Pickathon 2022 Pop-in

My brother Rob set me up with a one-day ticket to the 20 year tradition music festival on Portland's east side this past weekend. So, rather than spend the day sanding, I ran with the bulls at Pendarvis Farm. Today's post is a collection of observations. Like any cultural anthropologist, I bring with my observations a bias from prior experiences (Black Sheep, 4Peaks, NW String Summit, Horning's Hootenanny, and ChinookFest). I can't ignore all that, so understand that my opinions stem from what I saw at those other festivals.

Parking

Margo Cilker

Obviously any festival starts with getting there and back. With the significant increase in housing development around Pendarvis Farm, the festival site seems to be contracting. This year, there were significant issues with parking, and some persons who bought weekend parking passes found themselves parking either within the housing developments or at a shuttle-served lot a few miles away. We were fortunate in that we were able to find a spot in the blackberry bush strewn overflow parking complex Saturday morning. I say complex because it was a hilly area with mixed bushes, trees, and ravines, making the "lot" a labyrinth. Lotyrinth? Finding the car in the dark after many more cars appeared was especially challenging. For the beverage consumers, this would have been a very effective sobriety test.

Get In to Get Lost

Once parked, the entrance, and pretty much the entire festival, was effectively unmarked. You knew you were at the entrance simply because that was where some folks were walking in, but it was a 1-person wide breach in the fence marked by a guy sitting in a folding chair. The wristband tent was well run (though, again, the signage was virtually absent), and once strapped, Rob and I headed uphill on the gravel driveway towards the crowd. Our passage was interrupted by what would become a very familiar pair of catering tables on either side of the walkway, with a 8" x 10" sign reading "Bag Check". Here, they confirmed you did not have any alcohol from whence you came.

Cherry Hill stage

The "Bag Check" sign was the only consistent sign I recall seeing. The stages were unlabeled. The trails were unlabeled, so were the barns, leaving you subject to finding maps, which were posted in a few spots around the festival grounds. Unfortunately, they did not include a "you are here" marker, so the maps really only served to taunt you with seeing where you wanted to be, without actually delivering what a map usually delivers: a route to take to get there. Any time we were walking around, I really had no idea where I was or how to get where we were going. "Rob, you're driving," was a familiar refrain. He had been to Pickathon a bunch of times and had been at this event for the prior 2 days... and even he had to check himself on where we were and how to get where we wanted to be. It was a rolling navigational pop-quiz. Frankly, something as simple as a single central post with arrows pointing in the general direction of the stages would have helped.

Beyond the lack of signage and having to pass through security twice every time we went to the Woods stage (or to the barns) and back, Pickathon did a great deal of crowd management through frustrating clear paths with fences or other obstacles. A route would look clear and then you would get to the end of the path, terminating with a small "artists only" or "staff only" sign and a security person. My last complaint / observation is the dust cloud. Rob and I both wore masks most of the time for CoViD reasons initially, but found them to be critical in keeping the dust out of our lungs. I still had considerable brown junk in my nose after wearing the mask all day because the event staff were not watering the trails we were allowed to use. At other festivals I have gone to, this is standard fare: those 4-wheel golf carts would run water sprayers on the main trails to cut down on the dust. Even in festivals based on the desert (4Peaks, eg) would do this, and the water in Bend ain't cheap. The dust management, when combined with the forced-crowd routing, was a major miss.

Vending

After all that complaining about logistics, the vendors were fantastic. There were probably 25 different food options, including beer and pizza offerings at the remote stages. The lines were fairly long all evening, and they did not move terribly quickly, but the prices were reasonable ($16 for a burrito, eg). 

Because Pickathon is a waste-free event, you need to buy or rent a plate or utensils for food and buy a cup for drinks. I had not seen a waste-free festival before, and now, in retrospect, this was admirable. There wasn't any garbage anywhere; no litter, no overflowing garbage cans, etc. The location between the food vendors and the merch tent where one could purchase these items had no line at any point that I can remember, even during the heavy dinner food rush. If you did not want to buy, and wanted to rent, the exchange took place there, with a return (no cash back, you got a food/drink chip) after you visited a washing station that was kinda far away. I got a burrito and skipped the whole commemorative plate thing, but the concept and execution were impressive. Other festivals could learn from this.

