After getting denied last minute to shoot the Area 108 Gathering and Ziggy Marley at the Mandalay Casino Beach, I spent Saturday morning sulking on the www looking for something to do. The Dark Skies Singularity Event at Roach Lake? Definitely looks interesting, but way to expensive, and we’ve already missed most of it. Wait what’s this The Joshua Tree Music Festival!? How did I miss this? I woke up my wife, and an hour later we were on the road, camping gear packed, cruising southwest out of Vegas toward J-Tree California.
It seems that a few weeks after the dust has settled from Coachella, a small festival comes to life about 60 miles north of Indio, across the hills of Joshua Tree National Park. Contrary to the mass marketing and commercial hype that is Coachella, this soft spoken festival is all the same great music packaged in a much more subtle and personal atmosphere. (note: I have never been to Coachella, so all above inferences are based on what I have read, and me being an assuming a-hole) I’m not saying Coachella is worse or Joshua Tree is better They just seem so different, which seemed worthwhile to point out given their geographical and temporal proximity.
The first thing I noticed as I pulled into the dusty festival parking lot was the kids running everywhere. This was a family friendly event and the kids were having a blast, as evidenced by the several sets that were interrupted for public announcements of missing children or in some cases missing parents. As best I can tell, all lost parties were reunited with their loved ones by the festival’s close.
Oh yeah, the music With artists like The New Deal, Los Amigos Invisibles, Garaj Mahal, BLVD the music was as diverse as the people who had come to see it. Of note, the High Sierra Music Fest favorites Meltone made it all the way from Japan to treat the west coast to their East meets West funk (how ’bout that for cliche?) The quirky duo called Mojow and the Vibration Army kept the masses entertained between sets, armed with nothing but a saxophone, loop machine, and dance moves crazier than their costumes. They call it “saxapella funk” and you can see video of their music in motion on their website. Jaemee, my wife, fell in love with The Be Good Tanyas‘ traditional Americana sound and we listened to their CD the whole way back to Vegas. The Join (The New Deal with David Murphy of STS9) played a great set that you can download from www.archive.org and the weekend closed with BLVD and Souleye playing to a setting sun on Sunday night. The BLVD was one of the bands I was looking forward to, and they kicked ass especially with Souleye’s freestyling, but we had to leave after just a couple of songs, to get back to Vegas at a reasonable hour. I’m sure the rest of the set didn’t disappoint.
All in all, I couldn’t have asked for a better last minute plan, but there was only one thing missing
Ice Cream! I’m sure the kids would love to see Bessie there next year.
