Wakarusa In Words: Thursday! (Apollo Sunshine! Limbeck! The Grandaddy of All Storms!)

By GREG FRANKLIN

Ah, the plight of the modern hippie. In a society where everything is becoming more and more socially acceptable, how does one truly let one’s freak flag fly these days? If you’re within the continental U.S. and have a penchant for expensive camping festivals with pretty diverse lineups, the Wakarusa Music and Camping Festival is a decent enough option.

I went into Wakarusa with equal excitement and reservations. I generally tend to eschew anything with the words “hippie” or “jam band” associated with them as if they are cancer-coated cookies. Dreadlocks, drum circles, frisbies, tie-dyed ensembles are much more fodder for comedy to me than things that I skew toward. Also, 4 days of hot summer music festival, of smelling funnel cakes and hot dogs in the same sniff, of bumping into the great unwashed masses, of cacophonic sounds blending together from multiple stages, of just seeing band after band after band in the heat … well, it’s a test of one’s rock fortitude to try to bring it every day, especially when surrounded by a sea of tie dye, reefer smoke, and a general overwhelming mellowness that even the most staunch punk would have to grit his teeth to not get affected by. I don’t know that I passed, but here’s my retelling of the experience.