Wakarusa 2014 Brain Dump!
Jun. 12th, 2014 01:51 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
hillarygayleWakarusa 2014
Wednesday June 4
Left home in time to meet Augie at 1400 in Texarkana. Ate at Cracker Barrel & Ganon went with Augie. Then took route back through Little Rock to hit I-40, & on to Clarksville. Several stops along the way. Conway we got ice, dry ice (I burned my fingers on some, like an idiot), camping groceries, & a charger for Bryan’s Gameboy Advance SP. Little old school gaming during the music, y’know. On to Clarksville, checked into hotel about 2130...and Bryan thought to check his CPAP compatibility with the battery he already had. It was a no! After lots of brainstorming, went to Wal-Mart. Bought a lawnmower battery & a DC-AC converter that came with alligator clips for direct connection to automobile battery! Tested it out at the hotel--it worked! We felt very smart & self-congratulatory. :) Showers, then off to sleep for our last night in civilization.
Thursday June 5
Left the hotel in Clarksville at 0700 for breakfast at Hillbilly Hideout in the I-40 Travel Center. We were through the line and had our entire camp set up before 10am! One of the first things that happened: while we were setting up a guy came up to me. “You look like Daphne from Scooby Doo. I want to reward you with a clip!” Gave me a tiny turquoise clothespin. Crosswalk is right at the lower West Woods location. MUCH preferable to previous location at Upper. Wondered at the time whether they were going to keep it there (they did). Some guy was at the Riverside shuttle stop carrying the inner bag of a Camelbak full of blush wine. This basically looked like a foley catheter bag full of the urine after someone’s been on bladder irrigation for a while: fairly clear & pale yellow, but with a pinkish tint because they’re still bleeding a bit. I am sure I could’ve grossed that guy out SO BAD if I’d told him.
First up: gyros & the Revival Tent. Men in skirts count: 2 within the first 10 minutes.
Dopapod @ Revival: More crowded than expected. Live funk with lots of electronic elements. Weather alternating cloudy & sunny.
Moon Hooch @ Outpost: Lots more mixing than expected, making them sound like but unlike Big Gigantic: a saxophone song with lots of mixing added (Big G is more like an electronic song with a sax added). Met my Instagram friend Lyndon! So fabulous. Started ragestick portraits. Girl wearing butt ruffle. Started out pretty thin but the crowd built FAST when MH started to play. 1st Falcor sighting!
Mountain Sprout @ Backwoods: sweaty tent sex song. Bad Fish showed up again (3rd time seeing MS, and 3rd time with Bad Fish!). Stephanie from the Pile recognized me & came to say hi. Flower crown man. Shirt: Looking for bars, opium, lucy, & mescaline. Megaman rage stick. Skirtmen: 6. Gave away 1st fan.
Rusty Shackle @ Backwoods: British lead? VERY good. Celtic bluegrass with swing? Trumpet! Kilt sighting! Band turns out to be from Wales! “Hot here, innit?” “We have 2 days for shorts where we come from. Then we put trousers back on.” “PAAAAAANTS. It’s not PANTS weather. Wait. We’re gonna crack on with a song.”
Fruition @ Revival: Guy & girl switch off on vocals. Okay.
Moon Taxi: Is that vocalist a guy or a girl? (turned out to be guy). HUGE energy. Crowd grew quickly. Very happy we checked this out.
Friday June 6
On Thursday, I ran my phone battery down from taking so many notes. Decided to take notes on a few pieces of paper scrounged from the glove compartment & some pens I had hanging around in Leeloo.
