A Righteous Time at Rothbury Music Festival 2009
Dare to create a festival-going experience that is unique and amazing and you just might achieve it. Madison House Presents partnered with AEG Live again this year to create Rothbury Music Festival, an experience that blends the vibe of a community event with a swirl of musical excellence.
With the ongoing demise of the recording industry, music fans are seeing a continued focus on capturing the live experience. Anyone who goes to shows regularly knows that this experience runs not just from when an artist is performing live on stage, but into your life in the time surrounding the event.
The people behind Rothbury have recognized the opportunity to create an experience that not only connects music fans, but teaches and grows with them.
The cost to attend isn’t really about money. Sure, there is the price of a festival pass which will runs about $250. (includes a four day entrance to the festival, parking and onsite camping) In addition to spending the money, you have to invest time, energy and be willing to look out for yourself and your pals! Rothbury is a “destination festival.” Unlike a city festival like Coachella or Vegoose, you do not have a hotel room to go home to at night. Attendance requires grit and some logistical sense.
We’ll be detailing more about the trials of enduring four days living on an open campground among well packed neighbors in our forthcoming festival review of Bonnaroo 2009. This being our first trip to the Rothbury, (2008 was the inaugural year), we focus on exploring five areas of the festiaval, the venues and grounds, artist selection and line-up, greening efforts of the event and finally tips for attending Rothbury 2010.
Festival Space, the Final Frontier
The festival space at Rothbury can be separated into two major areas: the campground and the venue. One way or another if you're considering attending Rothbuy, you will need to become acquainted with the layout of the festival. Here’s a briefer to get you up to speed.
The Rothbury Campground
The campground is your home base, where you can go to recharge and resupply when out and away from the event. Let’s take a look at the map of camping:
An informal survey suggests most people seemed were placed in these campgrounds, however there were some reports that those who got into the entrance as late as Thursday at 4pm were put in an overflow campground, an hour walk from the venue.
For full disclosure, your journalist was granted guest camping, an area within the festival that enters directly into venue by the Sherwood Court stage. The media treatment was top notch and professional. It was clear that Madison House cared about getting maximum exposure for artists, big and small.
Past The Epicenter
As you pass through the main gates of the festival into The Epicenter, you’ll find the grounds split into four main stage areas. The Odeom and Sherwood Court sit in the north and The Ranch Arena and Tripolee stages rest in the south. Between the two areas is “Sherwood Forest” which offers relaxation and an opportunity to meet other festival goers. Two pathways wind through this enchanted portion of the festival and during the day, the evergreens and carefully stretched fabric offer shade to the steady stream wandering across the festival.
The Odeom was a fantastic main stage, getting very crowded only during the Dead and Bob Dylan headline shows. Almost throughout the entire festival, you could walk as close as the sound booth without having to step on people’s blanket or wedge your way through. The ground formation includes a rolling hill distant from the stage, allowing an easy (though far) view for those who want to chill in the back. A portion of this area is gated off for The Good Life, a VIP-type experience created to be more inclusive of those festival goers who desire a more catered experience.
The Ranch Arena deserves special mention for its natural amphitheatre feel. The ground slopes up and away from the stage allowing plenty of spots with a great view. Coupled with the trees ringing the area it was a beautiful place for each performance.
A fifth stage, called the Speak EZ resides in Sherwood Forest and is accompanied by a full bar. Your journalist sadly missed the wonder of a midnight burlesque show at the Speak EZ on Saturday.
Hard alcohol flowed readily from vendors at Rothbury, with stands for vodka lemonades to be found on the outskirts of most stages. Michigan’s liquor laws allow Rothbury to sell booze, something you won’t find at Bonnaroo.
Also found in Sherwood Forest was Restoration aka The Maze, which was a small enclosed pathway running parallel to one of the main paths. This area, separated into small outdoor rooms included some of the most beautiful outdoor natural art installations this journalist has ever seen. With benches throughout for wanderers to rest and meet each other, it could take you hours to make it through Restoration’s less than 100 yards of pathway.
