2012 Summer Music Festival Guide!

Written by The Pleasure Syndicate (Scott Jacobson, Todd Levin, Mike Sacks, Ted Travelstead)

#1.

Big Blind Ben’s “Back to the Land Bluegrass & Old-Timey Festival,” Staples Parking Lot, Poolesville, Maryland, August 10-12 (3-day pass, $225 / VIP pass, $495)

This will be the fourth exciting year for the annual Big Blind Ben’s “Back to the Land Bluegrass & Old-Time Festival.” Three days of music and fun! Enter a world completely removed from the hassles of modern-day living! Dance your way to all 24 stages, all the while soaking up hours upon hours of authentic down-homey music just like your grandmammy used to hoe-down to before she moved to Boston to die.

Thumb-fiddlin’ Acts:

The Bareback Mountain Wrasslin’ Fellas, Jack and His Fleshy Beanstock (with Fly-Swattin’ Pooch, Rosco), the Toe-Cuttin’ Whittlers, the Rustic Racisms, the Jug Blowin’ Recycled-Bottle Blowers, Easy Pete & His Banjo-Strummin’ Mother in Law, the Yale University Whiffenpoofs (performing classic Negro spirituals), the Bearded Rich Gents from Brooklyn, Hickory Johnson’s Toe-Tappin’ Nose Pickers, and a Very Special Appearance by Klippy the Kountry Klown, 98 years old, and still making strange, spastic faces for spare change, although it’s no longer a job.

Country cookin’ at its finest! Fried neck bones! Blackened Louisiana pelican and chitterlings! Hog maws and country-fried Steak-Umms! All-you-can-drink sweet tea served by the actor who played the One-Toothed Backwoods Anal Rapist in Deliverance, who will also be signing his new book, America’s Hidden Government (FreePressPublishing).

If you splurge for the VIP 3-Day Ticket, you will be provided with FREE access to the Exclusive Masters Club that features shade and special restroom facilities. You will also receive VIP Napkins (limited). Hey, y’all! C’mon back again this year! Y’hear?!

Special Events:

World-Famous Professional Spitter “Railroad Ronny” attempts to break his own long-distance spittin’ record (the length of four First Aid tents)!!!

Spastic Ol’ Style Yodeling Jams (Beginners to Advanced!)

Nude Taffee Pullin’ with Sunbonnet Sue!!!

Water Slidin’ with Big Bill & His Semi-Retarded Brethren!!!!

Dyspeptic Jonni’s All-Day Jew’s Harp Jam!!! (Sorry, Advanced Only!)

Big Blind Old Ben, Himself! As Played By a Recent Graduate of the Baltimore School of Performing Arts!!!

About Blind Ben, Our Festival’s Mascot

Big Blind Ben is a character that was created in 2009 by Kraft Foods to help promote its Wild Beans & Okra spice mix, and then licensed to the festival for a small fee and the responsibility to pay for all monetary settlements in which Kraft Foods is sued in any case related to racism or crimes against humanity. Never seen him? Big Blind Ben’s real easy to picture: think of Mr. Wendal from the 1990s rap group Arrested Development, but with a far sunnier outlook and with a penchant for handing out half-off coupons! He’s also the first and only product mascot with an unsightly harelip.

Directions:

Beltway to Rt. 28. Take the service road leading to the Staples north-west parking lot (adjacent to the Rockville Hospice Center). Look for the middle-aged attendants dressed in old-timey overalls and floppy caps, and using
Motorola Lightweight Headsets. Park next to the rented goats and styrofoam bales of hay.

#2.

The Freak-Your-$hit Horrorcore ClownDown (formerly the Soul Sounds by the Sea Shore Waterfront Doo-Wop Fest), Mystic, Connecticut, July 23rd-26th (BETA-ASS CHUMP Pass $75, NINJA DICK Pass $150)

After an incident in which four 80-year-old members of doo-wop group The Elegants broke their hips simultaneously during a choreographed spin to “Earth Angel,” the long-running Soul Sounds By The Sea Shore festival pulled up stakes and disappeared In the Still of the Night! But this year, regional concert promoters Dickcheez Productions have stepped in to fill the void.

