We left Asheville, North Carolina and headed straight to Detroit. Crash, who slang at Rothbury last year, was flying in so we got a nearby hotel so he could just take a shuttle once he arrived at one or two in the morn. The next day we headed to Muskegon, MI about 45 minutes south of Rothbury to pick up a bunch of Cherry/Pomegranate and Strawberry fruit pops from Mills Ice Cream Distributing, who have been a huge help two years running. We had hoped to stop by a couple PacSun stores or skate parks but were a bit rushed to get to the festival in time to secure our parking, and camping spots.
Rothbury is only two years old but you’d never guess it by the way things are set up. The main thing that sets it apart from other festivals is that there is a forest in the middle of everything where you can go to escape, get some shade, or hang out in the dozens of hammocks provided.
We didn’t sling much on Thursday but got everything set up so that we’d be ready to rock around noon on Friday. Cold War Kids were playing late night and we were lucky to get some time from them beforehand to be a part of Road Trippin’. All of us headed towards the back of the festival where we found an old barn to use as a backdrop. They rocked “Something’s Not Right With Me” on the Stylophone and some percussion instruments which ended up sounding great.
Ben & Jerry’s was a sponsor of Rothbury and we were fortunate to get over 500 cups of their new product Flipped Out on board. I wheeled our wagon probably a half mile to the other side of the festival and loaded her up to the brim with the goodies. I kept my eyes peeled for any bandits on the way back through the forest and made it safe to the truck to start slinging the real cream.
Broken Social Scene and Man Man both stopped by the truck on Friday. BSS made the most of our selection of instruments and jammed a couple improv songs which we were all diggin’ on. Earlier this year Man Man released a video for Rabbit Habits that I had a cameo in. I asked them to perform the same track since it’s one of my favorites and it seemed appropriate.
Traffic picked up around the truck on Saturday but we all kinda treated it like a day off since we didn’t have any performances lined up and we wanted to party a bit that night since The Dead were playing their only show all summer long.
Sunday was a bit hectic because the sun came out and I think we ended up giving away as many fruit pops and Flipped Out cups as the previous three days combined. Matisyahu stopped by with his band and family for a quick li’l jam before the sun went down. The cream ran out soon after and we packed everything up and headed to watch some Bob Dylan. I was blown away at how good he and his band sounded. He was playing a ton of hits and two of the last songs, “Like a Rolling Stone” and “All Along the Watchtower” rocked harder than most any other band I’ve seen this summer.
We were in a rush to leave on Monday morning because Crash had to be back in Detroit by four to catch a flight and we wanted to stop at Michigan’s Adventure to ride Shivering Timbers, one of the top rated wooden coasters in the world. We lucked out and were able to ride it twice and ride one other coaster before hopping back on the road and booking it straight to the airport. For the record… I got Crash there by 4:15 and he made his flight.