The merch tent was efficient and had lots of swag for both the festival and the artists. Of all the festivals I've been to, I think this merch tent was the best supplied. Considering how many artists appeared, having shirts and recordings for what seemed like every artist was no easy feat. I grabbed a poster, rather than a T-shirt (I can see the poster every day, the T-shirt comes up in the rotation, like, once every 6 weeks).

Camping

Bella White

Neither Rob nor I camped, but some of Rob's friends were in the car-camping area closest to the festival grounds. So, we visited long enough to get a sense of the scene. The car-camping zones were set up on slightly sloped, open field about 10 meters wide by, maybe 100 meters long with a fire lane along one side and a fence along the other. Cars were parked two or three deep against the fence with canopies and tents intermixed in between. Everything was close together for sure, but Rob's friends had a large rectangular canopy under which they spent the majority of their awake-but-not-at-music time. They seemed quite comfortable.

The tent camping seemed to be pretty much everywhere, at least in the treed areas; the open ground around and between most of the stages hadn't any campers. Once in the forest, however, it almost seemed like if there wasn't a trail or a tree, there was a tent. Of course, we did not hike into the deeper areas, but we met a friend who was camped at the furthest end and she indicated that when she arrived (early-ish Thursday) the best, flatter spots at the outer edges had already been taken. She had to clear her own spot with clippers. We joked about bringing a machete next year.

Unlike the other festivals I had been to, it seemed like the camping spots were really just used for sleeping, and no one was hanging out there. The only exception to that, other than a handful of close-in car-campers, was the hammocks. Those who brought hammocks had them strung between trees and appeared to spend most of their time lounging in them. At least, that is how it appeared, as they were there whenever we padded between stages. Even the RV zone appeared empty during the day.

Music

Garcia Peoples

Of course, the main reason for going to a music festival is the music. When Rob invited me to go on Saturday, there were 2 acts I really wanted to see: Built to Spill and Quantic. I had never heard anything by Built to Spill, but numerous people in my past have raved about them. Quantic, on the other hand, I had listened to here and there since the late 90's, and I really liked his original material. Rob had a few more on his "really want to see" list, and then had a bunch circled for otherwise open time slots. Below, I'll list who we saw in the order in which we saw them.

Jake Xerxes Fussel - Afterwards, Rob described him as a "white Taj Mahal". I thought that was generous. Jake's vocal range is much more narrow than Taj, and his guitar work was nowhere near Taj. After 3 songs we felt like we had seen everything he had to share and we left for the Woods stage to see Margo. Jake was an otherwise open spot on the schedule for us.

Margo Cilker - from Rob's "really want to see" list. They were amazing. Her lyrics have genuine word-smithing that far surpassed pretty much everyone else we saw. Margo was joined with backing harmonies by her sister, and there are few things as tonally perfect as sibling harmonies. When Boo and her sister sing together, it is magical. Add to that the lyrics, the melody lines and a tight performance group, and they really stole the festival for us. Her stage banter was approachable and created understanding for the next piece well. Seriously, for a first artist of the day, she could have been, and, arguably, should have been much later in the day. Still, the Woods stage represented, and gave her the love deserved.

Frankie and the Witch Fingers - We stayed to the very end of Margo's set and then had to navigate the bag check between the Woods stage and the others. By the time we got to the Grove, Frankie and co were deep into it. What we saw was punk, basically, complete with crowd surfing by some of the younger set. We were fairly far back, so the sound quality was not very good, so we didn't stay. Rob's friends said they were great, and they were in front of the sound board.

The Feels - We caught the tail end of the Feels set after tasting Frankie and the Witch Fingers. They were tight with a hard edge. Apparently, Pickathon was their last series of shows, so I'm glad we saw what little we did. The musicians look fairly young, so this isn't a case of retirement. More likely, some artists are heading into different directions. It will be interesting to see where these folks go.

