combines buckyballs, sacred geometry, cosmic vibrations AND 2012!! Far out, mannnnn.

I've helped build the first aid tent and dig the mud pit. I've treated heatstroke patients and cut feet. I've helped people fix tents, and shared food, water, and anything else that er um nothing. I've seen a mass reaction to a fire on a terrible fire-day (45+ degrees with blasting gale winds), shovels and buckets holding the line until our on-site firetruck arrived.

If it is needed, or wanted, it WILL appear. There seems to be some factor when enough people are bouncing around, things find where they are needed, or something.

Dammit, next one is not until December. Now I'm all daydreaming again.

Oh wait! Burningman is coming Downunder! I think it is early November. I'll have to see if I can make it.

Man, this office SUCKS.

[Sundae]

Wow UT, sounds glorious. And beautifully written.

The closest I came to that feeling of cameraderie was when I was 15, at a Christian festival.
It wasn't quite as spontaneous or musical as the Fest (of course) but it was the first time I was openly offered drugs. And yes, you could sit down at many tents, scrag a beer and talk rubbish for a while. And none of it about Jebus.

I had a starving orphan look in those days and was often offered food, drink - and on this occasion drugs - for the whole long weekend.

The toilets in those days were simply latrine trenches, with wooden lavatory cubicles (with holes in planks of wood) above them. In the block nearest us, only one had a lock! There was a squashed moth on the inside of the door. Someone had written Hello, I'm Molly the Moth! and someone else added Have you seen my flatmate? If we needed to go to the toilet in the dark we took a friend to guard the door, in case we weren't lucky enough to have a visit with Molly.

One morning two chaps wandered across with a packet of Dalesteaks (horrible processed meat that lived on in your burps for hours). They'd brought no cooking equipment, reckoning they could easily "borrow" some. We'd had a communal fry up that morning (they trusted me with the money to go to the nearest shop! but not with the cooking... I still had a sore arse after travelling pillion on Dom's hog with no bloody suspension) so there was still grease in the pan. They picked out a few blades of grass and were good to go.

Turns out they had pretty much nothing but sleeping bags. This doesn't sound weird to me now, but it really screwed with my teen head - when we went camping as a family we FILLED a (hired) estate car. Even with things on the roofrack, Dad still couldn't see out of the back window.

To buy a ticket for somewhere and not even have a tent!!!
Wow.
Far out man.

The year after - I think- I scared my friends shitless by disappearing with two bikers and coming back coked up.
They were really nice chaps - only "bikers" because they'd come on motorbikes.
Their tent was spotless - in fact I wonder at this late remove if they were gay. We had some touchy-feely but strictly above the waist. And they were very keen to share the experience with eachother.

I was severely told off by my male companions, and made to feel as if I'd done something dangerous. They didn't know, they weren't there. But I appreciated my role as both a Bad Girl and a Victim for a while. I still have a picture of them I think. And they do look gay. But it was 80s - the same could be said of everyone.

I never captured the same feeling of recklessness and safety at any festivals I attended afterwards.
Maybe something to do with growing up.
But Phila sounds like somewhere I'd like to go.

[jimhelm]

Get here next year and we will share a tent!

[Katkeeper]

UT does have a wonderful gift for writing. I have some of his early efforts.

[Spexxvet]

Hundertoad S. Thompson: Fear and Loathing in Schwenksville

I'm going to have to get there one of these years.

Hey Tony, can you get the rope weave design for your friend's tarp? It sounds awesome. I can remember four of us, each holding a corner of our kitchen fly, making sure it didn't blow away in about 20 mph winds.

[ZenGum]

Yeah. Strong winds, campsites, newbie campers. I've seen much uncomfortable wisdom gained that way.

[Sundae]

Originally Posted by jimhelm

Get here next year and we will share a tent!

Dana and Limey can confirm I snore. Apart from that and a little thing called money, you're on You can be my native guide, when people think I'm Australian.

Originally Posted by Katkeeper

UT does have a wonderful gift for writing. I have some of his early efforts.

I'm sure you're proud of him. He merits it.

[Undertoad]

Somebody had a camera running during the Friday night quad toms drumming with the bagpipers. Of course it captured almost nothing in the dark. And this is not exactly what it sounded like either; it's really hard to capture the essence of it, because the sounds are coming from everywhere and all the camera has is a little mono mic. Just imagine this scene but like 20 times more intense. The video uploader has mislabeled it Thursday, but I saw both their camera and the camera they're filming. I was like 10 feet away from this.