We’d like to welcome Brandon Bouchillon to the HT team. Brandon just got back from the second annual Rothbury Festival and filed this report…

Rothbury has the stones. It sees your Bonnaroos and your High Sierras, your Lollapaloozas and, God forbid, your Schwagstocks, and raises you an unmatched experience of otherworldly grace. A psychedelic smorgasbord teeming with visual stimulation, wrapped in all the mind-bending music you can handle, hand-spun by some of the best musicians of all time (Bob Dylan, the ((Grateful)) Dead, and yes, the String Cheese Incident). Calling any and every other festival’s bluff, as of last weekend, Rothbury has pushed all-in.

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[All photos by Pietro C. Truba]

“It’s just so awesomely over-the-top. They really out-do themselves to trip you the hell out, and from that, people are tripping the hell out,” jokes Corey Harbison, a Nashville resident and two-year veteran of Rothbury. Harbison’s 12-hour drive was short comparatively, as fans flocked all-the-way from countries like Sweden and Norway for the fest.

Ultimately, it’s the soundtrack that makes the festival. And Rothbury had great music in spades. Thursday night, Keller Williams took the stage with members of String Cheese, effectively performing as the Keller Williams Incident for the first time in some four-odd years. Their take on Keller’s original Kidney In A Cooler was outstanding, and a cover of Phish’s Birds of a Feather had the road-weary dancing their aches away.

READ ON for more of Brandon’s Rothbury 2009 review…

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The String Cheese Incident was a circus in the best possible way. Imagine Ringling Bros. coordinated by Hunter S. Thompson and you’re there. Kick-starting the show with classics like Roll Over and Miss Brown’s Teahouse, something special seemed inevitable. At setbreak, thirty-odd white paper bags were turned upside down and set aflame. As if by magic, they all began to float skyward — a flock of wayward ghosts on the move, flaming parachutes falling upward, sliding casually into the inky night sky, blinking out.

As the second set commenced, Bill Nershi exclaimed, “Now its getting good!” before launching into Outside and Inside. All at once, dreadlocked contortionists clad in gold rose above the crowd, doing handstands while gyrating with hula hoops. An angelic trapeze artist tamed two forty-foot curtains hung from the rafters. Stepping back, she looked like a beautiful snake handler wrangling two towering luminescent vipers. Beach balls so big they’d make Atlas shrug bounced above the crowd. Pockets of fans ran to and fro punching the balls back upward. All while waves of glowsticks crested and broke above the audience.

Jeff Austin, mandolin virtuoso for Yonder Mountain String Band, described the lunacy as such: “We weren’t even here for String Cheese, but I saw the pictures and started wondering if I had taken something that day and forgotten.”

Right on cue, Sound Tribe Sector Nine blew some minds Friday night. The Pink Floyd of the electronica world, their visual phenomena and all-around trippery rival Dark Side of the Moon in its heyday. Favorites like Tokyo and Circus punctuated the set, while three LCD screens behind the band seemed to ascend the stairway to pixilation heaven. STS9’s lighting director doesn’t get paid enough. He couldn’t. Not if you saw what Rothbury saw until the wee hours of the morning.

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The blossoming friendship between young Jackie Greene and Phil Lesh, bassist for the Grateful dead, is one of the best duos going in live music today. Phil was side stage for Jackie’s Saturday slot, eating-up every note. Lesh even guested on a scorching New Speedway Boogie and Ball and Chain.

And if the Dead really aren’t going to tour anymore, Jackie Greene should become a fixture of the Phil Lesh & Friends lineup. His vocals and charisma are something sorely missed since Jerry’s untimely departure. Big shoes to fill, sure, but Jackie’s still growing.

“Jackie’s so engaging, on piano, on slide guitar, on harmonica, on anything. And the man can sing some Dead “ explains Drew Yoder, a fan from Cleveland and self-described “Deadhead”.

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Not to be outdone, The Dead tore through their catalog on July 4th. Their only scheduled performance for the foreseeable future, these Grateful veterans made this one count. Loose Lucy, Friend of the Devil, and Franklin’s Tower scorched the first set. A cover of Van Morrison’s Into the Mystic was quaint, but not out of place.

Legendary for their second sets, round two of The Dead was worthy of an Acid Test Graduation. A blistering One More Saturday Night got the crowd moving, but the absolutely filthy version of Shakedown Street was the highlight of the night. Dark Star made an appearance, and traveled so far into the mind’s eye some fans had trouble finding their way back.

But where were the fireworks? Following round two, the crowd anxiously awaited the traditional patriotic gunpowder showcase. Then, just as the encore of U.S. Blues kicked-off, so did an awe-inspiring display of firework fortitude. The sky blistered with explosions of every color, continuing through Not Fade Away, wrapping a devilish fourth of July.

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“How ‘bout a big thank you to the guys who thought this country up. Man oh Man,” guitarist Bob Weir mused above the chaos.

Simon Posford is the pied-piper of hallucinogenic deejaying. He even wears a feather in his cap, and Sunday morning, Simon brought the heat. Traveling through Outer Shpongolia, experiencing Divine Moments of Truth, even asking When Shall I be Free, Posford’s set took the electronic cake. Attendees looked around, mouthing “What’s going on?” as the coordinated pandemonium seemed unfathomable. Another heavy-weight electronic act, EOTO, brainchild of Jason Hann and Michael Travis of String Cheese Incident, followed suit, swiping every last ounce of danceable energy from the crowd. If given the chance, see EOTO perform. No two shows are the same, just as no two songs are the same.

Despite legends like Bob Dylan and Willie Nelson performing Sunday, Yonder Mountain String Band stole their thunder. By ripping danceable numbers like Boatman, Yonder summoned a dust-cloud of epic proportions. Sure, Dylan played Tangled Up in Blue and Like a Rolling Stone, and Willie was his lovable self, but Yonder came to play, and they aren’t playing.

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Ah Sherwood Forrest – it’d be a shame not to mention the ethereal goodness of Rothbury at night. A galaxy of multi-colored lights flash, illuminating some patch of madness, while dimming the picture on some other. Dayglo diamonds hang from the treeline, spun in the wind like so many others. Words can’t do Sherwood justice. Pictures only come close.

All in all, a novel could be written about Rothbury 2009, with chapters on late-night debauchery, reeling prose about unrelenting blissful madness, and stream-of-consciousness torrents detailing all the psychedelia. If such a book should ever get written (dibs!), its title would read as one all-too-honest word…

Bonnawho?

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