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REPORTING LIVE: CAMP BISCO X DAY IIIPosted on July 14, 2011 by LAUREN METTER Email
Bassnectar is one of a slew of raging acts on the last day of Camp Bisco X.WOMP WOMP.
It’s 6 a.m. on Sunday, the last day of Camp Bisco, the sun is up, and
I’m …. still … DANCING.Luckily so is Supersillyus in front of meand all our friends from Allston as herepresents by destroying the “otherguy” DJ. It’s like Rob is taking us on athree-minute psychedelic field tripthrough his laptop. His music would beperfect played in the backgroundduring a tour of the constellations, untilRob speeds it up and starts throw ing ininsane mad-Scientist cackles, and likeDr. Frankenstein, creates life—now thewhole planetarium is dancing.
The kid dancing next to me suddenlysprings in front of me holding a bag ofpowder. He has glow sticks attached tohim in the most peculiar places, andtheir fading glow is like a shot ofreality, signaling that Bisco soon has toend.
He motions for me to take off one sideof my headphones, and Supersillyus is
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replaced w ith a shocking silence,because we’re at the Silent Discostage. The party continues w ithoutdisturbing our fellow zonked outcampers, and when you take yourheadphones off all you see is a bunchof people dancing crazily in the morningsilence, and outbursts like “YEAH!”“Fuck. Yeah. Super. Sillyus.” “dooo-doo-do-doo,” or “hahahaha AHHHHHH.”These are the troopers who want tosavor Camp Bisco until the last possiblesecond.
“Want some of this?” he asks, holdingthe bag up to me.
He’s got to be kidding me.
“Dude, are youcrazy?! I’m not
trying to lose mymind at 6 a.m. in the morning after being
awake, dancing, and losing my mind all dayfor three days straight. Jesus.”
Barely alive, my eyes drooping, my body aching, though feeling totally alive w ith contentexhaustion, my mind wanders back through the events of the day, and I can’t believe so muchhappened in 24 hours.
.I woke on Saturday morning in the fetal position on the passenger seat of my Attorney’s car,peeping out from the only opening of the thick sleeping bag wrapped around me. The crunchof a half-eaten family-sized bag of pretzels startles me, so I push open the door and step mymud-encrusted foot into the dewy grass—then trip—over my flow ing skirt. And fall into a heapin the mud.
Where am I? How did I get here? I scratch my head and my hair is turning into dreads.There’s a business card on the passenger seat that reads: KeepAlbanyBoring.com. Hmm… it’sall coming back to me.
“DIMITRI!” I scream. No answer.
DIMITRI!!!! I’m grow ing exasperated. He could be buried up to his neck in mud by now. He leftme last night after I refused to leave the incubated car. He could’ve been dosed and lostforever. Or worse yet…
the hippies couldhave taken him!
Then I realize I should probably justcheck the tent. He’s passed out hard;if I were a passerby I’d think he wasdead.
“Yo we ‘gotta move, let’s go it’s 6:30a.m. we have to go to Schenectady tothat Dunkin Donuts to get w i-fi!”
“As your Attorney I advise you to goback to sleep…” he mutters w ithoutmoving, looking up at me like a red-
eyed monster who can barely lift his eyelids.
I grab his arm and shove him into the passenger seat of my car.
Turns out this girl we ran into last night who I asked to borrow a pen writes for the blog onthat business card, and said she’s one of the only people who’s been able to have livecoverage of the festival, since there’s no Internet in this dimension. She also told me if I drive20 minutes away from the campsite there are Dunkin Donuts and Starbucks everywhere w ithfree w i-fi. At least there are no Tim Hortons, I think fleetingly….
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The campgrounds are eerily silent as my tires spin violently until they catch and we skate outof Camp Bisco. Not even my favorite security guard, who I lovingly referred to the wholeweekend only as “Phish” is awake (we had an excited conversation about SuperBall IX after Itold him I’ve seen them about 10 times). It feels like Dimitri and I are the only people alive onthe planet until I spot a guy w ith a white tee, jeans, and a dark five o-clock shadow who lookskind of like an Italian James Dean standing at the exit gate, looking lost.
Meet Rodrigo.“Gotta catch a flight back to Cali today. I came to Camp Bisco for the day but my friends got alittle too crazy for me—well REALLY crazy—so I just gotta get out of here…Where are yougoing?”
I ask him what they’re doing that’s so crazy and he tries to articulate, but then says it’simpossible to explain.
