HalfSquare at the Rothbury Festival

by Chris Savage
August 15, 2008

Over the Fourth of July weekend this year, Michigan hosted the latest in music festivals, the Rothbury Festival. Rothbury, Michigan is a tiny little village near Lake Michigan. When 42,000 hippies descended on them for four days this summer, I suspect they were a little bit nervous. As, I must say, were my wife and I. It's one thing to enjoy bands like Primus or Thievery Corporation or John Mayer or Dave Matthews Band in the privacy of your own home or car. But spending four days as HalfSquares partying with tens of thousands of kids young enough to be your own children is a bit intimidating.

We were very pleasantly surprised.

Note: All images can be seen larger by clicking on them. Hover your cursor over them for a description. All photos by Anne Savage/Revolutionary Views and are copyrighted (2008). For high quality, interactive 360-degree panoramic images from the Rothbury Festival complete with actual music from the event and more photos, go to Anne's Rothbury Page HERE.

Getting Set Up/Forming a Tribe
The Rothbury Festival was held at a horse ranch called the Double JJ (yes, there are two "J"s so I guess it's actually the JJJJ Ranch.) It featured over 70 bands and the organizers were attempting to make it the most eco-friendly, carbon-neutral, low environmental-impact festival anyone had ever organized. In addition to the concerts, there were talks and discussion roundtables being held and a variety of groups had set up shop to promote renewable energy, conservation, alternative fuels and a whole host of other "green" topics.

As we neared the exit off the highway on Thursday afternoon, I was a bit alarmed by the lack of traffic. This was billed as a BIG event and, while the gates had been open for several hours, I really expected the traffic to be backed up on the highway. After a brief snafu trying to find the right entrance that took us into a tiny dirt parking lot behind an IGA (hey, I was just following the signs...), we pulled up to the gates with literally no cars in front of us. The two young stoners at the gate asked us if we had any drugs or fireworks or weaponry, wrote a cryptic mark on our windshield and then helped us put on two very hip wristbands, our ticket into the venue for the weekend.

Pulling into the 40 acre parking lot that would be our home for the next few days, we quickly realized why there was no traffic coming in: everybody else was already there! Somehow over 25,000 people had already arrived and set up their camps. We made our way through the field and finally found an empty spot to set up our gear. Torrential rains the night before had parts of the field very muddy and as I watched cars getting stuck, I confess I started to have visions of Woodstock play through my head. If we got any rain at all over the next four days, we were going to be seriously stuck in a muddy morass.

We got out of the car, opened beers and greeted a 30-something woman who was our neighbor. Jen expressed her relief that she wasn't the only "kid" in the area since she was camping alone. Within minutes, Chris, a 20-something guy from the Chicago area pulled up and emerged from his car with a beer. It turned out that, by some coincidence, he and Jen live a few miles from each other. The four of us quickly bonded and became a sort of tribe. Talking to other people at the Festival over the next few days, I learned that the same thing was happening everywhere, small groups of people from different places, backgrounds and age groups were forming little mini-communities, people to eat with, hang out with, party with and, of course, listen to live music with.

We hung out for awhile, setting up our tents and screen house, chatting and getting to know each other. A trip to the Port-a-Johns revealed a somewhat disturbing problem: after only half a day, they were nearly full to the tops. If this was going to be the state of the toilets during the Festival, things were going to get very icky very quickly.

The Venue
The music on Thursday started at 6:30 p.m. so we made our way to concert venues a bit early. It was a good thing we did. Our tents turned out to be a 30-minute walk from the entrance. But what a walk it was. The people-watching was magnificent! People from all walks of life were at Rothbury. Some wore flamboyant clothes or costumes and I saw some of the most funny and thought-provoking t-shirts I've ever seen. Some people had their faces or bodies painted. Campsites were decorated with all kinds of fun, interesting and even provocative flags, banners, tapestries and more. Everywhere people, in true entrepreneurial spirit, were selling things. Bloody Marys. Drugs. Burritos. T-shirts. Posters. Drugs. Jewelry. Drug paraphernalia. Drugs.

The common thing with everyone I saw was that they were smiling.

Arriving at the entrance, we finished off our beers and went in. Just inside was a large field where there were large pieces of artwork. One was a giant construction of bamboo poles. Another was what looked like an elevated merry-go-round with monkeys hanging from it. This one, it turned out, got far more interesting after dark. And all around various corporate sponsors had set up areas to promote their products, most of them giving something away to get your attention.