Quantic

Rachel Briman - From Nashville, Rachel was chosen because we had an open time slot, we hadn't been to this stage except for one song by the Feels and it was surrounded by trees. Rachel is a multi-instrumentalist, appearing with a banjo, guitar and violin during her set. Unfortunately, the soundcheck appeared to have not gone well, as it was still ongoing when her set was supposed to start. The sound system was definitely not ready: we did not hear the guitarist at all for the first few numbers and of all things the drums weren't loud enough. Most unfortunate, though, the entire main was not loud enough. So, neighbors having a conversation at normal conversation volume were louder than the stage, and when Rachel was talking, we couldn't make out what she was saying. By the middle of the set, the mix was better balanced, though still way too quiet, but we could tell that she and her unit were good instrumentalists. The sound guy earned an F; total fail, go back to school.

Bella White - I don't remember where Bella was from or how we came upon her set. We were fortunate to get standing room directly behind the soundboard, though. As flat-awful as the sound guy was for Rachel, this guy was great. At the start of each song, he would jump on the sliders and make the mix spot-on perfect. As her set was starting the DJ at the stage behind us, unfortunately, did not get the memo that his set was over, so for Bella's introduction and first song, we had to strain to hear through a later Phil Collins recording. Yes, that's right; Phil Collins from a DJ. Wow, seen that now. Bella appeared with a violinist to her right and a standup bass to her left. They were really good, putting them in my top 3 for the day. Bella brought a charisma to the stage that no others did that day, drawing you in with vulnerability, wanting to hear more of her stories. Great harmonies, really sweet violin. Like Margo, we stayed to the very end, and also like Margo, we were sad her set was only an hour long.

Cherry Hill at night

Garcia Peoples - We headed down to the Galaxy Barn after Bella. We had an opening in the 5PM timeslot and we hadn't been inside a barn for a performance yet. The Galaxy barn is cool (quite literally. it is air conditioned), and fits probably 60 people. When it is at capacity, the air conditioning doesn't do much, but it feels very intimate. These guys were loud; like the Who loud. They were so loud that I pulled out the decibel reader on my phone to see how loud, and they were over 102dB during a quieter part of their 2nd song. I tapped Rob on the shoulder, showed him the reading and pointed my thumb at the door. He agreed and we hit the door. As to the show, their musicianship was really good. Their bassman was clever and laid down interesting lines while their lead guitarist shreded. They reminded us of Iron Butterfly or another late 60's riff-rock band, but their vocals were very disappointing, and the drumming was crude, like very early Black Sabbath (blacka-blacka-blacka) simple. We sat in the grass under a tree, where the outdoor speakers played to the "overflow" space for the balance of the set.

Quantic - We returned to the Woods stage (bag check again) after Garcia Peoples. We had an open hour, but the security lines were getting slower and we did not want to miss the start of the set. I have enjoyed Quantic's original material for literally 20+ years, but I had never seen him live. He rolled a "festival set" of danceable music that showed his roots (Afro-Cuban underbeat with some deep bass), but there was little of his original music in there. Still, he was awesome and the Woods stage crowd loved it. Of the entire festival, this was the only performance where the entire audience was standing if not dancing. Until this point, every other performance was witnessed by a 75% (or more) sitting crowd, with the standers usually along the outer edges, standing because there was no longer room to sit. No judging, just noticing.

Built to Spill - As the afternoon shifted to evening, the smaller stages shut down, but the security bag check lines were unrelenting. We intended to catch some of GZA, but working through the crowds really prevented that plan. We did catch a little bit, but then decided that scoring a spot for Built to Spill was a better use of a our time between. We set up right in front of the video camera tripod adjacent to the sound board. The vocal was low in the mix at the start, but that was resolved by the end of the first song. They rocked, and played past the end of the hour by almost 15 minutes. Oops. Such a good bass player, and the lead solos/jams were fantastic. How they could produce so much sound with so few players, I don't know, but Built to Spill were great.

Because of the different genre's, it's hard to say who was "the best" or my favorite. I think the festival day winner was Quantic simply because he got an entire crowd on their feet and dancing for over 30 minutes. Near the end of his set, I shot the imbedded video posted above. Having said that, my favorite was Margo. With Quantic second and then Bella, followed by Built to Spill. Everyone has an opinion; that was mine.