Rodrigo is now in the back of my car talking a mile a minute. He’s an actor in California and hasbeen in commercials and 90210. He grew up in Schenectady, the next town over, and iscrashing w ith his parents while taking a day trip to Camp Bisco. He said that because thefestival is sold out, people have been venturing through the surrounding woods and jumpingover fences to get in. No one w ill be stopped, there’s about 200 more people than capacity,and that’s just a rough estimate, Rodrigo says.
“I hope my momdoesn’t think I
look spun out orsomething,” he
laughs and drawsus a terrible mapfrom his house
(buried in asuburban maze)
to Dunkin Donuts.After making at least five wrong turns,backtracking, and questioningourselves to the point where we think
we’ve been going in circles, I squelch into Starbuck’s and post our Day 1 coverage onDigBoston.com
We’re almost out of gas until we find twenty bucks that Rodrigo snuck under my emergencybreak for the ride (“If you’re ever in LA, you guys have a place to stay”), and use it to refueland head back to the festival.
As we walk past a million shoes that were abandoned in the mud last night and have becomepart of the ground today, we hear the Disco Biscuits playing yet again at 2 p.m.
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They ended the set w ith “Air Song” leading into “World is Spinning,” both two of my favoriteBisco anthems.
Find more The Disco Biscuits
songs at Myspace Music
Though the Disco Biscuits are smart guys and talented musicians, and Jon Gutw illig was sonice when we talked about how we’re both from small towns in PA and how he went to Pennlike my brother, it’s a bit oppressive that they play so many times at their own festival.
Luckily Lettuce comes on at 3:15 and theygot the funk.
A three-man brass section, manningtwo saxophones and a trumpet, dancebetween solos as the coolest long-haired bassist, Erick “E.D.” Coomes,wearing a cap that says “RAGE!”(coincidentally the name of Lettuce’sthird album) helps the drummer’s(Adam Deitch) cow bell maneuverthrough the changes of tempos andperfectly timed buildups as we allbreak it down like James Brown w ithLettuce.
Skillful guitarist Eric Krasno (also inSoulive), who looks like a member ofthe Blues Bros., shreds awesomebluesy solos as he jams w ith thelaughing, Fedora’d Neal Evans, one ofthe greatest keyboard players on theplanet and probably the one who’shaving the most fun grooving as heplays.
These guys are seriously talentedmusicians, which makes sense whenyou find out that they all went to theBerklee School of Music.
“We’re going to have a dance party,alright?” Krasno announces. “We’re Lettuce,
we love you!”
Find more artists like LETTUCE
Find more artists like LETTUCE
at Myspace Music
Looking back into the crowd, a huge sea of kids shake their hips to the sound of shakingMaracas. A giant bubble w ith a Bisco Camper inside is bouncing around over the crowd. I can’tstop laughing because dancing to Lettuce is so much fun.
We heard from people in the VIP section that somewhere someone is giving out these brightblue, reflective Police sunglasses and walk up and down Shakedown street until we find thestand. I ask if I can have a pair, but to my dismay, the girl [barely] wearing a skin-tight PoliceOfficer uniform tells me they’re $150.
“What! I thought they were free, Jesus Christ,” I say disappointedly.
My attorney and I run back stage and see more of the Police girls at a booth in the artistlounge. They give us two pairs of the coolest aviators I’ve ever seen. NICE.
Outside the tent we run into a littlehula-hooping Hawiian gypsy dancerwhose belly button peeks out frombetween her flowy skirt andshimmering top as the a string ofbells around her shoulder jinglesw ith her every move. Giggling, shetells us how she has no home, andis follow ing the Easy Star All-Starson tour. A couple years ago, theyinvited her to come dance on stageduring one of their shows, andloved her so much that she becamea part of their touring family.
“I wasn’t going to be able to makeit to Camp Bisco, but the Easy Starsgave me gas money, so now I’mhere!” she says, her eyes sparkling.Talk about feeling the love.
On our way back out, Phish isbummed. He w ishes he could comewith us to dance to “I should havetaken acid w ith you,” which NeonIndian is now playing on Main StageB.
“Hey, hey, keep that chin up. Whojust got to go to the Phish festival?” I ask him as if I’m consoling a five year old.
“I did,” he says, reluctantly breaking into ahuge grin. “…and it was AWE-SOME.”
He says he just w ishes he didn’t have to work security for the whole festival and could see the
He says he just w ishes he didn’t have to work security for the whole festival and could see thebands, but I say, hey, what better job than to get to listen to great music all day long, even ifyou can’t be in the crowd.
