MCB's Andrew Bender was seen running from stage to stage through the highly trippy Sherwood Forest this past weekend at the 2009 Rothbury Festival.
Check out his photos from Friday and read on for some choice tidbits about the goings on last Friday at Rothbury.
Check out his photos from Friday and read on for some choice tidbits about the goings on last Friday at Rothbury.
Friday morning I woke up to the sound of the wookette sleeping on the ground outside my tent asking passers-by for a cigarette. She wasn't supposed to be there as her car full of dogs and lack of ticket or wristband indicated she'd managed to sneak into the festival. And - I. Am. Not. A. Morning. Person.
So, after about 4 hours of sleep the night before I was sufficiently rested to not be a total zombie as I looked around at the mass of tents, RVs, cars, tie dyed t-shirts, and dreadlocks everywhere. Early on in the day I made my way up to the Sherwood Stage to see Ann Arbor's Macpodz tear it up in front of a small but enthusiastic crowd out to see one of Michigan's hottest jam bands currently making the rounds of the summer festival circuit. After rockin out for a bit to the Macpodz jammed out goodness I ran back through the daytime shade of Sherwood Forest to catch the SF Bay Area's Brett Dennen back at the Ranch Arena. Dennen is, in my opinion, one of the best songwriters to emerge in the last few years and he continues to garner critical praise for his folk-infused songs that combine jazz, folk, and blues. Playing songs from his 3 albums, Brett Dennen had colorfully dressed men and women in the audience rockin out. Some of this was in part thanks to Dennen's band, which included bassist Ron Johnson who's also played with the bands Karl Denson's Tiny Universe and New Monsoon.
I then made my way to the Tripolee stage, Rothbury's smallest to check out the West African Drumming Workshop with Toubab Krewe where my buddy Miko was also taking part in bangin the skins. But, I didn't dally there long as I headed back up to the Sherwood stage to get my funk on with Soulive, a soul/jazz/funk trio originally from Buffalo, NY. Soulive also features two saxophone players and a singer sit in on some numbers. Made of brothers Neal and Alan Evans on keys and drums and guitarist Eric Krasno, Soulive is great dance music and the band along with singer Nigel Hall perfomed a great cover of Curtis Mayfield's "Move on Up" that had the crowd movin.
Following Soulive, I joined the flock of roughly 50 or so photographers to be escorted to shoot Friday's headlining band, String Cheese Incident. Originally a bluegrass band, String Cheese Incident (also called String Cheesem, Cheese, or SCI) combines rock guitar, acoustic 6-string guitar, drums, percussion, and keys to perform all manner of music ranging from country to psychedelic jamtronica. Having spent the last year or so on hiatus, their Rothbury performance was the only 'real' show they've played together in the last couple of years (they played an invite-only 'Sound Check' show at Denver's Ogden Theater a couple of weeks ago). Playing at the main 'Odeum' stage, Cheese had a huge audience as the day gave way to night. I saw a couple of naked hippies in the sea of tie dye as the audience pulsed to the beat of the music. Drawing from across their albums, SCI started out with their song 'Roll Over' which was consistent with the green and sustainable theme of the festival. Their two set show, however, also included covers of Talking Heads' This Must Be the Place (Naive Melody) and Stevie Wonder's Higher Ground. For this special reunion, an intense light show just wasn't enough as hula hoopers performed on stages in the crowd and GIANT inflatable balls were pushed around the crowd - a couple of the balls were easily 30 feet in diameter and made for an even more surreal specatacle.
After String Cheese, I headed over to check out STS9 or Sound Tribe Sector Nine whose ambient jams had the crowd moving in the later hours of Friday night. One of the premier jamtronica baneds, STS9 is less hard untz-untz dance music and more trancey, which for those fans in the audience was a great way to end out the evening. But not me. I headed back across the now totally tripped out forest to see mashup wunderkind Girl Talk take the stage at 2am. If you've never heard any of his songs, Girl Talk is one guy who takes bits and samples of all sorts of music from Lady Ga Ga to Journey and using the wonders of computer technology combines it into glitchy, original songs that can keep the party going all night long. By about 4am, we'd had it and headed back to our camp site where we had to threaten the nitrous mafia again to move along and tell the spunion kids throwing balloons on the ground to get the hell off my car.