In the end, we really had a great time and I think the company I was keeping (brother Rob) was what made it so. Like Boo, he approached with a list of wanna-sees, but an openness to take what came, and change it up if what we encountered wasn't what we needed. I was worn out by the time I got home. A warm shower with a cold beer set me up for a long sleep. If you've never had a cold beer in the shower after a long hot dusty day, I strongly recommend it.

That's it. I intend to get back to Zed later this week / weekend. I'll post an update when I have one. Thanks, as always, for following along-

Chinook Fest 2017 - Road Report

I inverted the road and festival reports this time around, in terms of their writing and posting. The festival was so great, the organizers and festers so nice, I didn't want to color the reader's opinion based on our travel adventures. And it was an adventure... at least getting there was.

The Set-up

Here in the States, we celebrate "Labor Day" as the last long weekend of a typical Summer. It is often the last-gasp for those looking to maximize their sunny season. Boo and I celebrated with a weekend on the Oregon Coast. While this post isn't about that, it is important in the greater context. We didn't get home from the beach until after dark on Monday, and we decided to leave for Chinook Fest the following Thursday night. This prevented any last-minute test flights of the bus, and restricted time for general packing. Actually, we packed Monday night as clothes we took to the beach went through laundry cycles.

Our other prep-work was similarly haphazard. Most of our camping gear had been stored in the bus, so packing the rest seemed easy. In truth, it was, except for forgetting the french press. In the end, that didn't matter anyway since we also forgot coffee. Boo pre-cooked a bunch of chicken, getting up in the middle of the night Wednesday to complete it.

Almost Not a Departure

This summer has been historic in terms of wild fires across the western US. While news people have been highly focused on the hurricanes in the southeastern US, we have seen over 1.5 million acres burned across 6 western continental states. There are more burning in western Canada and Alaska. Those who don't live here may not know how widespread it is. It's bad. You can smell smoke most days, and see orange skies with a red sun many days. Thousands have been displaced, uncounted animals (both wild and livestock) lost, homes destroyed, etc. As we plotted our trip, elevation climbs were secondary to genuinely open routes from home to fest and back again, trying to forecast where the fires and smoke would go so we could make the round trip at all. I found this US Forestry Service Beta site where smoke forecast models can be run. Once you get past the scary fires part, it's really very cool.

This story starts like so many of our get-outta-Dodge stories: with simply getting home from work. Boo had to work a little late, so she hit typical rush hour traffic, delaying our departure a little bit. The gas and grocery stop wasn't too time consuming, though we doubled back home for a few things.
In fact, between the traffic delay, gas, groceries, final packing and the double-back, the sun had set before we got on the road around 8:30PM. We drove through downtown Beaverton and got onto OR217 North and saw our temps start to climb. Again. Since we hadn't hit normal temps, we pressed on, but I kept my eye on the gauge.

One Exit at a Time

By the time we got to the Sylvan exit, we had crossed over 194* and I had to pull over. No sooner did I start pulling off than the temp started to drop. We pulled through the intersection at the end of the ramp and onto the on-ramp before pulling to the side. We idled and watched the temp drop down to 185* (the temp the thermostat is rated) and then settle there. There was no backing up; in order to head anywhere, we needed to get back on the freeway. So, we nosed onto the on-ramp, and elected to just go one more exit (to the Oregon Zoo) and turn around. Maybe we could find a spot to vagabond.

From the Sylvan on-ramp, the highway goes downhill, and the temps didn't move. So, we kept going. The made it through the tunnel and onto I-405 North without issue, though the temp started to climb again as we turned onto the Fremont Bridge. We stayed right, thinking we could just take the Kirby Street exit and camp in front of my brother's house. But the temp started dropping again, so just before the exit started to fork off of the highway, I drifted left, back into the slow lane. We continued north onto I-5. As we approached the Interstate Bridge into Washington, the possibility of making it to Chinook Fest started entering our thoughts. We talked about what the best route would be: over the reportedly very steep White Pass on US-12 or through the potentially toxic smoke in the Columbia Gorge? Hapy answered by raising his temp, so we turned onto Washington State Route (SR) 14.