“Yeah, I guess I just really want a pairof those blue police sunglasses,” hesays out of nowhere. “I keep askingwhere to get them, but nobody w ill tellme! I want them so badly!”
My Attorney takes his off and handsthem to Phish.
“Wait, REALLY? Wow, thank you SOMUCH,” Phish says, putting the glasseson and laughing happily.
“You know what, you know what—youguys goin’ to the Vibes?” he asks us and we nod. “Who do you most want to see?” he says,looking at me. “Pick anyone, any one artist and I w ill get you backstage to meet them.”
“Keller W illiams,” I say, tears welling up in my eyes because if I got to talk to Keller about hismusic, I don’t know, I’d be overwhelmed w ith joy.
This emotional moment for me is shatteredby the sound of Wiz Khalifa strutting onto
Main Stage A, looking stupid fly in his fittedand wife beater, his tattoo sleeves
glistening in the hot sun.
“Anybody that’s smokin’ weed out theremake some noise,” the pot-obsessed Wiz
says.Between literally every song he says: “Anybody who’s got rolling papers out there, make somenoise!” This is hardly a ploy to promote his new album; I think Wiz just loves smoking weed.
The fact that he references herbageevery other minute, rather thanannoying me, makes me laugh all theharder. Who is this ridiculous guy andwhy is his album Kush & Orange Juice(2010) so damn good? And why is“Black and Yellow” so goddamncatchy? “I HATE this song, it’s on everysecond on the radio,” I yell to myAttorney, then realize I’m dancing andsinging along. Shit.
“I didn’t hear a word you just said!”Dimitri shouts over the gangsta bass
as Khalifa moves into “Mesmerized”and I mimic driving my car “like a G,”while my Attorney grabs his crotch andwe dance ghetto-style through thecrowd.
While I appreciate the thoughtful lyricsof “Fly Solo,” released in March on hislatest album, appropriately calledRolling Papers, (it hurts when it don’tlast / no easy way saying bye / soI’mma spread my w ings and head forthe sky / and I fly solo)
I find it hard to take Wiz seriously when played in juxtaposition w ith the title track off of hisFebruary release Cabin Fever (Lot of niggas fake but me Im these hoes’ faith / Feed her alcoholand leave that bitch w ith no taste / … Yeaaaaahhhhh bitch.) Hmm…
29. WIZ KHALIFA -- CABIN FEVER by bhrama
When Wiz finally wraps it up, I’m feeling kind of spacey and burnt out—which makes Deathfrom Above 1979 scary as hell when they take the stage and the crowd starts forming into asw irling mosh pit of doom, led by what looks to me like a man from the Jetsons in an all whitespace-suit on drums and his partner rocking out w ith long black hair matching his entirely blackattire.
Fleeing towards the Grooveshark tent, I keep checking the sky to make sure there’s no sign ofsomething coming to kill me from above.
It seems that most others feel the same and can’t handle that much intensity w ith suchjumbled heads, which leads us all to the brilliant UK DJ duo Nero’s set. The Grooveshark tent isso packed that people are literally spilling out onto the grass outside and there’s a solid wallof bodies leaving no points of entrance.
“I can’t go in there.” “I’m going in.”My Attorney and I say at exactly the same time. I snake my way through sweaty, shirtlessboys and barely-clad girls to the very middle of the dance floor for one of the nastiest sets andcraziest dance parties I’ve ever been a part of. I instantly make friends w ith all the guysaround me as Dan Stephens of Nero blows our faces off.
Dan Stephens and Joe Ray dropped the bass harder than it seems realistically possible in2010, smashing into the dubstep scene w ith their album Innocence (2010), which earned themthe title “Best Dubstep Act.” This year, they dropped Welcome to Reality (2011), w ith the epictrack “Me and You” making BBC Radio 1’s A List. The duo is now in high demand, and CampBisco X managed to supply us w ith a healthy dose of good dub.
N.E.R.D & Daft Punk -- Hypnotize You (Nero Remix) by MistaDubstep
Stephens gives us “Guilt” (“you keep on talking but you make no sense at all” I scream alongto the kid next to me, who has been blubbering something about how great NERO is andtrying and failing to stealthily dance w ith me from behind w ithout me noticing), the incrediblyawesome remix of N.E.R.D. and Daft Punk’s “Hypnotize You,” (keep in mind I’m losing my shit,waving my hands in the air, while rocking my hips to the bass this whole time, totallytransfixed on the insane lights)—oh Jesus, here, the Youtube video I shot sums it all up a bitbetter, w ith one tiny little buildup:
Look out, here comes the Rage-a-saurusRex.
