Clean hippie reporting from Wak Fest, Thursday

By Chris Tackett

Thursday, June 5, 2008

THURSDAY, 3:20 p.m.

I'm blogging from the Wakarusa Music & Camping Festival and these are my thoughts:

"I'm conservative, but I'm not crazy about it."

Actually, that's not my quote - if you read my blog you'll know I lean to The Left - but I thought of that quote today because I've been asked to live blog from this weekend's Wakarusa Music Festival and I think I should get something out in the open before you read any further.

"I'm a fan of The Jam Band Scene, but I'm not crazy about it."

There. I said it. I hope I don't get beaten with a pillow case full of hacky sacks in my sleep tonight!

No, that would never happen because the Jam Band Scene is all about Peace, Love, and Music, right bro? The threat of getting shived with a glowstick are pretty low. Though, with the reports about the severe weather tonight, I should probably be more worried about a tornado coming and me getting impaled with a tree branch like this poor lady. More on tornados later...

I think a good number of folks heading out to The Festival probably fall into a similar camp as I do. Just for context, I guess I'm what you might call a "clean hippie." I wear sandals and rock a beard. I appreciate stereotypical hippie ideals, live parts of the lifestyle. That said, I don't have to wear tie-die and patchouli to prove it.

Same goes with the music. I really like some of the bands that cater to this scene. Some of the music is right up my alley and makes the ticket each year a no-brainer purchase. Some of the stuff I just can't understand. That's really what makes Wakarusa so great though - the diversity in performers. If every single band appealed to one type of person, you'd probably end up with a bunch of Shanes showing up every year. And even if you don't know what a Shane is, just believe me when I say you don't want 15,000 of them together in a field.

But that isn't a problem at Wakarusa because the line-up is always so diverse that you can see the down-home bluegrass and folk bands, the flip-your-wig psychedelic or trance acts, or reggae, hip-hop, and even local favorites, like Truckstop Honeymoon, Archetype, Fourth of July, Paw, Billy the Squirrel (and surely some more I'm missing).

Anyway, with that preface, my plan is to post observations and videos of from my time here. Share thoughts on the Festival itself. And document any strange happenings I happen to happen across.

Stay tuned to this page for updates, and please post your own in the comments below, especially if you're also out at The Festival reading this via mobile side.

Soo, initial few thoughts before my battery dies...

• Quickly learned that the guys directing traffic aren't the ones to ask for directions to find something like the Media Tent. Kinda seems strange, right? You'd think they'd know the area. Not so.

• Sunflower Broadband is missing a huge opportunity to brand to and serve the community out here by providing site-wide Wi-Fi. Currently it's limited to small areas and requires a log-in key. I hear HyVee has a tent set up for free use, but I haven't used it yet. Will test it later.

• Kinda spittting rain out here. Would love it if that was all it ended up doing. Planning for the worst at camp, though.

• On a positive note: the police have been incredibly nice, so far. Seem genuinely concerned about tonight's weather, but friendly and talkative. Might have something to do with the smaller crowds, but nice nonetheless.

• Nice. Guy just rolled up in a golf cart asking if I needed some power. YES! Media Tent was powerless before, so no plugs for charging laptops. Only had 40 seconds of battery left. Actually 3,....will write more when I can plug-in..2,...going, going...1,...He's working on it. Gone.

More to come...

FRIDAY MORNING 9:00 AM: POST-STORM THOUGHTS

Wow. Soooo, that was interesting.

I'm currently sitting at the HyVee Wi-Fi tent located at their General Store in the Campsite. Their Wi-Fi is free and they are selling a lot of stuff to The Survivors that have been milling around the campsites since about 8am. Folks are retying their tents, cleaning up the messes, and just regrouping. Some I saw moving their tents to better locations, hanging out clothes to dry and there are lots of whooping and hollering and high-fives all around.

If you didn't know, what we're regrouping from was one hell of a rowdy storm.

For context, I've lived in Lawrence for more than half of my life and lived through several tornadoes and some serious storms and I can easily say that was the wildest storm I've ever experienced. Granted, it might not have been so if I was safe in a house, but that was far from the case. I, like about 5,000+ other fun-loving/dumb folks was sitting out in an open field with nothing but shaky tents and our vehicles for shelter.

I, like a lot of people, spent the hours from about 8:30 till 9ish something watching the storm roll in from the west and the lightning show that accompanied it.

Music had been called off around 8pm, so everyone had begun making their way back to their campsites to decide what to do. Some immediately packed up and jumped in their cars to leave the site, while others, perhaps full with liquid courage stood Captain Dan style, shirtless and cussing the clouds that were quickly closing in on them.

"We came to party! Where's my lightshow!?!"

And we all certainly got that. There was a surreal "is this really happening" vibe that I picked up on as the storm approached. For some it was "Whoa, is this really happening!? Awesome!" while for others it was a "Holy shit. Is this really happening?! What the eff are we doing out here?"

For me, I feel into both camps at different times throughout the night. I enjoy the experience of adventurous things, but I also like living and there were definitely times during the peak of the wind and rain that I regretted staying out there. Looking around at the size of the distant storm clouds, intensity of the lighting and eerie-ness of the 'pre-storm' calm, that I couldn't believe this many people were out here about to go through this. And the "we're all in this together" vibe increased as the severity of the storm became more real.

People can't say they weren't warned it was coming, of course. The predictions of severe weather came in early, days ago, but a general sentiment of the people camping around us was that they'd paid for their tickets and were going to have a show of some kind - storm or music.

I spent the night with my car facing west sitting in the front seats with a friend listening to smooth jazz on NPR and the increasingly frequent severe weather updates. Those were a double-edged swords, in a way. Hearing about the developing storms when the window of opportunity for leaving the site to seek shelter in Lawrence had passed was kind of like having someone tell you how hard they're going to punch you in the nuts. You know you're going to get punched and knowing that understanding the severity in advance just looses its appeal.

But, that's all behind us. We lived through it and will have a story to tell for as long as we can remember it. I'm already sketching a "I Rode the Storm: Wakarusa '08" t-shirt. Email me if you want one.

Trying to upload some of the videos I shot of the lighting.

More to come...

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Posted by editer (Phil Cauthon) on June 5, 2008 at 5:14 p.m. (Suggest removal)

From super lawrence.comrade and video maestro Fally Afani Ruzik: http://youtube.com/user/fallyatwakarusa

Posted by chewyfally (Falestine Afani Ruzik) on June 5, 2008 at 7:57 p.m. (Suggest removal)

Woot! I got a shout out!

Posted by jennlacey (anonymous) on June 6, 2008 at 8:28 a.m. (Suggest removal)

Clean Hippie? Your a fake!

Clean hippie reporting from Wak Fest, Thursday

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