Smoke on the Water
Once on SR-14, Hapy and I settled into a rhythm. I wouldn't push him too fast, and he wouldn't raise his temperature too high. We followed the Columbia River past the I-205 interchange where the highway narrows to 2 lanes (one each direction with a pair of yellow lines down the middle). By now, it was after 10:PM, but the road was still quite busy. The major interstate (I-84) on the Oregon side of the river was closed from Troutdale to Hood River, and the last open river crossing until the other side of the closure was the I-205. This increased traffic held with us until Hood River, and then almost everyone turned off to I-84. We stayed. And we were suddenly alone.

As we traveled East, we could taste the smoke in the air, but didn't really see it until after Hood River. The wind had been blowing east, so the massive wild fire which was so close was not really perceptible. Once past Hood River, though, we found that we needed to put surgical masks on so we could breathe more easily. With masks on, we navigated the twists and turns of SR-14 as well as ascending / descending the summits. The smoke created an eerie fog-like space, changing perceptions of time and speed. With our speeds lowered for visibility, Hapy stayed below 192* and we didn't need to pull off to let him cool. Hapy was happy and keeping him cool wasn't a constant affair. Just East of Wishram, we turned North onto US-97, passed through Goldendale and entered the Yakima Indian Reservation. As remote as SR-14 felt after our fellow travelers turned south, we felt completely isolated now. The hour grew later, and while conversation was lively, we were both growing tired. So, as we entered Toppenish we saw the always-open Branding Iron Restaurant and pulled in for a bite.

Not Toppenish. More Bottomish

It was well after midnight by the time we stopped, and there were 2 cars and a semi in the parking lot plus our bus. The service at the Branding Iron was fast and friendly, the food was good, and more than we could consume in a single seating. Being 1 in the morning, and the only place open in Toppenish, strange people came and went while we were there. The waitress explained about the homeless, and about the serial drug users who will try to get a handout. With Toppenish being such a small town, I was a little surprised, but I guess meth has made it everywhere now.

As we were leaving, Boo suddenly became ill. We were out of the restaurant and heading back onto US-97, so we just kept going, and chose to follow the hospital signs. We found a small E/R clinic just off the main road. After a bunch of tests, and a couple of hours, they prescribed antibiotics for an infection, gave her one to start with and sent us on our way. It was 4:15AM. We had actually spent more time in Toppenish than we had spent getting there. With the gates opening at 8 and an hour left in our drive, we chose to keep going as long as we could.

Naches, WA

We entered the town of Naches just before 5:AM. We thought we would see a place to camp along the way, or at least a place to get Boo's prescription, but we found neither. At the far edge of town, we pulled into the Forest Service Ranger Station and parked under a tree to take a nap. Hapy had been a champ getting us this far, and we only had about 30 minutes further to the festival grounds. We zonked very quickly and awoke without prompting at 8:10. While wild fare smoke seemed to be increasing around us, we fired up Hapy and drove the last few miles out of cell-phone coverage to a festival that had eluded us for the last time.

Homeward
As much as the drive there was an adventure, the drive home was relatively uneventful. We filled up with regular Diesel #2 as a stop in Naches that gave Hapy sporadic fits and starts, but his temps stayed relatively predictable. When they got high, we pulled over. That happened quite a bit, especially through the Yakima Indian Reservation. We stopped for lunch and a prescription pick-up at a Fred Meyers in Yakima. We hit heavy traffic east of Stevenson because of the I-84 closure, and watched the traffic lighten as we passed I-205. We left the festival after 1:30 and arrived home around 8:30 after just one extended stop, and a handful of pull-overs for Hapy cool-downs.

We thought we were going to vagabond in Portland. Then, we spent 3 hours in the E/R. The fact that we entered the gates at all was a miracle. Boo was incredible, between over-work, under-sleep and fighting an infection, her constitution amazes me.

As to Hapy, I talked to lots of fellow car folks at Chinook Fest. The consensus is that my thermostat may be sticking (replace it), but my radiator is under-powered for the amount of heat I ask it to shed. I will look into replacing it with a new high-performance radiator. You know I'll post about it when I get it done. One closing point: we got just over 33MPG round trip.
#ChinookFest
As always, thanks for following along. More to come...

