It's a common question lately so I've decided to tell the whole story here where you can read as little or as much as you want. I broke it down into the common second questions. But if you wanted a one word answer.. good. Vibes was good.
WHAT IS VIBES?
The Gathering of the Vibes is a music festival of about 20-30 thousand people in Bridgeport CT. Camping. Hard partying. gigantic list of gigantic bands etc. I first attended the vibes back in 2000. That summer was also my first summer in the Six Flags band so I had just discovered banjo and dixieland music. It was my one weekend off from the park and was there to see P-Funk (with George), Les Claypool, Strangefolk, and Deep Banana. Among the campground partying, a thought crossed my mind. This crowd would totally dig the dixie band. That's all I'll say about that.
HOW DID YOU GET IN TO VIBES?
Ten years later, The Primate Fiasco was discovered by the Vibes people at a Bridgeport venue. No one was there so between sets, we went outside to play on the sidewalk. We paraded back in with audience in tote. Vibes personal was present. The show was pretty much already booked (and we are microscopic compared to the bands they have there) so it was too late to give us a stage spot. But they did witness our mobility potential and so that's how we ended up in the vibes. They offered us the ability to roam around all weekend and do our street thing and then came up with a spot for us to set up a stage in the vending strip.
There were four scheduled performances. One street show by the PT Barnum statue (The circus godfather apparently donated the park to the city and I found it appropriate that we were playing under his memorial statue), a Friday and Saturday night set at our stage on the vending strip, and then we lead a parade on sunday morning. Outside of that, we have free range to walk around and jam wherever and whenever we want.
The Vibes people did their best to schedule good exposure for us. But as it turned out, through no fault of theirs, the scheduled sets were the challenges and the free range moments are what made our weekend.
The band was in a nebulous status. We were artist, but technically vendors. Camped in VIP but were sorta with the staff. The workers at the check-in tent were excited to meet us but had no idea what we were. They were very nice and would say things like, "so.. you are an artist but I guess I'm supposed to give you a vender wrist band?" We're used to being the odd ball organization.
LOCATION LOCATION LOCATION
Two things about location. On a large scale, lets talk miles. Our stage was in a vending strip, which sounded good in theory, but it was a mile away from the rest of the festival. It was there for the poor saps who had to camp so far away, they'd never make it to the other vending areas for breakfast and such. The times of our stage show were set for the worst possible time. Right after the headliner and right before the after party (but a mile away). Headliners being PRIMUS and FURTHER (the remaining GRATEFUL DEAD). The after parties being MIX MASTER MIKE and DEEP BANANA BLACKOUT. Needless to say, the only people who would be within a mile of us were the people who couldn't party anymore and managed to make it back to their tent instead of crashing on the pavement outside the concert field.
On a smaller scale, we saw how 50 feet can make a giant difference on our roaming sets. Our first roaming set was scheduled in front of PT Barnum statue at 8pm on Thursday night. As we started to play, people who were on their way into the show would stop and watch us. The problem was, The Barnum statue was in the center of a traffic rotary. Every time a vehicle went by (every 30 seconds or so) the crowd would get broken up and they would ultimately remember that they were on their way into the main stage area. When we moved across the street and away from the rotary traffic, the expected crowd started to form. And then the unexpected crowd started to form. Basically, the entrance between the concert area and camping area had become clogged. At that point, security asked us to move about 20 feet because our audience was clogging the gate. Thats the difference that 50 feet makes to a street musician.
STAGE SET #1
We decided to try our stage on the vending strip. This was not a scheduled performance. It was around 2pm or so. The campground was still populated with folks who were saving their mile long treck for the late night headliners. When we started to play, a crowd formed and then was immediately distracted by a naked guy getting tazed by the cops. Nothing breaks up a good fiasco like having a cop car parked in front of your stage. I hope that guy is ok and I hope he doesn't get in too much trouble for his intoxicated resistance. He clearly was in another world at the time. The tazing disturbed me.
