Location, Location, Location
What is true in real estate, is also so true in music festivals. A big festival at the city dump would be an awful experience no matter how good the music was, just as a festival on the outskirts of Bend with a great view of the Cascade Mountains is going to be a great experience no matter how memorable the bands are. In addition, the new-last-year festival grounds are spacious, allowing everyone spread-out room with large swaths of grassy field between camper sections. For example, from under our canopy we watched kids flying kites in the grass field (easily 20 meters across) between us and the neighboring car-camping zone.
EDIT: 4peaks removed the image of the map from 2018, so rather than have a broken image link, I removed it. I usually do not reference from the source; I usually download it to prevent this, but shit happens. end edit.
New this year was a specialty camp zone designated for camper vans sponsored by GoWesty. It is the light-blue rectangle-ish area pointing at 7 o'clock on the map image to the right here. This scene was orchestrated by "Ziggy", who got the festival to designate the space, found a sponsor, etc. GoWesty just brought an older well-worn Vanagon with an awesome TrailStomper SportsRig trailer and a sign. I think the concept was received well, GoWesty had a good time and I hope, if they do it again, they figure out how to bring some wares to sell to the camper-van community. Anyway, we had RSVP'd for that zone and found ourselves at the gate early enough to get the second spot in from "the Junction". We had set up at the intersection of the Junction last year, and hadn't intended to be so deep in the mix this year, but it turned out to be a great spot: level, near everything (not that anything is too far from anything else) and lots of friendly neighbors. In retrospect, though, I don't think we'll do the Westy-only camp next year.
Why? Consider when you see a beautiful painting on the wall all by itself. You can enjoy that painting, examine it, sit with it. When it is moved into a show with 30 other paintings, you can't help but compare them. A painting that you really liked is now being compare/contrasted with others, and that's not the point of art. I don't want to put Hapy in a spot where he is being weighed against others like that, so we'll just car-camp next year. For those who were walking by, it could have been intimidating. At most festivals, we have walkers-by asking about Hapy, and we love walking folks through it. We had zero non-Vanagon folks stop by this year.
The main festival area was oriented differently this year. The main stage was placed where the side tent was last year, and it pointed towards the camping zone. The tent/side stage was past where the food was last year, and it, too, had the stage facing the camping area. As a result, you could hear both stages if the conditions were right (little wind and no competing music). This made for some really wonderful sun-set and star-gazing in the Junction while listening to the bands.
Music
Every other year, there was a particular band or two that we went 4Peaks to see. This year, I bought the tickets before the lineup was announced, and none of the names really jumped out as the reason to go. Still, the bands were good. We probably saw more of the bands than other years, and we definitely heard more because of how the stages were oriented. Boo and I designated Kimock as our favorite with Maxwell Friedman following in second. Yes, both were on the smaller stage; most of the bands we really enjoyed were. The larger staged bands were good, yes, but the smaller stage had the New Mastersounds, Mojo Green, Chiringa!, Scott Pemberton... On the main stage, Mother Hips wasn't as good as I'd expected, and Poor Man's Whisky had a power outage. Nahko was good and North Mississippi All Stars were too, but, again, not as good as I thought they'd be. Maybe I need to check my expectations. Last band callout: Joe Craven and the Sometimers played a bunch of Grateful Dead tunes and did a really fine job. Of the main-stagers, they alone exceeded expectations.
This year, 4Peaks expanded to a third stage. Sort of. They added a small stage inside the kids' area (called Kidlandia) where singer-songwriters, possibly duets, would play. Unfortunately, this schedule wasn't as well circulated, so if you didn't have kids, you may have missed it entirely. I knew that our Sunday morning favorite Makaila was playing the kid's stage and we were able to grab some of her set. Honestly, she deserved a better setting, and wouldn't be surprised if she bags 4Peaks next year if that's the stage she's offered. With this change, they also abandoned the child performers who used to grace the stage on Sunday morning. I have mixed feelings about that; the kids were great, but Maxwell Friedman and Chiringa! played on Sunday. You can't get everything.
The Junction
The Junction is an intersection of the 2 major car-paths through the festival. Last year, The Furthur bus was parked there. There are a handful of vendors, there is a late-night kids movie after dark and this year highlighted a large figure (it looked like a Jesus fish standing on its tail) that shifted colors. 4Peaks had announced a fourth stage in The Junction, but that didn't materialize. The location of the Junction had moved west from it's location last year, and in so doing moved away from a small wooden stage. That small stage was unmoved, so it was out of the mix and the kids used it like a playground. Maybe that was why live music didn't happen at The Junction. Instead, one of the vendors (Dump City Dumplings) insisted on sporadically playing genre-inconsistent music from their food cart. It was not good. Actually, it just interrupted the music flowing from the stage. Next to them was a coffee and beverage cart that wasn't selling coffee. In the end, the Junction was a step down from what it was last year. Great for star-gazing when the DumpCity folks were between their interruptions.
Overall, we met some great new people, like Chris the coffee-roaster, Rachel the always-working festival staffer (who owned the dark vanagon behind Hapy in the picture above) and Mike-and-Suzie with the overheating Vanagon (just barely in the frame of that same picture). The music was good, the weather was just about perfect and when Sunday afternoon arrived, we really didn't want to leave. I'll post the road report separately; it was an adventure.
Why? Consider when you see a beautiful painting on the wall all by itself. You can enjoy that painting, examine it, sit with it. When it is moved into a show with 30 other paintings, you can't help but compare them. A painting that you really liked is now being compare/contrasted with others, and that's not the point of art. I don't want to put Hapy in a spot where he is being weighed against others like that, so we'll just car-camp next year. For those who were walking by, it could have been intimidating. At most festivals, we have walkers-by asking about Hapy, and we love walking folks through it. We had zero non-Vanagon folks stop by this year.
The main festival area was oriented differently this year. The main stage was placed where the side tent was last year, and it pointed towards the camping zone. The tent/side stage was past where the food was last year, and it, too, had the stage facing the camping area. As a result, you could hear both stages if the conditions were right (little wind and no competing music). This made for some really wonderful sun-set and star-gazing in the Junction while listening to the bands.
Music
This year, 4Peaks expanded to a third stage. Sort of. They added a small stage inside the kids' area (called Kidlandia) where singer-songwriters, possibly duets, would play. Unfortunately, this schedule wasn't as well circulated, so if you didn't have kids, you may have missed it entirely. I knew that our Sunday morning favorite Makaila was playing the kid's stage and we were able to grab some of her set. Honestly, she deserved a better setting, and wouldn't be surprised if she bags 4Peaks next year if that's the stage she's offered. With this change, they also abandoned the child performers who used to grace the stage on Sunday morning. I have mixed feelings about that; the kids were great, but Maxwell Friedman and Chiringa! played on Sunday. You can't get everything.
The Junction
Overall, we met some great new people, like Chris the coffee-roaster, Rachel the always-working festival staffer (who owned the dark vanagon behind Hapy in the picture above) and Mike-and-Suzie with the overheating Vanagon (just barely in the frame of that same picture). The music was good, the weather was just about perfect and when Sunday afternoon arrived, we really didn't want to leave. I'll post the road report separately; it was an adventure.
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