Chinook Fest 2017 - Festival Report

Taking a break from the Summer of MGB, Boo and I took Hapy the wonderbus to Central Washington for a small music festival. Today's post covers the festival part. I'll post another about the getting to / getting from, like I often do. I should begin with an expression of gratitude to Michelle who awarded us tickets perhaps in part because of our 2 attempts (and failures) to attend Chinook Fest and then Chinook Summit last year. Our only cost was $100 for Hapy to park with the RV's. Michelle and her fellow organizers were really special. Unlike so many festivals, they were very present, approachable and doing the grunt work alongside their volunteers. As Edd China would say, "top work!"

North West Know Where

ChinookFest started in 2012 as the brainchild of 3 people who wanted a party for their friends. 4Peaks started the very same way, so Boo and I were immediately onboard. This group of friends are from the Yakima, Washington area and the venue is a small community park north west of Yakima, outside a town called Naches (pronounced kinda like "nah-cheese"). The park, Jim Sprick Community Park, abuts the Naches River, at the edge of the Chinook Pass along state route 410. The Elk Ridge campground neighbors to the west and a large fire station neighbors to the east. Considering the wild fires this summer, the proximity of the fire station brought a level of comfort to the festival attendees.

Chinook Fest followed a familiar pattern of an opening night using a smaller stage, a full day of alternating from smaller to larger stage and a closing day leveraging just the smaller stage. The music started at 4 on Friday and ended after 1:PM Sunday with the final bands at night completing their sets well after midnight. There was yoga both mornings at 9, similar to 4Peaks, but the event was 21+ for Friday and Saturday. This meant there was virtually no alcohol monitoring in the camping areas, but it also meant there were very few attendees in their early 20's as well, so it wasn't as needed. Frankly, we didn't see anyone over-indulged at Chinook Fest, so our 4-year run of successfully finding Waldo (our label for drunken idiot) at every festival is now over. An unfortunate side-effect of the 21+ rule was the lack of those with kids for whom finding a weekend-long sitter is simply impossible. This created an age gap in the attendees: those without kids and those with grown kids.

festival entrance

Trees, Grass, Gravel and Dirt
The central venue is under a canopy of trees with a tree-lined river bed serving as the rear edge to the festival grounds. The park is set up for events, with permanent structures for vending surrounding a grassy lawn near the entrance. The concert area is served with water-supplied bathrooms, and further supported with port-a-potties and hand-washing stations. The water, while potable, isn't terribly good, but I'm spoiled on the Bull Run watershed. In front of the two stages, the park has packed gravel underfoot. This works well for boots and chairs, but not so well for bare feet and blankets.

Outside the concert-controlled area, the parking / camping is split into 4 sections. Closest to the Elk Ridge campground is a dirt field where overflow parking and free car-camping was allowed. Adjacent to that is a grass and tree area where RV (read: paid extra) camping was set up. Closest to the fire station was day-use parking and additional parking for tent-campers. Last, the tents were located in the grassy areas closest to the entrance, among the play structures and trees. Since we had been given a break on RV parking, we were in the grass, shaded by trees.

We arrived 30 minutes after the gates opened at 8:AM, so we missed the initial rush, though many others had already started setting up. We were directed into the RV corral and after trying a couple of spots, we resolved on a place nearest the fire-lane exit between the RV section and the dirt overflow. By 10:30, we were mostly set up and had waved over the only other VW bus at the festival to park with us. They brought their minivan-driving friends, and the party was on.

The Festers
The other VW was a 1970 green and white high top driven by Zeb and Casey from Wenatchee, WA. They, with their longtime friends Oly and Katelyn, helped set the tone for our weekend, swapping stories, fruit and beverages all weekend. The 1970 high top had a 1.8L conversion done to it by the prior owner, so we had an immediate connection about overheating and managing air bubbles in cooling systems. They had a 1960's era "circus tent" (it attaches to the side of the bus but the bright red stripes have it labelled as the circus tent) so when combined with Hapy's Riviera top and the rest of our semi-custom stuff (camping table, lot couch), we had a way of attracting car people. Oly and Katelyn had 2 10x10's set up like a lounge with a bar and a comfy-couch for visitors (picture below). They were across the "street" from us, so our little corner was pretty popular.