Walking around the venue, one thing became immediately apparent: the organizers of Rothbury were taking the concepts of conservation and low carbon footprint very seriously. All around were garbage stations and each one had three barrels. One was for recyclable materials like paper and glass and aluminum. Another was for compostable materials and this included every plastic beer/soda cup and every plastic eating utensil sold at the Festival. All plastic cups and utensils were made from corn-based plastics and are completely compostable. The last barrel was for "landfill". Amazingly, this barrel was nearly always the least full.

There were five stages at Rothbury. The first one we encountered was a small one with several partial geodesic domes covering the dance/viewing area. This was The Tripolee Domes. Next was The Ranch Area, a larger stage with room for even more people. After a beautiful stroll through a pine plantation called "Sherwood Forest", we came to the Sherwood Forest Stage which was bigger yet. Finally came the "main stage", called The Odeum, where the main headliners would appear. Sherwood Forest was truly a treat for the eyes. The Rothbury people had gone all out decorating the forest. There were giant, Day-Glow colored mobiles hanging over the paths and trees were decorated with ribbons and glitter paper and other eye-catching materials. A company selling hammocks had set up dozens of hammocks for people to catch a little relaxation time in. Small domes were here and there and always had groups of people in them, eating, chatting, sleeping and getting high. Somewhere in the back was a fifth stage, small and hidden, called the Wagon Wheel. All around were turning lights, black-light spotlights and a general groovy vibe. "Like an acid trip without the acid," I heard one person say and it was, especially after dark.

The Odeum stage was quite a treat. The field in front of it could hold, if necessary, all 42,000 visitors. There were two huge, high-resolution video screens, one on each side of the stage and videographers shot the show from a variety of vantage points including a camera on a large boom which could swing out in front of the stage as well as swiveling around to capture images from the crowd. A top-notch production team behind the scenes edited it all together in a very professional fashion. This, combined with a surprisingly excellent sound system, made getting right next to the stage unnecessary. You could see the band and hear the music perfectly from anywhere in the field.

The First Night
The first night, we sampled music from Zappa Plays Zappa, Perpetual Groove, and the Disco Biscuits. Jen, a Deadhead and Phish fan at heart, headed over to see the Mickey Hart Band, while Chris went off in search of adventure. Zappa Plays Zappa is Frank Zappa's son, Dweezil, playing his father's music. Like his father, he is a consummate guitar player and has surrounded himself with impeccable musicians. I was not disappointed. Perpetual Groove and the Disco Biscuits pumped out techno jams and the only people not dancing must have been unconscious. Both bands play infectious dance music and had us on our feet.

One happy discovery was that the food and drink concessions were being handled well. The food was good with lots of choices that were accommodating to our vegetarian diet. They even sold good beer! The food and drink weren't inexpensive but they weren't usurious either.

It was nearly 2:00 a.m. when we began the long trek back to our tents along with a few thousand new friends. As we passed by the Tripolee Domes on our way out, a young deejay named DJ Momotaro was jamming out, creating his own beat-driven music by combining samples from different songs using multiple cd-players and laptops. All the while flashing lights and a laser light show illuminated the screen behind him. This kind of house music was new to me and I was very impressed by the amount of talent displayed there. And we danced.

Walking by the monkey sculpture as we neared the exits, we were stopped in our tracks. What had been an odd, stationary piece of art was now a whirling, spinning, grooving machine. At the base of the sculpture was a small cage in which a deejay was playing tunes. Around this cage were a number of drums and pads and the audience was encouraged to add their beats to the music. And above them spun the monkeys on the carousel. Strobe lights were trained on the monkeys and, as they started to spin, they went backwards. But after they reached a certain speed, a strange strobe effect kicked in, much like a children's flipbook, and something entirely different appeared. The backwards-spinning monkeys began to go forward, swinging from loop to loop. Meanwhile, a bright green snake with an apple in its mouth slithered down the monkey's arm and into its mouth. The effect was astonishing, mesmerizing and, frankly, a bit creepy. After a short time, the spinning monkeys would gradually slow to a stop and the effect would disappear. YouTube videos of this installation can be found HERE and HERE.

When we returned to our camp we were pleased to discover that the Port-a-Johns had been cleaned in our absence. Yay! The party was in full swing, even at this late (early?) hour but it had been a fun-filled yet exhausting day and we were soon asleep in our tent, oblivious to the merrymaking around us. It had been a day of very pleasant surprises and we went to sleep, tired out from hours of dancing and looking forward to three more full days of fun.