Featuring 398 hardcore “in yo’ face and out yo’ ass” clown-painted murder rappers not quite slick enough to make the cut for the official Insane Clown Posse Gathering of the Juggalos, the four-day ClownDown promises to be some “twisted-dick bullshit,” all against the backdrop of a classic New England port town!

Ever had the urge to “drop anchor” on one of Mystic’s famous tall ships? You’re in luck, ‘cuz that’s where they put the Port-A-Johns! Get high on kush bud and wander Olde Mistick Village (Est. 1654!), where you can visit Colonial Pewter Miniatures and touch a lot of little metal shit! Or you can just watch lonely, elderly women in 17th-century attire dip long candles that look a whole lot like donkey dicks! (You’ll see—they do!)

Confirmed acts include PROLAPZED REKTUM, THE HIGH-AS-FUCK DUCKSHIT TWINS, DOS WHISKEY DIX, DA TAINT MUNKZ, POOP SHY MANIAX, LI’L LYLE THE MIDGET WITH CROHN’S DISEASE, formerly racist South African “Zef” crew AFRIKAANUS, and RETARDED DOUGLAS.

And good news, Ninjas: the festival is scheduled entirely on weeknights to make attendance easier for the unemployed!

Special Events:

Canine fuckfest featuring hundreds of the town’s horniest dogs dropped into the same 15′ by 15′ playpen!

A real-life Congolese war criminal gettin’ smoked-up and talkin’ CRAZY shit about his genocides!

A caricature artist high on bath salts who can draw your picture all freaky, and who works free for boob flashes or sample packs of his preferred eczema cream!

A morbidly obese man named Dillballs who swallows and regurgitates a hermit crab!

Eight camp chairs to be shared amongst attendees in any way they see fit!

And if all goes according to plan, the entire Mystic seaport will be made bright orange using 100,000 gallons of new Faygo brand Pineapple/Watermelon flavored Party Pop Pop!

Camping information:

Waterfront benches and the flatbeds of strangers’ pick-up trucks are first-come, first-served.

Directions:

Attendees are advised to take the charter buses departing every 10 minutes from behind the public library downtown – the one with the good bathroom and the librarians who don’t hassle you if you use the free internet to watch your stroke flicks!

#3.

“FAR OUT DESERT PLANET FUZZ FEST,” Wyoming Basin shrub steppe, Wyoming, August 14-16 ($150 or one ounce of high-grade marijuana from a medical dispensary)

Come experience the best brain-frying riffage this side of memory loss, as we bring you an amazing line-up of STONER, DOOM, PSYCH, SLUDGE, ULTRA-SLUDGE, CHAOTIC FUNK, DRUID CORE, MIND GRIND, PLOSIVE HUM, RIFF HUMP, AND NEGATIVE SWING. Sonic delights, straight from left field, that will absolutely decimate the boundaries of music!

All the fuzzed out sounds your baked ears can handle! Three sun-drenched days in the riff-filled Wyoming desert will leave you panting for more heavy sound, as you take in all five stages of brain-stomping guitar-fuzzed desert rock. The final night of the festival will culminate with a tonal symphony under the canopy of a full moon as the best-of-the-best Riff Monsters gather on the main stage for an alternate tuning “drone jam” built on a single E string. You’re gonna wanna grab the hand of YOUR FRIEND MARY JANE and take a ride into space for this one!

Check out this ear-splitting line up (AND THIS IS JUST THE MAIN STAGE): LUMP, DIRTY FIZZ, TENTACLE, ROLDEN GOAD, HARVEY’S VISIBLE, PLOP, DUDDITS, INJURY PROM, CAP’N MILLER’S BOY, SNAIL TRAFFIC, FOOT-LONG EAR, GONAD, and SQUINT.