Early on, we met Tom and Liz from Tri-Cities. They, like many other we met, have been coming to Chinook Fest since it's first year. It seemed like every time they passed, Tom had a different tie-dye. We hung out quite a bit, and gave tours of our respective camping rigs. I hadn't crawled around a pickup-bed camper before, and we were quite surprised how much room there was. Very cool.

Daniel and Dean were from Renton, and were big VW guys. We talked quite a bit about Gene Berg transmissions, his performance work and air-cooled VeeDubs. I couldn't tell how they felt about the TDI power plant I had in Hapy, but the love for Volksies was unmistakable.

Inside the music area, we met Steve and Sandy, proud parents of the lead singer of the Wicks. Lovely people. There's something about running into musicians or those directly associated to the musicians out among the "regular people". For example, the keyboardist for the Crooks helped us solve for water that first day. Where does that happen? So often, bands slip in through their designated access gate, hang out in their special section until their turn on stage and then disappear afterwards. That wasn't entirely true at 4Peaks, and it definitely wasn't the case at Chinook Fest.

We had managed to forget both coffee and our french press, so we befriended the proprietors of the coffee place. They run Highway Espresso in Naches, and were pretty amazing, handling the coffee needs of most of the attendees. Well, at least it seemed like most attendees. David, husband of the owner, is another VW guy, and he brought their '65 Beetle up to the festival after we talked about Hapy. Tina is shopping for a VW camperbus of her own so she can start ticking locations off her bucket-list. Driving the 101 is on my list too.

Oly / Katelyn camp

That is just a small sampling of the people we met, hung out with, had drinks with, etc. The people make Chinook Fest what it is. They're open, interested and engaging. Of course, we didn't meet everyone, but based on the sample, we're fans. Based on license plates, and that sample, Boo and I concluded that almost everyone there was from the greater Yakima area, with the rest from Seattle or Spokane. If true, central Washington really represented well. Very nice people.

Stretching the Definition of Country
As great as the people were, most folks go to music festivals for the music. Overall, there were more bands with a country feel than our typical music festival tastes would run. As a festival, it felt like the theme would have been "stretching the definition of country". We learned that the way the bands are selected is through a deep investigative process by the 3 friends. They look for artists who they believe are a couple of years away from discovery by the masses. So, if you don't recognize any of the names of the bands this year, we should look back on this list in 2020 to see if any of them made it into the mainstream. Before we left Oregon, the only band we had heard of (and heard before) was the closing act on Sunday: the William G. Hardings. There were so many good acts, it doesn't seem fair to call out too many above the others. Still, I will. haha.

our setup

On Friday, Shane Smith and the Saints were probably our favorite. After our trialed efforts to get to the festival, we fell asleep before Rust on the Rails got through more than one song, so I can't really comment on them.

On Saturday, there were a few that stood out. Cobrahawk sounded like a blend of Heart and Kim Carnes, but Josh Hoyer and Soul Colossal took the day. They ended their tour with us, leaving for their home in Lincoln, NE after smokin' Chinook Fest. The energy of the band was contagious, pulling us out of our very comfy camp (picture right) to dance behind the stage. Once on our feet, we drifted into the concert zone for The Silent Comedy and watched them rock their set. Their "Dead Flowers" may have been our festival highlight.

festival farm truck

Sunday brought us The Wicks. Their harmonies were really good. Downright spooky-good. While nothing will ever compare to how Vivid Curve started day 2 at the HHH in 2014, the Wicks are in solid 2nd place for how to start a day at a festival. While we weren't drawn to the stage by a didgeridoo (Vivid Curve), we did stop in our camp-breakdown tracks, mid-step frozen to listen. Yeah, they're that good. We had seen the William G. Hardings before, their straight-up bluegrass sound had the dwindled-crowd's toes tapping.

As we slowly broke camp, neighbors shared farewells and pulled out. We left when Zeb and Casey did, hours after Oly and Katelyn had gone. The end of festival is a mixture of sadness and fatigue... and the knowing that there are hours of driving before bed. But that's another post. I'll get to that. Thanks, as always, for following along.

#ChinookFest