Day Two - "Four Hours..." Snooooooop! And More
We slept as late as the hot sun beating on our tent allowed before getting up and making coffee, shaking off the grogginess of camping, and marveling at how sore we were from all the dancing. Since our arrival, more people had joined our tent city and now the field was full to the brim. My wife and I made a trip to the long row of Port-a-Johns, hoping to get to them before they got truly awful in the hot sun of the afternoon. On our slow meander through the rows of cars and tents, we came upon a young couple walking together, scanning the rows intently.

"I know it's around here somewhere," the young woman said. "I just went to the bathroom and I know I didn't go that far away..."

A few moments later she pointed excitedly.

"Ah! There it is!" the girl exclaimed. "I knew it was around here somewhere."

"Ten minutes?" the young man asked. "It took you ten minutes to find your tent? I've been looking for four hours."

He turned to us, shaking his head, and then looked directly into our eyes. In the most earnest and pathetic voice you could imagine, he repeated, "Four hours."

Around noon we headed back to concert area, my wife lugging an assortment of camera equipment. She had been granted a press pass that allowed her to photograph each band right in front of the stage for the first three songs. On our way over to the entrance, we caught a glimpse of Four Hour Man riding by in a truck. We watched the truck pull into a spot near the Port-a-Johns. He had been only 30 feet from his tent when we saw him earlier in the morning.

This day, the Fourth of July, was full of an amazing array of different kinds of music. R&B from The Dynamites Featuring Charles Walker. Reggae from the Wailers, Bob Marley's former band. Gansta rap from Snoop Dogg. Intelligent rock from Modest Mouse. Progressive bluegrass from the Yonder Mountain String Band featuring Jon Fishman. Two sets of pure jam band grooves from Widespread Panic and, my most anticipated event: groovy world beats from Thievery Corporation.

Snoop Dogg was an odd choice for this festival. He was the only rap artist and, given the plethora of hippies and Deadheads, you would have thought his show would have been sparsely attended. You would have been wrong. A crowd began forming nearly an hour before his show. The cameramen turned their cameras on crowd, focusing mainly on attractive young women, many of them on the shoulders of their boyfriends and husbands. Soon they began to lift their tops to get the attention of the cameras and their bare breasts were shown in their full glory on the 20-foot tall video screens accompanied, of course, by cheers, wolf whistles and applause.

On the stage were two souped-up, silver-plated bicycles and a six-foot tall inflatable bong. Snoop entered the stage, riding slowly out on a snazzy chopper-like tricycle. Dropping F-bombs with wild abandon and pausing periodically to smoke weed on stage, he spent the next hour entertaining the huge audience in the campy way he is so good at. He occasionally mentioned how happy he was to be in East Lansing, despite the fact that his East Lansing show wouldn't actually occur until the following week. I'm guessing Snoop's weed is a special blend...

Widespread Panic was a real treat for me. Although I have heard their music from time to time, I was not altogether familiar with them. There's good reason for this. Despite being one of the hottest live acts on the circuit, they have achieved relatively little commercial success or radio play. Their two sets were remarkable and it was obvious that many of the people at the Festival were there to see them. Their songs often lasted 15 or 20 minutes and were mostly instrumental jams and solos.

One of the highlights of their concert was the young violin player, Ann Marie Calhoun. She brought a level of intensity and energy that I hadn't expected. Trading licks with the guitar players, she tossed her long black hair and smiled widely as she rocked the house.

But as a twenty-something member of the band, Ann Marie was an anomaly. When the band walked out on stage, I turned to Chris (who we had now nicknamed "Sport" due to his love of frisbee and softball-throwing) and said, "these dudes are a bunch of geezers!" Okay, geezers is a stretch but the members of Widespread Panic were all clearly over 40. Suddenly I felt just a bit more comfortable as a HalfSquare at Rothbury.

Since it was Independence Day, toward the end of Widespread Panic's set, a most-excellent fireworks display was ignited behind the stage. Much cheering and clapping and ooos/aaaahs/oooohs ensued.

The night finished with Thievery Corporation. This was a bit of a dilemma for me because their set overlapped with Primus on another stage. Having already seen Primus and knowing that Thievery Corporation rarely tours, the choice was easy. We were not let down. They play a wide variety of different genres of music. Reggae. Lounge. World beats. Groove. Techno. Middle Eastern. Indian. With each song, a different singer took the stage with the band. The guitar player often swapped his ax for a sitar, sitting on a low platform to play. All around us, the crowd was dancing and singing. For the remainder of the weekend, there was a great deal of talk about this particular show and many Thievery Corporation converts were made, to be sure.

