Click here to see full photo gallery from Camp Bisco X.
The rolling green hills and bountiful vast fields of upstate New York provide a very rural, laid back lifestyle, the polar opposite of New York City’s over-crowded hustle and bustle mentality. Hosting a music festival here is ideal for a large portion of NYC inhabitants and east coasters alike: it’s accessible via public transportation or car, cheap, and easy to pencil-in around your work schedule. This three day event (Thursday, Friday, Saturday) hosted by the Disco Biscuits was about to be a weekend of musical bliss. Camp Bisco was on the verge of celebrating its 10th year anniversary with some of the finest artists, producers, and DJ’s our generation has to offer. Luckily, in a few short hours, this festival was about to become my reality.
Thursday
We departed for Mariaville (15 miles outside of Schenectady, NY) around 10 am on Thursday morning. Though the town was only 180 miles away from New York City, it took our crew a lengthy seven hours to make it inside the Bisco gates. To our dismay, the campgrounds were thoroughly flooded with people. Tents were chaotically scattered and assembled so close to one another, it was nearly impossible to find a spot. (For those of you planning to attend next year, get there early- even if you have a media pass, get there early.) A half hour and eight clueless security guards later, we finally weaseled our way into the Rio de Janeiro campsite and set up our weekend home base.
Just by looking at a map of the grounds, I felt very at ease. In a festival environment it is easy to feel bombarded with excessive stimulation, but there was an attractive intimacy to Bisco’s layout. All of the campsites were named after iconic electronic cities: Ibiza, Rio, Tokyo, Amsterdam, London, Los Angeles, New York, Barcelona, etc. The two main stages were set up right next to each other so it looked like one massive stage with a barrier down the middle, separating the stages into Main Stage A and Main Stage B. As soon as one band finished on stage A, the next band would start on stage B five minutes later. This allowed you to more or less stay in one sport for the majority of your day, without having to sit through half hour set changes. There was one large white tent where the larger electronic acts would play by night called the Grooveshark Tent and a smaller tent titled the Dance Tent. The only other two smaller stages in the whole venue were the Silent Disco Tent and Showcase Stage.
The entire set up was perfect, small, and easy to navigate. But as soon as we started to talking to the people around us, everyone was unanimously baffled by the grandiose crowd, complaining that there were twice as many people at Bisco in 2011 as there were in 2010. This was the first year in history that Camp Bisco had sold out it’s 30,000 tickets. However, compared to Bonnaroo, which holds 100,000 annually, Bisco felt tiny. I also quickly learned that it was inappropriate to call this festival Camp Bisco or just Bisco. Looks of utter disgust would cross attendee’s faces if I ever mentioned those two phrases, they would look at me with wide eyes and respond in a dark condescending tone, “You mean Camp?” (Side note. If you plan on going to Camp Bisco in the future, or if you decide on bringing it up in conversation, just call it Camp. Trust me, just do it.)
The Disco Biscuits were hosting this musical festival and were due to play 6 sets in the three day period. It was only appropriate that we started out this adventure by watching the Biscuits first. We made our way over to Main Stage A to catch the set. Their steady jams and bizarre lyrics took me back to my high school jam-band loving days. The set was smooth, relaxing, and topped off with an incredible lazer show. However, the strobe lights were a bit overbearing and felt as if they were about to burn a hole through my retina. My crew backed away from the stage and moved towards the rear of the field where there was ample room to dance and move about freely. Right after the Biscuits, we headed to the Grooveshark Tent to catch Skirllex. The energy of this show was slightly overwhelming and the tent felt more like a sauna than an open-air space. I broke away from the bass heavy crowd and headed towards Archnemesis, who were playing in the Dance Tent. This show made my night. I had not heard of the DJ duo before I stepped foot in the tent and it seemed like everyone I ran into prior told me to check them out. Their set sampled everything from early 20’s blue and jazz to modern hip-hop and soul. Again, there was space in this tent to move about freely which enhanced the atmosphere. Archnemesis brought their set to a close and we headed back to the Grooveshark Tent for the last show of the evening. Lotus played to an over crowed vivacious group, hitting everyone softly with their melodic electronic grooves.
Bisco X attendee, Sara Finkle, told HiFi, “Lotus absolutely killed it! They catered perfectly to the Camp crowd while keeping their wonderful happy Lotus vibe.”
