Bisco

Wednesday night I met up with Sarah and Kevin in Saratoga Springs and stayed with them in their motel room and got all the SuperBall shows downloaded. We woke up early the next morning and loaded up the car and headed to Camp Bisco. We got in line around 10am, and sat in line until 4 when I drove past Sarah and Kevin and headed to the Volunteer check-in. I got there and stood around just listening, and I realized that there were lots of people waiting for wristbands who hadn't gotten one yet. I waited with them while someone went to find more wristbands, hoping to snag one when they arrived. When they got there I just waited with everyone else and they gave me a wristband without even asking any questions. I then went to try and find a place to park, but no one knew where to send me with my pop up, so I ended up driving around for almost 30 min before I found a place where I could set up. It was real near the stage and less than 100 yards from a flush bathroom and showers. After setting up I called Sarah and Kevin to see where they were, and they were still in line for security. I walked down to the mainstage for Borgore and listened there for a while before The New Deal came on. Here I found out my absolute favorite part of Camp Bisco - there was no security checkpoint into the stage. This allowed us to bring in our own beer and liquor, which is almost NEVER allowed into the stage at festivals. This is the last year The New Deal is touring, and I'm glad I am getting to see them so many times before they break up. They played an amazing set as always, and I really enjoyed it. They sound a lot like the Biscuits did back in the 90s when they still jammed. After The New Deal I headed up to camp to try and find Sarah and Kevin. They had parked their car on the other side of the fest and were walking around. After I finally found them, I drove their car to where I was and helped them set up camp. We then went down to the main stage for the Disco Biscuits. They were fun as always, and played my favorite song, "Home Again". After the show was over we went and walked down Shakedown Street looking at the vendors, and I left them to go see Archnemesis. I had a handle of rum that I got as a ground score and was trying to give away as much as I could at the show, but no one wanted to drink. Only one group of people in the crowd kept drinking it, and the four of us kept taking turns taking shots from the bottle. After Archnemesis was over I went back to the tent and passed out.
Sometime in the night our friend Dylan arrived and came in and he needed a place to crash, so I let him crash in the camper. The next morning we woke up and walked around a bit before heading down to see Papadosio. They put on an awesome, high energy show as always. I tried to keep up the setlits, but the paper I used got soaked in the rain. I remember that the ended with the same song they ended with last year at All Good, but I can't remember the name of it. I think its "The Plug". After that Easy Star All Stars came on and played a few originals before going into Pink Floyd's "Speak to Me/Breathe". This got me excited, then when they played "On the Run" I knew they might be doing the entire Dub Side of the Moon After they played their version of "Time" they went into a cover of Radiohead's "Karma Police". They did a great job on this cover with the female singer doing a good job of sounding like Thom Yorke. After that they went into another original, called "First Light", that the band wrote in tribute of Easy Star. That was followed by another original titled "Paid My Dues" and then they went into covers of the Beatles songs "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band" and "I Get By With a Little Help From My Friends". They did a great job on these covers as well, with the members switching out the job of singing much like the Beatles did back in the day. After that was another Radiohead cover, and possibly my favorite Radiohead song, "Paranoid Android". They remained faithful to the original while adding a bit of dub flavor to it. The last song of their set was their version of "Money" complete with a dub style rap in the middle. During this song the lead guy who I assume is Easy Star took off his hat and let his dreads down. He had some of the coolest dreads I've ever seen, they were perfectly formed and came down past his waist. He looked to be having a good time swinging them around on stage. After Easy Star All-Stars we checked out Black Moth Super Rainbow, but they are a band that is best enjoyed from a CD. They don't translate well into the live setting. We then went back to camp to get ready for SHPONGLE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
After getting everyone together and mixing a few drinks we went down and caught part of Conspirator before Shpongle came on. They opened with "Divine Moments of Truth" and it was amazing how well they can replicate the complexities of the electronic music with actual instruments. I tried keeping a setlist, but right around the time they started playing Raja Ram called down the rain from the heavens. Raja is one of the founding members of Shpongle along with Simon Posford. He has had an aversion to the US for a long time, and this was his first US appearance, and the first appearance of the Shpongle Live Band. Since they were playing fairly early in the day there was still light out, so they had different performance artists dancing on stage. The first was a human slinky that is too hard to describe other than a psychadelic colored human slinky. They also had a contortionist who somehow managed to fit himself into a box that was wayyyy too small for anyone older than 5 to fit in. But he managed to fit in. They also had a hula hooper dancing with them. I can't find a list of the members of the band, but I know Raja Ram played his flute and lended his voice to the songs, Simon was DJing, Ben "Encanti" Cantil was doing live mixing on Ableton, Joe Russo was on Drums, and the guitarist is Pete Callard. Everyone else in the band I hadn't heard of, but they were all impressive. Some songs I remember being played are "Vapour Rumors", "I am You", "Dorset Perception", "No Turn Un-Stoned", "Nebbish Route", "My Head Feels Like a Frisbee", and I believe "Shpongle Falls". The best part of the whole performance was watching Raja Ram. He is THE MAN!! He was having absolutely sooo much fun dancing around onstage and playing with all sorts of cool toys. He threw lots of stuff out to the crowd, and kept the energy up. Halfway through the set they stopped playing and acted like they were done, and then in the middle of bows started the music up again. They really know how to put on an amazingly fun show. After the show was over Simon announced that they would be returning to the US October 28, I think, to NYC for Simon's birthday bash with the entire live band. I plan on being there. You should too.
After that was the Disco Biscuits, and I had become separated from the group, but somehow they found me in the crowd. We listened to them until Ratatat came on, and stayed there for a while. The coolest part about Ratatat was the holograms. They had holograms on either side of the stage that looked like real people and animals. We grew tired of this after a while and headed back to camp to regroup. We then went back for the last Biscuits show of the night and enjoyed it from back on the lawn. We then went to the late night tent to check out MSTRKRFT, but didn't stay there long before going to walk around and people watch. We walked around for a few hours before I had to go back and go to bed. They stayed up to walk around.
Saturday morning I woke up before everyone else and stayed at camp reading Michael Crichton's The Andromeda Strain. I listened to The Disco Biscuits and Lettuce from up there, and Lettuce was great and funky as always. They were all asleep still, so I took a nap and woke up about an hour later with everyone else. Wiz Kalifa was playing, and I didn't really care to see him so I walked around the campsites making family until it was time for the Nadis Warriors. They were amazing as always, and I got to meet some people involved with the band for the first time in person. I helped them pass out flyers for Alex Grey's Art Church, and also ran into a friend from STS9 on New Years and I bought a poster from him. After Nadis was over I went to check out the biscuits and had fun there until Bassnectar. The crowd at Nectar was the biggest I had seen all weekend, shoulder to shoulder all the way back. He threw down an awesome set, with lots of heavy metal remixes. He played some stuff off Mystic Grrove Compilation, which is one of his older albums. After nectar was more Biscuits, and the second set seemed to only have a few songs that were each really long. After the Biscuits I went and met up with Dylan and the crew at Wolfgang Gartner and then went to Emancipator until that was over. D.V.S.* played the mandolin with Emancipator because his violinist was sick. I then went back and went to bed.