What is the attraction of the desert to music festivals? Plenty of open space? Few neighbors to complain about noise? Lots of space for camping? Tons of hippies already living there and ready to go? Maybe all of the above, but whatever it is, it seems to work. A great example of this perfect storm is the
Clean Air! Clear Stars! Festival which took place this year in one of my favorite cities in the world: Pioneertown, CA.
For those who don’t know, Pioneertown was built originally as a movie set for old westerns. Over time, it became an actual town as people moved in and the movies moved out. The whole town essentially exists of the main street (Mane St.) with the various old movie facades (although a few are actually peoples residences), The Pioneertown Motel, and Pappy & Harriet’s Pioneertown Palace, the venue for this festival.
The festival went from Friday to Sunday, although Craig and I both went only for Saturday. The day was perfect, I was afraid I’d be standing out in the hot desert sun all day, but it was actually relatively cool. I pulled up outside of Pappy & Harriet’s and set up shop for the day. Since most of the people were inside and couldn’t bring their treats in with them, the ice cream traffic was surprisingly slow. The good thing though was that I could hear the music pretty well where I was stationed and got to groove a bit to The Electromagnetic, The Upside Down, Sky Parade and
The Moon Upstairs.
As the sun went down and Moon Upstairs got done playing, I took Bessita down the road a bit (read: 500 feet across the dirt lot) and set up next to the outdoor acoustic stage, which was the porch of somebody’s residence and doubled as the artist hospitality area. Spindrift was playing back at P & H’s and Craigs description of “modern theme music for old Clint Eastwood movies” sounded pretty apt. In fact, later that night Spindrift came by Bessita and confirmed that they were all big Ennio Morricone fans.
Entrance (ironically?) ended the show before the party moved to the acoustic stage for a few more bands and a lot more ice cream. Anxious about leaving the ice cream in Bessita overnight, I downed a Monster energy drink and headed back to Long Beach. Hopefully next time I’m in town can stay the night in the motel and party a bit more.
