High Sierra Music Festival

High Sierra Music Festival used to be the best. Hands down. I have been going for years and it was a highlight of my summer. But the last couple of years they have made drastic changes to their logistics, campgrounds, and lineup which serves to make the festival a terrible experience. It has steadily become a commercialized load of bull with less of the original type of music and more mainstream bands who draw a different crowd than what High Sierra was known for.  Bear with me a few minutes while I explain my position.

This year (2013) HSMF chose at the last minute to eliminate the "Mill Creek" campground. This happened AFTER I purchased my tickets. We liked this campground because we could bring our small (16' t@b teardrop) travel trailer for free, camp in a more spread out, friendly, and laid back scene,  ride our bikes into the festival, and have a great time! The replacement for this campground was a dirt lot full of horse manure with no shade in sight, which they were now charging 100 dollars for any RVs or 20 bucks for tents.  I called them multiple times requesting a simple refund (as tickets hadn't even been shipped) and they refused every time. They promptly ignored all of my requests and complaints. So we decided to suck it up, pay the 20 bucks, and camp in a tent. What a mistake that was.

Turns out, the new lot is owned by Roy Carter, one of the festival promoters. Apparently, the money from the festival wasn't enough for ol' Roy, he wanted to nickel and dime us a little more (we already paid 400 bucks for our two tickets). We arrived at the festival to utter chaos. After struggling to set up our camp in the heat, we had to park our cars in a separate area (at Mill Creek we were allowed to camp next to our vehicle which allows for easy setup and teardown of camp and we use it for additional shade). The workers stacked people and tents in practically on top of each other. As I mentioned earlier, there were no trees or shade anywhere (fortunately we brought an easy-up), and temperatures were over 100 degrees. The new Roy Carter (they called it "Grandview", grand view of what? Other tents?) campground was also touted as closer to the festival than "Mill Creek", which it wasn't. "Mill Creek" was also quiet at night which helps to get a little sleep after seeing music all day and night. Instead, in the new campground we were crammed in like sardines and surrounded by a-holes who set up large speakers and blasted loud amplified electronic and hip hop music at all hours of the day and night.  They refused to turn it off at 4 in the morning when I asked.

We had our tickets in hand and were ready to go into the festival but we had to exchange them for wristbands before we could go in. In previous years, they came around to the campsites and handed them out, but this year there was a woman just outside the campground giving wristbands. No biggie, but when we got to her she refused to give us one because she was "off duty" despite the fact that she had a handful of them. We were told to take the bus to the box office to get our wristbands. We got on the bus which took around 45 minutes of driving around and stopping at multiple places before we got to the box office. There was a long line of people standing in the direct sun (over 100 degrees) while several workers gave wristbands to people who were waiting in their cars with A/C. These workers refused to give us wristbands and told us to wait our turn. Finally after an hour someone gave us wristbands. By this time we were suffering from heat exhaustion and my wife collapsed on the way back to the bus. I helped her to the bus and we went into the festival, intent on making the best of the weekend. We had a good time watching the few remaining good bands that have been a High Sierra mainstay and skipped out on the new mainstream crap they have been steadily bringing in. We did our best to ignore the shameless Ford display at the entrance to the Grand Stand area. There were cops throughout the festival harassing people with their presence. We decided to leave Sunday morning, as we had had enough of the weekend and just needed to get out of there.

In the end, if I wanted to listen to crappy music surrounded by a bunch of inconsiderate assholes in the miserable heat, I would go to Coachella (UGH!) Don't get me wrong, there was SOME good music there but it used to be ALL good music!  At least Moe, North Mississippi Allstars, Lebo, Leftover Salmon and the Infamous Stringdusters were there to give us some good vibes!  We will be skipping out on High Sierra Music Festival in the future. Give your money to Strawberry or one of the few other great remaining festies!

Of the festivals I have been to, this is the tops, in EVERY SINGLE WAY!!!!!  Let me make a list for you:

1.  Cheap, $150 for four days is not expensive at all
2.  BYOB  (I think that speaks for itself)
3.  Small, you can run back to camp at any time without losing friends or time
4.  River to swim in
5.  Volunteers and staff are friendly and helpful
6.  Clean Restrooms
7.  Late Night Pizza
8.  The people are friendly, it really is a community
9.  Safeway is right near by, making ice/beer runs SUPER easy
10.  The lineup is super solid, each day, and the late nights are a blast

Seriously, If you have not gone to this, but enjoy festivaling, make sure to go.  For your money, you cannot beat this festival, and I promise you will have a blast.  People go all out, camps throw happy hours, parties, themes, and everyone is there to have a good time.  

PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE GO!!!!!!!!!!

You will get sweaty.

You will get tired.

You will get dirty.

But moreso you will get invigorated by the depth and passion of your festival neighbors and the heart filled musicians - which have kept High Sierra alive and thriving for over 23 years.

High Sierra is all heart. The campgrounds blossom with color, abundant vibes, and tye-dye during the festival. People embrace themselves and each other in a supportive environment that nurtures the whole being.

There are no people pushing to the front of crowds. You rarely see or hear belligerent drunk or over-inebriated people stumbling around the grounds. The bathrooms were always well stocked on toilet-paper (thanks to the magical touch of a redhead bathroom attendant). The main showers had hot water and were clean. There was an abundant of young children equipped with mist-ers to re-fresh your feet and legs. There was a plethora of healthy-love-filled eating options. There were magical vendors with phenomenal products. People were respectful when it came to noise at night. There was a nice array of shade near all of the stages. The event staff were laid back and non-intrusive. There were barely any signs of corporate presence at the event (outside of a random Ford booth - which only lasted one day.

And the music was beyond what's up.

Beyond what's up.

My hair received it's best work-out ever at this festival. The soul filled crooning that emanated throughout this festival encouraged hair tossing and neck grooving that made my face and hair beam with a classic High Sierra glow.

I will definitely be coming back next year.

Trust.