Share a stroll through Sherwood Forest at Rothbury 2009 courtesy this youtube clip.
Part of the experience at Rothbury is to become a part of the festival yourself. Festival founder and promoter Jeremy Stein explained. “We’re trying to bring a sense that the stage is the entire place. And you’re on stage, the band’s on stage and you’re all a part of the show.” The community of Rothbury took this to heart in 2009, where it was typical to come across a giant Kermit the Frog sitting atop shoulders or an enormous hotdog arm in arm with Uncle Sam. Your journalist dares to suggest that there were more costumes per capita at Rothbury than any other festival in North America.
Also on hand were some special festival enhancements. In 2008 there were reports of a parade of fairies who dazzled as they made their way through the forest. Your journalists camped next to Jason the Amazing, an illusionist and slight of hand professional who walked the festival in stilts and performed impromptu magic shows throughout the festival grounds.
Artist Selection
Jeremy Stein describes music as the “giant magnet” that brings together the community at Rothbury. It is undoubtedly the selection of artists that sets the tone for the scene. In 2009, Rothbury feels solidly jam band oriented, courting a host of artists with open taping policies, and long-standing relationships to the show-going community. There were more hula hoops, more corduroy and more dreadlocks on average than Bonnaroo.
But the festival is not exclusively jam oriented and not all artists from outside the jam scene meshed well with the festival’s culture. Broken Social Scene’s Kevin Drew opened his set by mentioning something close the point that they were “there because Rothbury asked us to be.” Billboard later reported that “the group was genuinely disarmed when it finished its planned set 15 minutes early and scrambled for more material to fill the time.”
What was important was an attitude of musical discovery that pervaded the attendees at Rothbury. Despite a few minor commitments, your journalist was nearly dragged across the festival to the Tripolee stage to see a very lightly attended performance by The White Buffalo, only to be floored by an acoustic set like no other experience at Rothbury. A second fortuitous discovery manifested itself when I was pulled into a crowd in passing thanks to the sound and energy from a little known hip hop crew out of Portland, Oregon called the Lifesavas.
We were fortunate to get interviews with members of both Guster and Toubab Krewe which will be published subsequently to this article. However, the best performance of the festival was almost unambiguously during the String Cheese Incident on Friday night.
String Cheese Incident, (SCI) has largely been on hiatus since 2006, performing a few shows in 2007 and only Rothbury in 2008. It was a critical event for the "Friends of Cheese" (FOC) community when SCI was announced to perform with all members at Rothbury 2009. SCI itself recognized the quality of the festival, remarking during the performance that their return to the festival as their only date in 2009 was a “no brainer.”
As their only performance planned for the year, the energy in the audience at the show was at a feverish pitch. During SCI’s intermission, the Friends of Cheese had infiltrated several locations in the crowd with their own mix of visuals and pyrotechniques.
Almost out of nowhere, lanterns the size of weber grills began to appear above the heads of the crowd. Lifted gently by hot air created from small burning fires nearly 20 lanterns moseyed their way into the heavens causing SCI’s Bill Nershi to exclaim: “Whoa! What are those things? This is getting good.” We captured the moment on video, and went ahead and overlayed “Rollover” which is available with the entire show as a download from www.LiveCheese.com.
Living legend Bob Dylan closed the festival on Sunday night, with a performance that was a bit restricted compared to the highly interactive and energetic shows from artists like Grace Potter. Dylan generally does not address the crowd at his shows. At Rothbury he didn’t even venture a “hello” until the end of his set. The lack of interaction left the audience rather quiet except to cheer enthusiastically following each song. Dylan also prohibited close up shots of him on stage, leaving distant monotonous shots of him on the live video screens flanking the stage. Nevertheless, hearing Like a Rolling Stone and Watchtower live was nothing to be taken lightly and the crowd seemed well-satisfied.
In our forthcoming interview, we asked Jeremy Stein speak about the artist selection process and what we might see in the future. Stay tuned.