Apparently according to my attorney I came out of the tent after Nero and bounced up to ourgravel hill meeting spot looking totally crazed. I jerked my phone up and down above my headtriumphantly, then grabbed both of my attorney’s shoulders and shook him like an escapeefrom the insane asylum.
“NERO KILLED IT!!!!” I roared, barely ableto speak. “I C-C-CAPTURED THE MOST EPIC
to speak. “I C-C-CAPTURED THE MOST EPICMOMENT.”
Some kid w ith bug-eyes runs into me and knocks me over. There is a massive group ofoverjoyed, bug-eyed, sweaty fiends advancing upon us, making their way to the spicket tofight over water and stay alive.
As the light fades, we make a quick stop back at our car to steal some of Mike Nusbaum’s Clifbars (we had tried to barter w ith Canadian money left over from our adventures in Toronto,
but it didn’t work out). I grab Mike’s hoodiesince it is getting cold, and as we make ourway back to the camp site this weirdgreen-glow ing-bat-moth-thing trips us thehell out as a couple across the dirt pathstops and stares as well.
“WHAT IS THATTHING!!!!!!”
We cannot stop laughing; it looks like ananimated digitized moth-butterfly andjumps and flutters around w ith theweirdest movements. Maybe a black mothsuper rainbow? I don’t know how long westared at it. (Found out later it’s known as
the Luna Moth.)
Suddenly a lone tiger passes by us,coming from the direction of our owncampsite. He then stops and turnsaround, “Hey guys!” Holy shit, we’verun into Mike Nusbaum, who has beenmissing the whole day.
I have now been dancing straight fornearly three days, but the Bassnectarshow still excites me. Every time I’veseen him he blows my face off w ith thatbass, and I’m either wearing someneon glow ing outfit or some girl hasdumped sparkles all over me in thebathroom before the show. It feels likethe bass shakes the whole Earthduring his set at Bisco.
WOMP WOMP. DOO-doo-doo-DOO-doo-doo.DOO-doo-doo. Doo. BASS HEAD.
Bassnectar -- Bass Head by buggaet
It amazes me that when Lorin Ashton gets up there I am so far back in the monstrous crowdafter coming from Nero that I can’t even see the stage and can only hear low-volume music,but everyone in the back is still raging out because we can all still hear the all-encompassingbass. He’s like a Bass God. Bass Nirvana. Bass… nectar.
“I cannot believe how far back you guysgo!” Ashton says at one bass break. “All I
see is little glowing lights and sticks.”I dance my way into the VIP view ing area so I can actually see Ashton work his magic, sw inghis long black hair, and throw himself forwards and backwards.
“If you wanna get w ith me, theres some things you gotta know,” I scream crazily.“I like my beats fast, and my bass down low, BASS BASS DOWN LOW.”
I’m probably dancing too intensely because all the media people look slightly concerned, but Iam having the time of my life. During his remix of Estelle’s “I Can Be a Freak,” I fulfill therequest of the song “he wanna see you get down low,” getting strange sidelong looks fromthe reporter standing next to me as I shake my hips w ith my hands in the air hailingBassnectar as the God of dub and singing “I can be a freak, I can, I can be a freak.” God this isfunny.
After dancing for the entire set, the thousands-deep crowd of happy Bisco campers migrates ina herd towards the Grooveshark tent for Pretty Lights’ long-awaited set. Suddenly I’m freezingcold, so my Attorney (“That was unbelievable!” he exclaims; this was his first time seeingBassnectar) and I take a pit stop at a handmade dress tent because I spot a rack ofbeautifully woven skirts that look as if they were made for goddesses, shriek like a little girl,and refuse to budge until I find the perfect one so I can always remember Camp Bisco X.
The skirt I find is an intricate patchworkof all different patterns of fabric, w ith avibrant array of brilliant shades ofpurple, turquoise, green bright pinkand darker tones of black mixed in.
“IT’S PERFECT!!!”I shout, hugging itto me. “How much
is this??!?!”I excitedly ask the bearded manstanding behind the counter.
“Ah, that one’s one of our best. Allhand-made; that rack is $40.”
My face melts into what must havebeen the most disappointed frown my
Attorney has ever seen, emphasized by the huge smile on my face when I first found the skirt.
“Okay, okay, we’ll get it,” he says and starts fumbling through the remaining wad of bills wehave left.
He says we have $31 left, and even though we can’t remember the last time we’ve eaten andwere about to find food, he says this skirt is worth it.
