Well, I suppose now that it happened like two weeks ago, I should write something about Summercamp. First and foremost, it was the three most fun days (this sentence is so grammatically awkward, and probably wholly wrong) I’ve had in a very long time. Most-well, all of my festival-type concert experiences have been drawn from Ozzfest and the Buzz Bake Sale. Testosterone, sun, and alcohol fueled bedlam is a nice way to describe both of them. Maybe it’s just me, but any show where a girl has to fear losing the vast majority of her clothing and/or being fingered while crowd surfing is not a good thing. True, the music was incredible, but whoever came up with the idea to have a hard rock festival with the second stage on unshaded blacktop in the middle of August in South Florida is a fucking schmoo. At one point I heard one of the event staff say they were measuring temperatures of 130 degrees in front of the second stage three feet off the ground. Great. Skinheads and spooky kidz sharing a very small space, listening to extremely aggressive music, drinking the whole time.

Summercamp was completely the opposite. Whereas the previously mentioned festivals had a palpable tension in the air, the air in Summercamp was filled with what felt almost like an ethereal glow (No, that wasn’t pot smoke. I’m sure you’re the first person to make that little joke.). Everybody was friendly. People were inviting their neighbors to their food, their drink, and yes, their drugs. But the drugs weren’t as prevalent as I thought they would be, nor were they anywhere near as bad as the fishrag PJS made it out to be. People weren’t slinging pills and herb through the crowd with reckless abandon and returning to the tents for massive Roman orgies. Didn’t happen. And believe me, we LOOKED for the orgies.

Lest I forget, there was music. A lot of fucking good music. I saw several bands whose names I didn’t know, many of which I will never know, but the music was absolutely amazing. It’s kind of nice to see a band you have never heard. It puts you in the crowd as a clean slate, ready to form an opinion of a band based on the where their music sounds the best: coming from a stage in front of you, live. A lot of the bands on the camp stage and the second stage were amazing, but the highlights of the weekend were certainly Les Claypool, Umphrey’s McGee, and moe. I’m going to break the memories of these three into a separate entry, because I don’t want this one to become War and Peace-ish in length.

One thing I did want to mention was the kid that flipped out on the first evening, and then ended up kicking me in the face. This kid was smoking Wet, or tripping, or something. He ran up to a girl standing about 5-7 feet to my left and gave her a full-on headbutt. After he did this, a bigger guy (just a guy in the crowd, not security) came up behind him and put him in a choke hold. The kid wriggled around and kicked enough to get away, at which time he ran about 5 steps in front of me, and jumped onto the ground and began convulsing. Two BIG Samoan-looking security guards came out and tried to hold him down, but couldn’t. I threw my cigarette away and knelt on the kids feet to stop them from kicking. I then took my knees off and wrapped my hands around his ankles. When the security guards were ready to pick him up, the one sitting on the kid’s waist was going to grab around the ankles and carry the bottom half. When I asked him if he had the kid, he said yes. He didn’t. As soon as I let go, one of Mr. Wigglesworth feet swung up and hit me half on the cheek, half on the nose. While it hurt, I got lucky enough to avoid a nosebleed or a broken nose, so no harm, no foul. After they carried Mr W. back stage, I never saw him again. I’m guessing they asked him to leave.