No rain overnight. Very warm & humid. Felt like sleeping in a sauna. CPAP battery worked all night thanks to converter & lawn mower battery. No hiccups at all. Neighbors invited us to go do yoga but I was wiped out. They asked if we saw STS9 in the tent but that was also a no, due to extreme sleepy & the crowd issue of sts9 in a tent setting. Arrived at venue @ 1130 to be sure & see Rusty Shackle in revival tent. Rain started. Met a nice hippy lady from Long Beach MS. At noon, Waka rep took the stage & announced music canceled until 1330 re: lightning. No wind thus far. True storm stayed south until 1230, when gusts reached about 40 mph. At this point they closed the Revival Tent & the other tents. Asked everyone to return to camp & get in their cars. This seemed counterproductive if you were in WW, because that's a helluva hike back during which you could get lightning'd before you got to your car. Anyway we came back to dry off, ditch the sunbrella & get mud boots. Waka tweeted to expect wn update at 13:30, but nothing by 1400. Rusty Shackle rescheduled for 9pm in outpost. Music restarted 14:00 at backwoods stage, main stage at 14:30. Napped in the tent until 15:30, back in by about 17:45 for
Murder by Death. Sounds eerily much like Johnny Cash!
Moved to main stage for STS9. WONDERFUL set. So thrilled to see them live, & this time they got a full set (unlike last year, when they got cut short, then cancelled entirely the next day!) Skirtmen count: 10. Man in corset: 1! Sts9 live tweeted their own set list. Festikids really out in force for Tribe. Have lost count of painted boobs. Hugged by a sweaty man who first obtained consent! :) Corndog & Woodchuck. Intend to stop by Rusty Shackle after leaving STS9. Miss Ganon. Love the music & the shows but get so TIRED of camping, being filthy, worrying about the weather. Beautiful right now but possible rain tomorrow & Sunday scheduled to be full of storms. Will JBT be cancelled if we stay for it? That's the only thing Bryan is actually looking forward to!
Saturday June 7
Missed Chompdown again. Not surprised. Totally exhausted. Cannot sleep at all at night; every slight sound wakes me up & the camp is quite full of them. Neighbors had random visitor next door from 2-5 am. Talked entire time. He & his GF from Jonesboro! Talked about drugs, music, etc, & I lay awake listening. Several ppl tripped on our rain fly guide wires in the dark. Got to sleep when they left about 0500 & I slept until 0930. Got up, went into main venue for WOTE, which was a "don't miss" for us.
Walk off the Earth: Of course it poured rain. WHATEVER! We busted out the DMB ponchos & put them over us & the chairs. People kept pointing at us & remarking how smart. Several comments regarding backpack chairs throughout weekend as well. Fantastic show with high energy. Crowd selfie! Lots of instrumental switching, vocal collaboration.
After WOTE, went to Revival to hang out for a while. I stopped by my favorite food booth & got a Jerry Roll, as is my tradition. ;) They made the enormous base egg roll, and then asked me what meat I wanted. I chose gyros lamb, and then all the usual sauces (oil & vinegar, Sriracha, soy), PLUS tsaziki, which they had done for me last year. It was INCREDIBLE, and as they handed it to me, a group of 4 girls had come up and were looking at it with huge eyes. As I walked away, I heard one of them say “I want one of those, just like she got hers!”
Looked at the weather, had lots of misgivings regarding downpours on Sunday, possible flash flooding. Our campsite was near a creek bed. Bryan’s allergies far, far worse. Both miserable from camping experience (even though we are very good at it). Felt soggy, damp. Really wanted to leave, but both felt like we’d be robbing the other one of the experience (Kung Fu, John Butler Trio both on Sunday). Determined we probably wouldn’t enjoy it anyway, & there was a hotel in Fort Smith with our names on it.
Stopped at I-40 Travel Center again on the way out (as usual) & owner caught up with me near the sodas. Told me he’d been watching my tweets for information about Waka, because I had really great tweets! He recognized me by my eyeshadow photos! “You’re the only person I’ve ever seen who uses those colors & makes it look so nice!” :D It seems the manager & a couple of the cashiers had heard about me, as well. I felt like a celebrity. It was funny. Got some coffee for the road & headed to Fort Smith, where we stayed in the Courtyard by Marriott downtown. The weather came through early on Sunday morning while we were still sleeping, & we found out just how bad Bryan’s allergies were hitting him. He felt horrible.