Environmental and Greening Efforts
When our baggage from United Airlines (fail) finally arrived at the quatermaster’s station about a quarter mile from our campsite, we were lucky enough to get a ride with the founder of The Spitfire Agency, Sarah Haynes. Sarah was charged with all aspects of making Rothbury as an environmentally sustainable festival as possible.
Sarah is an experienced ‘greener’ having also worked personally on the new permanent water wells dug for Bonnaroo’s water bottle refilling stations this year. Her work was well manifested at Rothbury. Clusters of three painted 50 gallon cans labeled mixed recycling, compost and landfill were spread liberally throughout the festival. Most of the waste collection areas were continuously held watch over by volunteers who indicated to attendees how to dispose of their waste correctly and regularly corrected people’s mistakes, digging out incorrectly sorted waste and depositing it accordingly.
Your journalist was struck by the extended use of bio-plastic across the event. All cups, straws and stir rods found on the festival grounds were compostable. Your journalist was pleased to see at least one occasion where a festivalgoer reached in and moved a cup from a landfill can to the composting can, and then carefully drop their own cigarette butt into the landfill.
There are some great articles going into detail about the 2009 greening effort at Rothbury, for a full dump check out these articles on Tree Hugger and Pop Wreckoning. Most notable among the sustainability efforts was the inclusion of Think Tank, which featured panel discussions hosted by the Michigan Economic Development forum. You can watch an interview with one of the participants, mushroom expert Paul Stamets on youtube.
Tips for Attending Rothbury 2010
Like any vacation destination, there are a few tips and tricks that can help you make the most out of the experience. We wanted to offer a few ideas for help ensure you have the best possible experience at Rothbury 2010:
1. Make plans to go. The biggest hurdle for attending a four day music festival is your personal and professional barriers that might keep you from jetting or roadtripping in the middle of the summer. Make the decision to attend early and start putting your plans together well in advance of the festival.
2. Arrive early. Rothbury has organized a festival shuttle that departs shuttles on Wednesday night and Thursday afternoon. Be on one of those shuttles to ensure you’re dropped off in the tent-only area, which keeps you away from car alarms and stereos and places you closer to the venue itself.
3. Eat and drink. Although the temperatures of Rothbury, Michigan are much more tolerable than those of Manchester, Tennessee, combining extended walks across the grounds, late nights of partying and general mischief can result in exhaustion, forcing downtime during potentially wonderful happenings. Take care of yourself by eating regularly and sipping from a camelback backpack throughout the weekend.
4. Bring a great attitude. One of the most remarkable elements of Rothbury is the way that people treated each other at the shows. Be prepared to share positive energy with others and expect the same from other festivalgoers.
5. Prepare your gear. High speed internet via 3G is spotty at Rothbury, while you may be fine leaving email and twitter behind, being able to send and receive text messages may be the difference between seeing your friends and venturing solo. Your journalist made use of a Tekkeon TekCharge mobile power and battery charger attainable at Amazon.com with a variety of tips for different cell phones. Bring one of these and a host of (hopefully rechargeable) batteries to ensure you can get in contact with your pals.
6. Bring a blanket. You can find a number of great packing lists, (I recommend a modified version of Leo’s Packing List for Bonnaroo), but special emphasis should be placed on bringing a blanket you’re comfortable miring in the grass and barkchips (at Tripolee). Besides giving you more room once the crowd rolls in, having a blanket discourages people from using your area as a walkway during the event. I recommend a smaller blanket with shoulder straps built in, like this one.
We’d like to take a moment to extend a thank you to Dani Lovett, Seth Loeser, Jake Frankel and Greg Tracey. A very special thank you to Megan McFann and Jeremy Stein at Madison House. Thank you to the volunteers and everyone who worked to make Rothbury Music Festival 2009 a great success. Finally, some of the photos you saw in this article appear thanks to permission from Megan Swidorski, Simpsonradio and Joe Gall.