STAGE SET FRIDAY NIGHT
1am. The campground was quiet when we started but it soon turned into a raging dance party. Really. It was like one of our Iron Horse shows only we were under an easy up tent by the ocean and the crowd was on pavement. It was a little more on the trance/techno/disco side of the primate fiasco. Reports of people dancing at their camp site confirmed that our PA system was belting plenty of sound across the hundreds of acres of tent city. At the end, we paraded off the stage and walked them over to an unauthorized makeshift stage where TURBINE was getting ready to play. The night continued.
ROAMING SETS ON SATURDAY
A quick walk to the playground was a no brainer idea for a kids show. After all, we did have a box of kids CDs to sell. Then we moved on, trying to stay in sync with the main stage schedule which was about to give some sonic downtime.
Here's where it gets good. We should have just done this the whole time. In between bands on the main stage, there is a 20 minute downtime. We sucked up every last drop of 20 minutes right before and right after GALACTIC, right at the mouth of the concert field. Those may have been some of the best Primate Fiasco sets ever. Every inch of hearing range was a swarming, sweaty, body painted, dance party. One guy had a drum with him and he did a great job of playing it. We broke out into a percussion jam where I banged on the banjo head, nick played his djembe, and the dude with the bright green sunglasses played his drum. It was more fun than any of us deserve. We wanted to play this spot right after Primus also, but we had an appointment a mile away at that hour.
SAT NIGHT STAGE SET
PRIMUS just got done playing and DEEP BANANA was playing the after party. It was late in the weekend. People were only half alive. We had a smaller crowd at our stage than we did on Friday night. They were interested in hearing us, but they couldn't even stand up. We were tired too. The band's exhausted sound was actually pretty appropriate for the scene. We did something we never do. We played all of our laid back lyrical stuff. It was nice.
At one point while we were playing, I got this strange feeling. Not to get to far out on ya, but the "vibe" didn't match the sight. I saw maybe 50 people standing or laying on the pavement (and a few neon glowing dancers) but it didn't feel like 50 people. It felt like more. There was some sort of presence that was confusing me. It was that feeling of being watched right before you turn around a notice godzilla's giant eyeball two feet away from you. Could it be? hmmm.. I asked the audience who was standing in front of the stage to remain silent for a moment. I then asked, into the microphone, if the people in their tents could hear us. And if so, are they enjoying it or are they trying to sleep? At that moment, a loving roar swept across the city of tents. There's no way to know how far it went. But it was something far bigger than us. I remember the faces on the audience members who were silently standing in front of the stage. It was at this moment that we knew our job. Everyone was as burnt and beat as we were. This was a lullaby set. We now knew that when we spoke into the mic, we were speaking to the entire western camp ground. We told them how bad we felt for them to be on the sun baked, treeless side of the fest and then sang Sunny Side Of The Street for them.
We played All my Enemies, Coulda Shoulda Woulda Monster, and several other songs that are often too mellow for the raging dance sets. We felt our work was done. We gave them one last goodnight song, You Are My Sunshine. Towards the end of the song, it jumped into a throbbing disco dance groove for about two verses. The audience mustered up the little bit of dancing they had left and then we switched back to the sweet slow version and settled them back to bed.
IN THE END
After waking up early to play Sunday morning's parade, our work was done. Nick and some of our crew had already gone home. And the remaining band and crew wandered back stage where we were to redeem our artist badges for some food. I figured we would maybe say hello to Martin Sexton and enjoy food that hadn't soaked in cooler water all weekend. We were still that nebulous band that is not really a vendor, not really a performer, and not staff, yet was clearly a member of the vibes. At the VIP tent, they told us to go to artist catering. At artist catering, they told us to go to VIP. We ended up buying food at the vendor tents just like the fans. I was too tired to track someone down with the proper laminant. They had done enough for us all weekend. $10 for Chinese food while we watched Ryan Montbleu on the main stage. Enjoyable. We got to be audience, or guests, or fans, or custies, or heads. Whatever you call it. We walked around and enjoyed the final moments of the festival. I think I'm the only person there who shelled out $25 for a T-shirt with my band's name on it.
-Dave Del
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