Electric Forest Festival 2011

Rothbury, MI is my favorite place on earth. After attending the first two Rothbury festivals, my excitement about going back via Electric Forest could not have been more heightened. There is something very special about this place to me and everyone I attend the festival with . We had one epic time!

Getting There:

Luckily for me, I only live about 2 1/2 hours east from the festival grounds. I managed to get my sister and her boyfriend to attend this year and it was their first festival. We departed together in the PunLive mobile at midnight on 7/30 in order to meet up with our "festival family" early at a grocery store so we could all travel into the festival grounds together and camp as one big massive entity. This worked out well. We had people in our group who traveled from all corners of the country to come together. There was representation from California, Texas, and New Jersey just to name a few. Driving in together was crazy as we were at least 30 cars worth of people. Convoy! It wasn't too hard in the middle of the night!

Once arriving at the festival grounds we all pulled our cars into a line of cars that we would stay in for the next 5 or so hours. It was not expected to have to wait this long but my "festival family" is getting used to having to wait in these types of lines. It was also another good time to get to know a lot of NEW people as there were soo many more of us at Electric Forest than at Summercamp.

After our long wait in line and some issues with ticketing, we all finally got through the checkpoints and were able to group together and find a camping spot. We ended up getting a great spot very close to the festival grounds. I think our group took up almost an entire row of cars. Setting up camp is always an intense time and lays out who your going to be around the rest of the festival. Finding a good camping spot is key to having a great time all weekend. We work very hard at it as a group, but there is always a bit of random unexpected thrown in there. Our camp was so big we ended up calling one part of it "North side" and one "South side" of camp!

The Festival:

The Stages -

First and foremost, the Rothbury festival grounds are the best on the planet. They feature all that is beautiful about Michigan, while bringing something completely magical to the experience. This was my third time here, and everytime there is always something that tends to be completely mind blowing and new! The grounds were set up like the OLD Rothbury festivals minus the big Odeum stage that was featured. The new main stage was at the Ranch location and was extended quite a bit to accommodate the 15,000 attendees expected at this festival. It featured most main acts such as The String Cheese Incident, Bassnectar, Tiesto, and Pretty Lights throughout the festival.

Sherwood Court, the second main stage was located through Sherwood Forest and featured many higher tier acts such as Galactic, Lotus, and Sphongle. It is a huge field that can easily accommodate the entire crowd if needed. There are less trees and shade on this stage than the ranch stage. It is nice, but nowhere near as magical as the Ranch area stage! One thing I liked a lot about Sherwood Court was that it had an amazing view at night of the edge of Sherwood Forest and you could see a lot of it's beautiful glory by just turning around from the stage and looking backwards.

Tripolee, the third main stage at the festival had been significantly revamped this year to accommodate more people and overall was just a lot better than in previous years. This stage featured some of the good electronic music as well as some of the good under-cards during the day. It had a lot better stage lighting than both previous Rothbury festivals and was a great stage overall.

Sherwood Forest -

The forest this year was really the crown jewel of the festival. I attempted not to have high expectations for Electric Fores because it was half the number of tickets of the previous Rothbury festivals. I was worried the forest wouldn't be much different than before. Boy was I wrong!. The forest was absolutely mind blowing! If you stayed in the forest for a while you would find out that it was on different lighting schedules and could completely change at any given moment. One moment you were in disco prom night mode and could only see about 50 feet in front of you with all the lights, then the next moment you were in a completely different lighting mode just as amazing but you could see 100 yards a head of you. They really took everything that was awesome about Sherwood forest and made it much better this year.

The artists who built Sherwood really worked hard this year to make it just as magical to walk through during the day as it was at night. There was a section called Reincarnation that featured a lot of hand made artwork using old scrap metal and natural things found around the festival grounds. They really spent a lot of time making it absolutely amazing. It is something so magical that pictures by no means represent how awesome it felt to be there. Check Punlive's YouTube and Facebook for even more pictures and video!

The Music:

The music was really the biggest change in the festival in comparison to previous Rothbury events. The electronic dance music was hard for a lot of Rothbury veterans to grasp and enjoy. I think what Madison House and Insomniac Events envisioned and put together this year was pure genius. The popularity of dub-step and electronic music is growing at EPIC rates lately and getting a total picture of what the promoters were trying to accomplish could not be really understood until it was experienced. Putting these great bluegrass jam bands together with the crazy energy of the electronic acts seemed to work almost seamlessly and I think everyone I know left the festival with at least some better understanding of it all.

The festival this year featured three nights of The String Cheese Incident. At Rothbury 2009, the String Cheese Incident put on what is considered one of their best "incidents" of all time. It was a return from a hiatus for the band and the energy was unreal. The 2009 incident converted many Rothbury veterans into cheese heads instantly. With Electric Forest featuring three nights of cheese, it was a no-brainer for many. The rest of the lineup didn't matter.

I walked into Electric Forest having only seen three of the 70 acts on the line-up, and afterwards I can say I am truly a fan of a lot of the music! Here are the PunLive musical highlights:

The String Cheese Incident - Cheese has been a growing and popular bluegrass rooted jamband since the mid 90's and have always been known for playing some of the wildest shows out there. They feature some of the craziest crowd interaction and the band puts a lot of effort in making sure the fans have the time of their lives during their sets. This year at Electric Forest, the seconds night they played they pulled out all the stops. They brought out huge parade style floats. One of a shark and one of a race car driver. There were many crowd performers hooping and walking on stilts.

Galactic - This funk band out of New Orleans, LA is amazing and everyone should check them out. I was very excited to see Galactic. Many of my personal friends had seem the previous. I was able to get some great picture and video of the band. They put on a truly amazing show!

Bassnectar - I got the chance at Summercamp to experience Bassnectar and it made me very excited for Electric Forest. The promoters really knew what they were doing by putting this act on right after String Cheese Incidents 2nd night set because the crowds energy was just amazing. It forced a lot of cheese fans to stay and watch what is considered one of the best electronic acts in the business today. Bassnectar over the past few years has gone from playing the small stages to the main stages and the energy that comes to his shows is absolutely crazy!

Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros - These guys played on the last day of the festival. The last day is always about recovering from the three nights of partying you already did. I think the band was in recovery mode too because this set was from what other fans say, "less energetic than previous shows they have performed". I really enjoyed it anyway as it was my first time seeing them. I loved when they opened and Alex Ebert jumped out into the crowd. Check out this clip.

For highlights from other artists that performed, check out our YouTube page for all the shows PunLive attended.

Pun's Synopsis:

Electric Forest is by far the highest quality festival I have ever been to. The amount of time and effort the promoters, the art work designers, and the musicians put into making this the best festival ever really was amazing. I found myself put into soo many overwhelmingly beautiful scenarios at Electric Forest that there is no way that any video or picture could ever capture just how magical the place is. I from the deepest of my heart hope Madison House continues it's efforts to put on festivals in Rothbury, MI. I will be there!

Check out these Highlight videos PunLive.net put together highlighting our experience at Electric Forest. I walked in with just an Iphone 4 and walked away wishing I could have done it with a better camera.