“I can do it for $31,” the hippie man says, smiling as I jump for joy.
I run up to the counter and victoriously take the beautiful, soft fabric into my hands. Thenproceed to stand behind a rack and put it right on; I have now become a certified 100% hippieflower child. A lady I ran into a couple days after Bisco stopped me on the street and asked mewhere I got that gorgeous skirt, and told me she had one just like it when she went toWoodstock in the 70s.
The Pretty Lights show is everything I expected, w ith awesome jazzy horns and catchyremixes taking us until 4:45 a.m. I’m dancing w ith glow sticks in both hands and swervingthem around my body and in front of the faces of the kids around me as we all dance, slicingthrough the dark w ith glow ing neon trails.
With soulful vocals mixed atop a bass that makes us all get down, Derek Vincent Smith hits usw ith “Finally Moving,” my favorite song off Making Up a Changing Mind: “I Can See it in yourFace,” and two of my favorite of his 2010 Remixes, that of the Steve Miller Band’s “Fly Like anEagle” and Pink Floyd’s “Time.”
Pretty Lights -- I Can See It In Your Face by prettylights
Seeing Smith and Cory Eberhard for the first time live blows me away, and I can totallyunderstand why people who saw them at Bonnaroo said it was one of the best shows, anddanced their way up to Camp Bisco X to see them again.
It is now 4:45 a.m. Supersillyus plays until 6 a.m. and his killer set brings out the sun. 72 hourslater and I’m finally… done… dancing.
“Alright, it’s time to go home,” I say to Dimitri, who of course doesn’t hear me w ith hisheadphones on and eyes glued to the stage. So I grab his shirt and drag him away, downthrough the deserted fields of Camp Bisco, full of an endless expanse of trash, the sign of araging all-night party.
The Bisco Avengers hit the road back to Boston, stopping along the way at a McDonald’s.
Swiss: “I want, like, two bacon egg andcheeses on a croissant! I want… thosefucking tater tot things! and… maybe a
bagel!”
I shake my head wearily. The line at the first McDonald’s rest stop takes about 45 minutesbecause it’s all people from the festival, caked w ith mud and ravenously hungry.
“I haven’t eaten in three days, man,” says the shirtless wook at the ketchup dispenser,carrying what looks like a five-pound bag of cheeseburgers.
“How’d you like the festival?” I ask.
“It was a RAGER, man,” he says, nodding enthusiastically.
As I pump gas the kid across from me, who’s wearing a Grateful Dead medallion, looks up andsmiles. I ask him what his favorite show of the festival was.
“Shpongle, for sure.”
I get back into my car and look up to see a disheveled, dreaded kid in a three-cornered hatand corduroy pants pressing his face against my w indow, which I slow ly roll down.
“Dude someone robbed our camp site, do you have ANY money you can possibly spare forgas.”
“Sure, man,” I say, handing him a five.
When I get home, I am about to take the kind of miraculous shower you only have after threedays at a music festival.
Sunburnt, exhausted past the point of sleep, encased in a shell of dull warmth that signalssevere sunburn, I slow ly push open the door to my empty room in my quiet apartment, andcreep up to the mirror.
My skin is brown, I have featherearrings on and a handmadepatchwork skirt of all different hues.My hair is dreaded, my cheeks brightred, and there is a healthy, earthyshine all around me. My eyes lookperfectly content but slightly droopy,when it hits me:
This is the first time I’ve thought aboutlooking in the mirror for three days.And this is how I w ish everything was.You know when you’ve had a truly
amazing festival experience when w ithout realizing it, you start looking outward: at the peopleplaying music, the lights, the new friends around you dancing to it, and a carnival of errorsthat, when brought together, are correct.
You may miss the turn to your friends’ camp site a couple times and have to back track, butyou know you’ll get there in the end, or run into something awesome along the way.
I may be alone in my room now, but all across the U.S. the 20,000+ other people who sharedthat experience w ith me are united in the epic memory, through different lenses, of course, of
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ABOUT LAUREN METTERLauren Metter is from Allentown, PA. Jokes about Amish peopleand Billy Joel will be greeted with a Lauren Metter Look of Death.View all posts by LAUREN METTER →
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2 Responses to REPORTING LIVE: CAMP BISCO X DAY III
Pingback: BISCOBOM: DEATH FROM ABOVE 1979 | DigBoston
Alexia Santamena says:
July 15, 2011 at 3:33 am
hooping hawaiian gypsy loves digboston!!!
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