So, after about 4 hours of sleep the night before I was sufficiently rested to not be a total zombie as I looked around at the mass of tents, RVs, cars, tie dyed t-shirts, and dreadlocks everywhere. Early on in the day I made my way up to the Sherwood Stage to see Ann Arbor's Macpodz tear it up in front of a small but enthusiastic crowd out to see one of Michigan's hottest jam bands currently making the rounds of the summer festival circuit. After rockin out for a bit to the Macpodz jammed out goodness I ran back through the daytime shade of Sherwood Forest to catch the SF Bay Area's Brett Dennen back at the Ranch Arena. Dennen is, in my opinion, one of the best songwriters to emerge in the last few years and he continues to garner critical praise for his folk-infused songs that combine jazz, folk, and blues. Playing songs from his 3 albums, Brett Dennen had colorfully dressed men and women in the audience rockin out. Some of this was in part thanks to Dennen's band, which included bassist Ron Johnson who's also played with the bands Karl Denson's Tiny Universe and New Monsoon.
I then made my way to the Tripolee stage, Rothbury's smallest to check out the West African Drumming Workshop with Toubab Krewe where my buddy Miko was also taking part in bangin the skins. But, I didn't dally there long as I headed back up to the Sherwood stage to get my funk on with Soulive, a soul/jazz/funk trio originally from Buffalo, NY. Soulive also features two saxophone players and a singer sit in on some numbers. Made of brothers Neal and Alan Evans on keys and drums and guitarist Eric Krasno, Soulive is great dance music and the band along with singer Nigel Hall perfomed a great cover of Curtis Mayfield's "Move on Up" that had the crowd movin.
Following Soulive, I joined the flock of roughly 50 or so photographers to be escorted to shoot Friday's headlining band, String Cheese Incident. Originally a bluegrass band, String Cheese Incident (also called String Cheesem, Cheese, or SCI) combines rock guitar, acoustic 6-string guitar, drums, percussion, and keys to perform all manner of music ranging from country to psychedelic jamtronica. Having spent the last year or so on hiatus, their Rothbury performance was the only 'real' show they've played together in the last couple of years (they played an invite-only 'Sound Check' show at Denver's Ogden Theater a couple of weeks ago). Playing at the main 'Odeum' stage, Cheese had a huge audience as the day gave way to night. I saw a couple of naked hippies in the sea of tie dye as the audience pulsed to the beat of the music. Drawing from across their albums, SCI started out with their song 'Roll Over' which was consistent with the green and sustainable theme of the festival. Their two set show, however, also included covers of Talking Heads' This Must Be the Place (Naive Melody) and Stevie Wonder's Higher Ground. For this special reunion, an intense light show just wasn't enough as hula hoopers performed on stages in the crowd and GIANT inflatable balls were pushed around the crowd - a couple of the balls were easily 30 feet in diameter and made for an even more surreal specatacle.
After String Cheese, I headed over to check out STS9 or Sound Tribe Sector Nine whose ambient jams had the crowd moving in the later hours of Friday night. One of the premier jamtronica baneds, STS9 is less hard untz-untz dance music and more trancey, which for those fans in the audience was a great way to end out the evening. But not me. I headed back across the now totally tripped out forest to see mashup wunderkind Girl Talk take the stage at 2am. If you've never heard any of his songs, Girl Talk is one guy who takes bits and samples of all sorts of music from Lady Ga Ga to Journey and using the wonders of computer technology combines it into glitchy, original songs that can keep the party going all night long. By about 4am, we'd had it and headed back to our camp site where we had to threaten the nitrous mafia again to move along and tell the spunion kids throwing balloons on the ground to get the hell off my car.
.
Tomorrow - Rothbury Day 3
Werd!!
-drew
"MCB IS DETROIT"