Hula hoops and the hot sun: Two mainstays of this year’s Electric Forest.
For four days or so, Electric Forest was an escape from the real world.
More than 25,000 jam-band and electronic music fans – the more outrageously colorful and silly the garb, the better – turned the woods and fields of Double JJ Resort in Rothbury, about 25 miles north of Muskegon, into a rollicking, festive, Woodstock-like affair as they swayed and bobbed to bands such as The String Cheese Incident, STS9, Bassnectar, Steve Aoki, Thievery Corporation and more on five different stages in the blazing sun and deep into the dark, dark night.
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Read my full story on the weekend festival at GRNow.com here, along with a host of photos of concertgoers, the Sherwood Forest art installation and, of course, performing artists, including Grand Rapids’ own The Crane Wives, West Michigan’s sole representative at Electric Forest.
It’s always difficult to assess the weekend’s best performance when you can only be at one stage at a time, but here are my picks for the most compelling sets:
A giant octopus strolls in for Sunday’s String Cheese Incident show.
– Thievery Corporation – This amazing Washington D.C. act with a rotating ensemble of singers and players, brought instant energy to the Ranch Arena stage late Friday night, mixing everything from reggae to dubstep to world music to acid jazz/pop and more into their set. Really glad I finally got a chance to see them.
– Gary Clark Jr. – The first act I caught at EF was also one of the best, with Clark doing his best Black Keys imitation while adding other soulful elements to his raw attack. As someone put it, he’s the real deal.
– The Crane Wives – Yes, I’m a bit biased here due to the Grand Rapids angle, but this folk-rock outfit put on a frenetically pleasing show in the hot, hot sun, and made plenty of new fans in the process. Let’s just hope Dan Rickabus didn’t break any of the cymbals he knocked over at the end of the set.
– The String Cheese Incident (Sunday night) – I don’t pretend to be a Cheese-head, but the godfathers of the Rothbury and EF festivals (who played three straight nights) put on a very impressive show on Sunday night, mixing everything from Mideast flavors to dusky jazz.
Thievery Corporation ramped up the energy level on Friday night.
– Ivan Neville’s Dumpstaphunk – This New Orleans funk band didn’t draw a huge crowd, but it may have been one of the most boisterous, inflamed by songs like Dumpstaphunk’s crazy-cool cover of David Bowie’s “Fame.”
– Quixotic — This dance-and-art troupe put on a mysterious, drum and black-light-enhanced show in the midst of Sherwood Forest that was absolutely mesmerizing.
Concertgoers were still boogeying into early morning today, so it’ll probably take awhile for promoter Madison House Presents to clear the campground and site of the sprawling “city” they built for the festival. (By the way, Michigan State Police officials spent several days compiling arrest and incident reports from the weekend. MLive.com later reported, on July 5, that a total of 46 felony and 12 misdemeanor charges were filed. Read that full story here.)
Judging by the growing numbers of festival-goers (even if I found the overall musical lineup to be a bit lacking), I’m guessing Electric Forest will be back next year, because there’s no vibe like an Electric Forest vibe.
To get a flavor of that, I’ve uploaded a new video showing snippets of just a few performances from the weekend, along with footage of that mysterious and unusual Sherwood Forest. And check out my take on The Crane Wives show here, with a post on how Electric Forest changes at night.
Email: jsinkevics@gmail.com
