BLVD was invited to the East Coast to perform at Camp Bisco, which was exciting after hearing about it when the festival was still taking shape years ago.  After headlining our first show in New York City at the Bowery Ballroom on Thursday night, we rented a van and headed to our hotel in Schenectady on Friday evening.  The drive had two themes: rain and traffic, lots of both.  We hoped to get in around 6pm, but it was more like 10pm when we actually had settled in and were driving to the festival site.  As we pulled in, the head of security (run by the Hell’s Angels) motioned out rental van to a coned-off, wet, grassy area.  It looked a little sketchy, but I’m not about to argue with this guy who seems very serious about the rules.

I got out of the van, and began walking toward the check-in area to get our laminates with Allen, our Tour Manager / Sound Engineer.  Every step towards this tent is like a game where you try to keep your foot from totally submerging in either water, or worse: mud.  Mud… I’m suddenly keenly aware that the entire area around me is full of it.  The guy checking us in mentions that we might not want to drive all the way to the stage, since a van got stuck there earlier.  That’s what’s known as a Red Flag!

Avoiding all the warning signs, we pile in the car with our freshly acquired artist laminates and drive toward the main stage to find a parking spot.  After going a little ways, we see what looks like a perfectly good spot.  After driving in, a girl emerges from a group of poncho-clad festival attendees hovering under an Easy-Up.  She comes up to me and says we probably shouldn’t leave the car there since they need to leave in the morning.  I assure her that we are only staying a few hours and will be gone before the night is through.  Clearly unimpressed, she disappears into her clan of people.  Shortly thereafter, a new representative comes from the group and he urges me to not leave the car there.  Again, I tell him we’re not going to be more than a few hours and we begin to walk away.  Now things start to get unruly… the crowd is now really getting mean. The mob mentality is really too much for me to bear, and I decide that if they feel that strongly about it, I don’t want to blatantly ignore them.  They’ve been here for a while, and we haven’t.  They must know something I don’t… maybe we’ll come back and our car WILL be stuck in the mud.  So I jump back into the car and attempt to back out of the spot.  Of course, it’s really not that simple… the car’s not moving anywhere.  The tires are spinning.  The van is sliding down the hill, closer and closer to another car.  I decide I can’t deal with this situation and get out and start walking toward the main stage in the rain. 

There are a bunch of tents, and all of them look equally hospitable, so I head toward the first one I see.  Each step is like trying to avoid stepping on a land mine.  My foot my hit solid ground, but occasionally I sink into the mud.  Needless to say, I’m in a pretty awful mood.  When I jump into the first tent, I realize this isn’t any kind of hospitality tent, but actually a kitchen where the staff is cleaning up the catering supplies from the day.  They all look at me strangely and I know this really isn’t the place I’m supposed to be, not to mention I have no idea where the rest of BLVD ended up.  At least I’m not standing in the rain anymore! 

Then, with near-cinematic timing, the power in the tent goes out and I’m standing in darkness, soaked, with people I’ve never met.  Awkward!  They are friendly enough, and after talking a little about the tribulations involved with throwing a festival in the rain, they eventually point me toward the artist hospitality area.  I head in the direction, and there’s the rest of the band, standing underneath another tent.  When I get there, I realize that even though this tent is blocking the rain, the ground is basically an even 6-inches of mud… some spots are a little grassier, some are a little watery, but it’s all mud.  They are relieved to see me, and I them.  Apparently they’ve been texting me the whole time, but my phone is back in the van of course…

A mere 100 feet away is another tent with, get this, a wooden floor!  I don’t think I’ve ever been so happy to see an actual floor.  And there’s food!  And beer!  Oh glorious night!  I laugh watching other people as they enter this tent, like they’ve just crossed the finish line of some sadistic game show and won the grand prize.  Sighs of relief!

After Allen makes it back to us after coordinating with a tow truck (who is making a killing tonight at $40 per vehicle) to get our van back to dry ground, we decide check out the rest of the fest.  The rain has stopped, which makes moving from place to place a little easier once you get on an actual road.  We watched the end of the Disco Biscuits set, and then Pretty Lights and finally STS9 before heading back to the hotel in Schenectady.  We all basically gave our shoes a hot shower, watching the pounds of mud drain from the tub.  Then, let them dry off by the heater as we slept a few hours before needing to head back to the festival for our 10am load-in time.

Driving to the festival this next morning is, literally, like night and day.  The sun is shining, only a few clouds in the sky.  When we get to the gate everyone is smiling.  We drive down the road to the main stage to set up and sound check.  Walking on to the stage was somewhat surreal… the field that had been filled with thousands of people the night before is empty.  The 100 yards from the stage to the soundboard is a giant mud-pit.  As we set our gear up, I look out at the sun glistening on the different shapes left by people’s feet.  The earth has been bent into an organic sculpture that now hardening like clay in a kiln.  I decide people aren’t going to want to get too close though, once we start playing.

The crew working on the main stage is probably one of the best I’ve ever worked with.  I’ve got what might be the biggest monitor I’ve ever had to my right, and Dylan has an equally enormous sub-woofer to his left.  A shiny-new Eden amp with matching speakers to play my bass through, an enormous main system waiting to broadcast the first sounds of the day to the masses. 

Our set was 45 minutes, so we narrowed our material down to the hardest hitting stuff.  By the time we are done with our sound-check and start the first song, Perfect Fit, hundreds of people have made it to the stage, and hundreds more are on the field behind the soundboard.  As we play on, I notice a brilliant solution people have found to the mud problem.  Between the stage and the soundboard, there are these plastic barriers covering the cables.  Since it’s basically the only place to stand where you aren’t sinking in the mud, people create this single-file line right in the middle of the field – not moving their feet much, but moving the rest of their bodies.  A hilarious image that will be the one that sticks with me the most from Camp Bisco!

Thanks to the Disco Biscuits and the production crew for creating a truly memorable event!....