Drove through Oklahoma to Dallas to pick up Ganon, and here we still are, hanging out until Father’s Day for Augie!
Wednesday June 4
Left home in time to meet Augie at 1400 in Texarkana. Ate at Cracker Barrel & Ganon went with Augie. Then took route back through Little Rock to hit I-40, & on to Clarksville. Several stops along the way. Conway we got ice, dry ice (I burned my fingers on some, like an idiot), camping groceries, & a charger for Bryan’s Gameboy Advance SP. Little old school gaming during the music, y’know. On to Clarksville, checked into hotel about 2130...and Bryan thought to check his CPAP compatibility with the battery he already had. It was a no! After lots of brainstorming, went to Wal-Mart. Bought a lawnmower battery & a DC-AC converter that came with alligator clips for direct connection to automobile battery! Tested it out at the hotel--it worked! We felt very smart & self-congratulatory. :) Showers, then off to sleep for our last night in civilization.
Thursday June 5
Left the hotel in Clarksville at 0700 for breakfast at Hillbilly Hideout in the I-40 Travel Center. We were through the line and had our entire camp set up before 10am! One of the first things that happened: while we were setting up a guy came up to me. “You look like Daphne from Scooby Doo. I want to reward you with a clip!” Gave me a tiny turquoise clothespin. Crosswalk is right at the lower West Woods location. MUCH preferable to previous location at Upper. Wondered at the time whether they were going to keep it there (they did). Some guy was at the Riverside shuttle stop carrying the inner bag of a Camelbak full of blush wine. This basically looked like a foley catheter bag full of the urine after someone’s been on bladder irrigation for a while: fairly clear & pale yellow, but with a pinkish tint because they’re still bleeding a bit. I am sure I could’ve grossed that guy out SO BAD if I’d told him.
First up: gyros & the Revival Tent. Men in skirts count: 2 within the first 10 minutes.
Dopapod @ Revival: More crowded than expected. Live funk with lots of electronic elements. Weather alternating cloudy & sunny.
Moon Hooch @ Outpost: Lots more mixing than expected, making them sound like but unlike Big Gigantic: a saxophone song with lots of mixing added (Big G is more like an electronic song with a sax added). Met my Instagram friend Lyndon! So fabulous. Started ragestick portraits. Girl wearing butt ruffle. Started out pretty thin but the crowd built FAST when MH started to play. 1st Falcor sighting!
Mountain Sprout @ Backwoods: sweaty tent sex song. Bad Fish showed up again (3rd time seeing MS, and 3rd time with Bad Fish!). Stephanie from the Pile recognized me & came to say hi. Flower crown man. Shirt: Looking for bars, opium, lucy, & mescaline. Megaman rage stick. Skirtmen: 6. Gave away 1st fan.
Rusty Shackle @ Backwoods: British lead? VERY good. Celtic bluegrass with swing? Trumpet! Kilt sighting! Band turns out to be from Wales! “Hot here, innit?” “We have 2 days for shorts where we come from. Then we put trousers back on.” “PAAAAAANTS. It’s not PANTS weather. Wait. We’re gonna crack on with a song.”
Fruition @ Revival: Guy & girl switch off on vocals. Okay.
Moon Taxi: Is that vocalist a guy or a girl? (turned out to be guy). HUGE energy. Crowd grew quickly. Very happy we checked this out.
Friday June 6
On Thursday, I ran my phone battery down from taking so many notes. Decided to take notes on a few pieces of paper scrounged from the glove compartment & some pens I had hanging around in Leeloo.