Once again, it was past 2 a.m. when we finally began the long trek back to our site. On our way out, the Tripolee Domes caught our attention again as we watched a member of the Mass Ensemble play the Earth Harp. The Earth Harp is basically a guitar or violin or harp on a huge scale. The musician stands between two sets of wires that are anchored behind him or her and plays them like a harp. The effect was hypnotic and very entertaining.

It had been a grand Fourth of July and another day at Rothbury with tens of thousands of new friends; friends of all ages and backgrounds and not once did these two HalfSquares feel out of place or "old". And, once again, a peaceful day with not a single fight, altercation, or argument. An amazing achievement indeed.

Day Three - Gettin' In To The Groove
The late nights were beginning to add up so we slept late, a feat accomplished by arranging shade for our tent the night before. Once we made it into the venue, we spent the day wandering around, taking in the sights and sounds and smells of Rothbury and enjoying yet another amazing cornucopia of musical styles. We rocked out with Gomez and The Black Keys. We grooved to Medeski, Martin and Wood. We jammed with Michael Franti & Spearhead and, at the end of the night, we joined 40,000+ people at the Odeum Stage for a superb performance by the Dave Matthews Band.

The Dave Matthews Band show was the only performance where there were no other acts playing at the same time which made for a tremendous crowd. The night was on the cool side of warm, the stars were out with a large, bright moon. As with nearly all the shows, beach balls were being volleyed around everywhere around us. And, once it became dark, handfuls of colorful glow sticks were flying through the air (eco-friendly???) We arrived early and spent an hour or two threading a frisbee through the crowd, managing to avoid any serious plastic disc-head collisions. All around us were colors and sights to treat the eyes. Flamboyantly-dressed girls with lit-up hula hoops doing amazing routines (and, of course, selling the hula hoops)...a man dressed as the pope...bare-breasted girls with painted-on "shirts"...amusing t-shirts...comical hats. A veritable tie-dyed quilt of happy, joyous people.

As the sun set, the Dave Matthews Band came out and put on a fabulous show. Again the high-res video screens allowed everyone in the crowd to see the show up close and the sound was perfect. Pot smoke filled the air as the gigantic throng of revelers danced under the bright moonlight. Dave Matthews is a crowd-pleaser and this crowd was pleased.

A long day in the hot sun had us calling it a day before midnight and we threaded our way back through the festival grounds. As usual, Sherwood Forest was a black-lighted riot of psychedelic color. People cuddled or slept under the pine trees and in hammocks, worn out from their adventure. And everywhere: smiles.

Day Four - The Final Events
The previous three days had been an amazing ride and a phenomenal adventure but it wasn't over yet. Rather than being a slow glide in to the finish, Sunday, our last day at Rothbury, had plenty of fun left in store for us.

Starting just after lunch, the day's events started with the cool reggae sounds of Steel Pulse. However, I missed that show, choosing instead to get up front at the Ranch Area stage for one of my favorite artists, Brett Dennen. Dennen is a young man, in his twenties (honestly, do they all have to be in their twenties???), but he has the voice and heart of a very old soul. The son of hippy parents, he is using his talents to sing about the world around him in a way that hearkens back to the folk singers of the 60s and 70s. In addition, wherever he appears, he supports local charities and causes, giving them attention they might not otherwise receive. He put on a very enjoyable show and even introduced some new songs from a forthcoming album.

After Brett Dennen, we caught a bit of Taj Mahal, one of the great folk acts in the past 50 years and the only Rothbury artist who also appeared at Woodstock. We left that show early in order to catch the acoustic guitar wonderfulness of Rodrigo y Gabriela. These two guitar virtuosos weave intricate musical patterns with their instruments with pure Spanish flavor. The video mixing crew clearly had fun with this show, using unusual filtering effects to transform their rather staid stage presence into something far more visually interesting.

Following this, we caught some of Trey Anastasio's show. Trey and two other former Phish members, Mike Gordon and Jon Fishman, represented three-quarters of the now-defunct Phish quartet at Rothbury and a reunion of sorts occurred during Gordon's set. Their appearance at this festival had the jam band grapevine abuzz with rumors of a Phish reunion. It is clear that, after the Grateful Dead, Phish has had one of the most lasting impacts on jam band enthusiasts in the USA.

