WAKA WAKA WAKA.......WAKARUSA!!!!!

This summer I have found my self lucky enough by a whirlewind of good luck and great friends to go to not one but two music festivals this summer. As you can probably tell Wakarusa was the first one I was fortunate enough to attend, the other being EDC Vegas, which will have it's own post in then next few days. As I know many of you have asked about these experiences and here is everything you really need to know, or I guess I should say, that I remember of these times.

If you live under a rock and don't know what Wakarusa is, then please let me explain. Wakarusa is a four day camping festival on top of Mulberry Mountain in the middle of the Ozarks in Arkansas. The picture above is looking down over the whole festival grounds before it was filled with people. The setting for the festival has to be hands down one of the prettiest places that there is.


I was fortunate enough to be able to volunteer for this festival and got to go early for pre-festival set up.

Volunteering for a festival works as follows. You sign up, put down a deposit, 

get accepted, and have to work 15 hours over 

the time of the festival and you get to go for free. 

I worked a total of three 5 hour shifts, one which was parking, the other two being production. The parking shift was standing in the dark for 5 hours telling people where to park, yes I know not glorious, but hey everything has to get done right! The two production shifts were amazing by far, the first shift I was backstage on the main stage. This entailed moving instruments and equipment on and off stage and the rest of the time, dancing and watching the bands preform, so I wouldn't even call this work. The second shift was more of the same, but at the Revival Tent. I was there able to meet some of the musicians that were playing for the first time at Waka or were up and coming and this was a new and awesome perspective and opportunity to talk to some of these guys. It also got me thinking how on earth does this festival actually happen. No one is really working, people are drinking, dancing, smoking, telling stories of past drug use in the yesteryear. There was only one rule, don't let the music stop. As long as the bands could get on and off and the instruments played, backstage was an adult playground. It is easy to see why, when this isn't work for anyone but fun and love. It really is a unique experience to meet and talk to the people who put on these festivals. It really does take more then anyone can realize to make one of these happen and it's amazing to see this all work so smoothly when it looks like no one is working at all.

The festival going experience was just as equally amazing and mind blowing. First tip for this, whatever alcohol you think you need, BRING MORE and in that bring BOXES of franzia, because you need to slap the bag as much as possible with anyone you meet. You can easily walk up to any tent and start hanging out with the people there. Have a bag to slap, or a bottle to pass around and you will surely meet a bunch of new friends. Check out this video to get a feeling (fyi I am in one of these photos). 

To tell you how the crowd was I made friends with a Sooner and her husband and partied with them all weekend with another group of Aggies. That is right I raged with Sooners and Aggies and would visit both to rage some more. That is the kind of festival and crowd this was. Nothing else mattered at the festival except the festival and it was beautiful. Being able to rage into the wee hours of the early morning with music to surround you is an experience everyone should have. With bands like Beats Antique, Ghostland Observatory, and Paper Diamond playing till 4 or 5 am. You can dance from dusk till dawn and into the next day of the festival if you really wanted to. Meals consisted of cans of beans and corn mixed with salsa or a protein bar. Lunch was maybe some Wild Turkey or some Jack with chips or a sandwhich or something delicious from any of the food vendors there, and let me suggest that you buy some stuff there, the food is really good. Dinner usually was well.......The nights were filled with bands like Pretty Lights, Big Gigantic, Quixotic, The Avett Brothers, Girl Talk, Umphrey's Mcgee, Primus, and Weir, Robinson, & Greene Acoustic Trio to name a few. The crowds at these stages were very easy to move in and out of which was a nice change from some of the festivals I have been to. Anywhere on the festival grounds you could hear music till 5/6 am. The mornings were beautiful, it was cool and calm and smelled well clean. There was nothing around for miles and miles and the air was just pristine.

The festival was set up where there camping grounds were fenced off from the stages and the "security" was really only at the entrences to the stages. The camp grounds were well the hippie wild west. Special jello shots were sold by random hippies or some looking like drag rats for two bucks a pop and no one really could ever tell you what were in them. Food was sold from camp grounds by some and given away by others for free and asked for donations of any kinds including more food to cook. People sold knick nacks and random other shit to get by and I met many people that travled from festival to festival selling things and just getting by enjoying the life that was in the moment. It really was a very hippie beautiful life moment.

While working backstage at the Revival Tent I got to meet a band from Athens, Georgia called Dank Sinatra and wanted to put them out there for you guys to listen to and enjoy. This is also for Ben to show him how I am starting to get into that funk and jam music he o so love. I am actually writing this blog while listening to these guys and the more I listen to funk and jam the more I listen to funk and jam, it's kind of funny like that. Another great watch at that festival was Gary Clark Jr. I had seen him earlier this year at SXSW and was just as impressed, but at Waka it was on another level. At points in the show you could hear the crowd oh and ah as he did his guitar solos. He made that guitar sing like the greats I could only imagine did in concert. I was not blessed to be born in the times of Hendrix or Led Zeppelin, but I am sure that it was something close to this when you heard them play.

Sunday was perfect except the weather. Sunday was a line up of Reggae and blue grass and jam, a very chill way to wind down the festival. The likes of Soja, Iration, Slightly Stoopid, Matisyahu, EOTO, and Mountain Sprout all played. The only problem that day was the weather. The festival had to put the bands on hold a few times throughout the day and it even hailed at one point during the day, but nothing could ruin how much this festival was. During the hail me and my buddies huddled under two guys tarp we met the night before in the croud who were from Nebraska. Mind you that by under the tarp i mean we were all holding it down over us as we sat on the ground, it was truly a interesting experience.

In the end Wakarusa was everything I could of imagined and more. If you aren't ok with showering in a river, or not showering for a couple of days, being a hippie, with seeing a lot of naked people, with a lot of open drug use, with no rules, with never sleeping then don't go. If you can handle it and just enjoy every moment, then go. Go to everything possible there, never say no (within reason). Take up any opportunity to take a photo with someone, or chat up the person next to you. If you have ever been to a co-op party here in Austin, think of that on a massive scale. If you can handle that and have an open mind, go  and you will never regret it, you will find new music and make new friends and have stories that will last a life time. I leave you with some videos that I shot randomly at Waka so enjoy.

Big Gigantic performing Sky High

Gary Clark Jr. 

Gramtik opening