No rain overnight. Very warm & humid. Felt like sleeping in a sauna. CPAP battery worked all night thanks to converter & lawn mower battery. No hiccups at all. Neighbors invited us to go do yoga but I was wiped out. They asked if we saw STS9 in the tent but that was also a no, due to extreme sleepy & the crowd issue of sts9 in a tent setting. Arrived at venue @ 1130 to be sure & see Rusty Shackle in revival tent. Rain started. Met a nice hippy lady from Long Beach MS. At noon, Waka rep took the stage & announced music canceled until 1330 re: lightning. No wind thus far. True storm stayed south until 1230, when gusts reached about 40 mph. At this point they closed the Revival Tent & the other tents. Asked everyone to return to camp & get in their cars. This seemed counterproductive if you were in WW, because that's a helluva hike back during which you could get lightning'd before you got to your car. Anyway we came back to dry off, ditch the sunbrella & get mud boots. Waka tweeted to expect wn update at 13:30, but nothing by 1400. Rusty Shackle rescheduled for 9pm in outpost. Music restarted 14:00 at backwoods stage, main stage at 14:30. Napped in the tent until 15:30, back in by about 17:45 for
Murder by Death. Sounds eerily much like Johnny Cash!
Moved to main stage for STS9. WONDERFUL set. So thrilled to see them live, & this time they got a full set (unlike last year, when they got cut short, then cancelled entirely the next day!) Skirtmen count: 10. Man in corset: 1! Sts9 live tweeted their own set list. Festikids really out in force for Tribe. Have lost count of painted boobs. Hugged by a sweaty man who first obtained consent! :) Corndog & Woodchuck. Intend to stop by Rusty Shackle after leaving STS9. Miss Ganon. Love the music & the shows but get so TIRED of camping, being filthy, worrying about the weather. Beautiful right now but possible rain tomorrow & Sunday scheduled to be full of storms. Will JBT be cancelled if we stay for it? That's the only thing Bryan is actually looking forward to!
Saturday June 7
Missed Chompdown again. Not surprised. Totally exhausted. Cannot sleep at all at night; every slight sound wakes me up & the camp is quite full of them. Neighbors had random visitor next door from 2-5 am. Talked entire time. He & his GF from Jonesboro! Talked about drugs, music, etc, & I lay awake listening. Several ppl tripped on our rain fly guide wires in the dark. Got to sleep when they left about 0500 & I slept until 0930. Got up, went into main venue for WOTE, which was a "don't miss" for us.
Walk off the Earth: Of course it poured rain. WHATEVER! We busted out the DMB ponchos & put them over us & the chairs. People kept pointing at us & remarking how smart. Several comments regarding backpack chairs throughout weekend as well. Fantastic show with high energy. Crowd selfie! Lots of instrumental switching, vocal collaboration.
After WOTE, went to Revival to hang out for a while. I stopped by my favorite food booth & got a Jerry Roll, as is my tradition. ;) They made the enormous base egg roll, and then asked me what meat I wanted. I chose gyros lamb, and then all the usual sauces (oil & vinegar, Sriracha, soy), PLUS tsaziki, which they had done for me last year. It was INCREDIBLE, and as they handed it to me, a group of 4 girls had come up and were looking at it with huge eyes. As I walked away, I heard one of them say “I want one of those, just like she got hers!”
Looked at the weather, had lots of misgivings regarding downpours on Sunday, possible flash flooding. Our campsite was near a creek bed. Bryan’s allergies far, far worse. Both miserable from camping experience (even though we are very good at it). Felt soggy, damp. Really wanted to leave, but both felt like we’d be robbing the other one of the experience (Kung Fu, John Butler Trio both on Sunday). Determined we probably wouldn’t enjoy it anyway, & there was a hotel in Fort Smith with our names on it.
Stopped at I-40 Travel Center again on the way out (as usual) & owner caught up with me near the sodas. Told me he’d been watching my tweets for information about Waka, because I had really great tweets! He recognized me by my eyeshadow photos! “You’re the only person I’ve ever seen who uses those colors & makes it look so nice!” :D It seems the manager & a couple of the cashiers had heard about me, as well. I felt like a celebrity. It was funny. Got some coffee for the road & headed to Fort Smith, where we stayed in the Courtyard by Marriott downtown. The weather came through early on Sunday morning while we were still sleeping, & we found out just how bad Bryan’s allergies were hitting him. He felt horrible.
Drove through Oklahoma to Dallas to pick up Ganon, and here we still are, hanging out until Father’s Day for Augie!