Once we were back in our tent and tucked into bed, I found it impossible to calm my wired brain. My boyfriend and I decided to walk around and explore the grounds for a little bit, you know, since that’s the sane thing to do at 4 in the morning. We walked into the Silent Disco Tent and both of our jaws hit the floor, the space was phenomenal. The artwork featured on the stage was very mythical and eerie, but beautiful. Two DJs were standing side by side battling one another in a silent abyss. As you walked into the stage area, staff members were passing out headphones that covered your ears. You could navigate between station 1 and 2, and chose which DJ you wanted to listen to. Your headphones would light up either green or blue depending on what channel you were tuned into. This way you could see what everyone around you was listening to and watch them react with the music. That put the cherry on top of a great evening.
Friday
I awoke to the burning sun forcing me out of tent at ten in the morning. I got up and joined the crew for a very lazy breakfast of milk and frosted mini wheats. Word got out that a few people were going to be leading yoga at Main Stage in a few hours. My friend and I decided that this would be the perfect way to start out the day and stretch out our bodies. Unfortunately, upon arrival, we learned yoga had been held at 10 am. Fortunately, we were greeted by the Easy Star All Stars and happily danced along to their reggae-tastic covers of Radiohead, Pink Floyd, and the Beatles. RJD2 took over next as he plunged into his hit Ghostwriter. Break Science were right by his side backing him up on keys and drums. Together they performed Smoke & Mirrors and The Horror before RJD2 surrendered the stage to Break Science and Redman.
The next show on my schedule to hit was Four Tet. There is something unique in Kieran Hebden’s touch that makes his knob tweaks sound angelic. The sun was resting low in the cloudy sky and a light summer breeze passed through all of us inside the Grooveshark Tent. Four Tet’s light show was composed of warm pastel tones thats mirrored his tunes. Unfortunately, Shpongle was about to take over the Main Stage and we quickly rushed out of the tent to see what all this Shpongle hype was about.
How do we even begin to put the Shpongletron experience into words? Even if I pulled the most elaborate descriptive words from dictionary and artfully arranged them into picture-esque sentences, something would still be lost. Let’s just say that this was the musical highlight of 2011 . (My whole crew agreed.) Simon Posford and Raja Ram (together they create Shpongle) converted the stage into acid drenched rain forest straight out of the ’60s, filled with musicians and mythical creatures. There were viking cat-women, a slinky human costume that had a torso and 4 legs, and beings I only thought existed in the Beatles, ‘I am the Walrus.’ The crowd was equally as bizarre and freaky. When the music started, everyone responded in unanimous movement. Horns, brass, strings, blue-grass, glitch, ambient, psy-trance, psychedelic downtempo, psybient hand percussion: you name it, it was there.
“I felt like I was peering into the brain of an omnipotent sound being. Or maybe like living the dreams of the God of Music,” stated crowd member Alex Hoffman.
As Shpongle dove into The Stamen of the Shaman, the rain started plummeting out of the sky. We all looked like maniacs, losing our sanity to a crazy looking band in the pouring rain. It was amazing. Nothing can compare to the happenings of Shpongle.
The rain kept beating down on the crowded field for what felt like eternity. If there was one thing I should have brought, it would have been rain gear. Apparently there has not been a single Camp to date that hasn’t witnessed rain. The entire site was oozing mud. At one point it felt like we were all wading through quicksand that was caked up to our shins. My crew tried our hardest to scramble back towards our camp site, and we returned to discover the once lush green hill had been transformed into a gigantic mud slide.
An angry member who’s site was destroyed yelled out, “WHY DO YOU THINK THEY DECIDED TO CALL THIS CAMP SITE RIO DE JANEIRO???”
I laughed hard, but abruptly stopped when I saw our camp site had been equally destroyed by water. Shock. Sadness. Anger. Exhaustion. With no choice left than to embrace the mess, we headed back out to show and ended our night with two unbelievable performances by MSTRKRFT and Ghostland Observatory.
Saturday
After a night like that, we were blessed with about 8 hours of sleep. Our crew awoke late in the afternoon and started packing up our campsite. We knew that we wanted to catch the Disco Biscuits last set and also Bassnectar before we departed. Exhaustion was weighing heavy in all of us, and we slowly trekked back to the Main Stage to see the final two acts. The Biscuits performed a very calming and soothing set which almost put us right to sleep. Basnectar shook us back to consciousness as the invasive wobbling bass lines pierced through our raw skin.
Somehow I managed to sleep the entire ride home and woke up in New York City. The layers of mud caked on my feet shook off the dream-like state I had been lingering in and made me realize I was out of Mariaville and back in Brooklyn. Bisco was a one of a kind experience. It felt great to camp outside and be bombarded with phenomenal electro-talent for three days straight. Though it was exhausting, the times I had and shows I experienced were priceless. I can’t wait to return next year. Thank you to the Biscuits, promoters, and everyone else who made this event possible.