As evening approached and the end of the festival neared, we settled in to watch John Mayer's set. Although he's a pop music favorite, Mayer has his roots in the blues and we were hopeful he would show us his stuff in this regard. Fortunately, in addition to his radio hits, he played a good amount of his blues material, giving everyone in the audience something to enjoy.

Things were visibly beginning to settle down at this point and a mellow vibe infused the festival grounds. After a shorter-than advertised set from Mayer, we gathered our things and headed to the Odeum stage for the final show of the night and of the Rothbury Festival, Phil Lesh and Friends.

Phil Lesh, the former bass player for the Grateful Dead, was a great choice for the final show. His music is both upbeat and mellow in true jam band style. He and his "friends" played a variety of Dead favorites and kept the crowd on their feet and dancing the entire time. Perhaps the highlight of this show was his guitar player, Jackie Greene. Greene, yet another twenty-something prodigy, has a respectable solo career of his own going right now. As one of the "friends" he both plays the guitar and sings and his talent is considerable. The entire group was a joy to watch and they seemed to be having as much fun as the audience.

The Final Hours
As the last notes of Phil Lesh and Friends' final song echoed out into the night, I think all of the tens of thousands of people at the Rothbury Festival knew something special had taken place in this tiny village in Michigan. It was bittersweet to slowly make our way back to our campsite one last time. Throughout the weekend I had heard countless festival devotees talking about how much better this event was than the other big events that take place each summer. The weather was nearly perfect. The venue was perfect for a multi-stage festival. The concessions were perfectly managed and staffed with friendly, helpful men and women. The stage set-ups were most excellent with good viewing and awesome sound. The grounds were kept clean and safe. Nearly every aspect of the entire event was well thought-out and flawlessly executed.

There were, of course, a few blemishes. For some, the open drug use was probably disconcerting, particularly those with young children with them. While the Port-a-Johns were mostly kept usable, they were far from pleasant and nearly always devoid of toilet paper. The camping area had some fairly severe mud holes and, had the weather been rainy, things would have been far more unpleasant. I was also disappointed by how much trash campers left behind when they left. Considering the enormous effort that had been taken to make this a low environmental impact event, I expected people to do more to do their part and take their garbage home with them.

But, overall, the positives far outweighed the negatives. Now, over a month later, the thing that really stands out in my mind is the peacefulness of whole thing. In four days, I never encountered a single unpleasant moment with another Rothburyite. Even the police who were there in large numbers were friendly and generally turned their heads to the open use of marijuana. They were really given very little reason to be strict since everyone was so well-behaved. The evening of the last day I spoke with a Rothbury employee. We talked about how mellow the crowd had been all weekend and she was effusive. "The local and state cops are FREAKED!" she said. I asked her why. "Because they're bored!," she answered. "The expected a LOT more problems but they've only arrested 17 people all weekend and that was mostly for big time drug dealing."

She was right. Outside of excessive and open drug sales (and a group of people selling nitrous oxide-filled balloons), the police simply kept an eye on things and left people alone. There were very few overly-drunk people and fighting was simply not seen, not even arguments between spouses or couples! I've been to concerts at far smaller venues where I saw more violence and hostility in a few short hours than I saw in four days at Rothbury with 42,000 people in one place. There were two deaths (separate and unrelated) during the weekend and, although the final cause of death hasn't yet been established for either of them, they will likely turn out to be drug use-related since no evidence of foul play was found. Even skeptical local people from the Rothbury area have expressed their surprise and relief at how well everything went.

Most HalfSquares came of age shortly after the "peace and love" days of the late 60s and early 70s. Rock festivals like Woodstock and Monterey came slightly before our time and much of the afterglow of the Summer of Love had faded away by the time we became young adults. As music festivals began to experience a revival in the late 90s with Lollapalooza, Bonaroo and others, the crowds were once again young adults, somehow just missing us. So for many of HalfSquares, it might be easy to become a bit cynical about people and society. Without events like these festivals, we find scant evidence that anything like the unity many young people felt at one time has survived.

But the Rothbury Festival showed me that peace and love and happiness haven't vanished. For four blissful, exciting days, we were able to experience the kind of fellowship with others that we hear about whenever Woodstock is brought up. If tens of thousands of people from all walks of life and of all ages can come together and share a space without problems or troubles, there is hope for our country and our world yet. Nick Lowe once asked "What's So Funny 'Bout Peace, Love and Understandin'?" Rothbury answered that question with a resounding NOTHING! But it did show that it can be a whole lotta fun.

Sport and Chris and few thousand new friends

Peace, brothers and sisters.