Scattered throughout the festival grounds will be a number of “Hemp Hogans,” traditional Navajo wood and mud structures you can “chill” in and receive the highest quality medical marijuana available with a prescription. DoKtors™ will be on hand at each Hogan to “diagnose and prescribe” for those that forgot their prescription at home! SWEET!

Special Events:

Beard Weaving by “Lightning Bug”: When he’s not touring with guitar desert warriors, SLOW DJINN FIST, “Lightning Bug” gets down with some serious facial braid artistry. Choose from a number of original designs from Bug’s famous “Beard Book,” and sit back and let his gentle, nimble fingers get to work in your chin’s basement! Whether it’s a simple Sikh-style Roll you want, or one of LB’s specialties like “Chin Rows” or “Cub Hiding Behind Mother,” Lightning Bug will be on hand all day to make it happen for you! IT AIN’T WEIRD TO PAMPER YOUR BEARD!

Mama Hedgehog’s Super-Sweet “Fudge Sludge” Tent: Mama Hedgehog’s been roaming the cracked desert earth for years. No one knows how old she is, and her gender has never officially been confirmed, but one thing’s for sure: her sweet treats are a stoner’s delight! Instead of shuffling through the parking lot with her ramshackle wicker cart of edibles, this year Mama H. will be propped behind a table, wearing her signature sun-bleached Richard Nixon mask, in her very own tent! Come enjoy her newest batch of Fudge Sludge for 2012. Fermented for three months in an authentic Native American canoe, and containing a secret ingredient Mama affectionately refers to as “Jummy,” this year’s batch of Fudge Sludge is the best yet! Wash it down with a cup of freshly brewed room-temperature “Goose Juice,” or any one of Mama’s other homemade delights, such as a “Kooky Cooky” or a sticky handful of her famous “Froot.” And remember, in the words of Mama Hedgehog herself: “High-O Pet, eff ya cawn make it through a cup, your day is lookin’ up!”

Watch Rats Eat Paper: Cory Blastoff, drummer for Dowsing Rod, brings his infamous, exotic rat collection for the world to gaze at. Cory’s rat menagerie has been featured on Slink TV’s Wild Stuff Caged and Ellen, and was voted “most fun to watch” by Bongbomb magazine. Come watch these tiny munchers devour reams of paper, and get a load of Cory’s two big stars, Cisco and Keenan, giant Gambian pouched rats that have a combined weight of more than fifteen pounds! This is a spectacle you will not want to miss.

Even More Special Events!

Chukka boot painting by the LOST BOYS OF SUDAN!

Large banners of Marty Feldman’s face that you can stop and stare at!

Tusken Raider hologram shreds a Marshall Stack!

SAM KRABB (aka, “Black Sabbath’s Pete Best”) debuts a nine-hour drum solo!

Visors!

Directions

Talk to Scotty, or the Grinch at Basko’s. They’ll hook you up.

#4.

“Show Me Your Light You Glorious Wallflower Music Experiensation” — August 17-19, beneath the dappled sunlight in a painstakingly restored cider barn, Lawrence, KS (Limited tickets available, $135 or barter)

Hug yourself and sway rhythmlessly for three days straight, as your gentle frame is awash in the harmonious tones of indie rock’s most precious artists. Hear voices soar and strain, miles away from potential confrontations with bullies and overly friendly cashiers. And what’s that sound? A tremulous harp strumming against samples from a vintage farmyard animal Speak’n’Spell? Pure bliss.

This year’s festival features over 30 acts representing every style of twee, including Toy Rock, Sweater Step, Wink, Flutterfly, Shamblecore, Wisp-Hop, and Sob.

Headlining the mainstage, in no particular order because who are we to say who deserves to go first?: Your Favourite Jumper; The Unbearable Strain of Shyness; Fear of Touch; The Weeps; The Lingering Smell of You; Less is Amour; Gentle, Please Gentle; Thin Wrists and Pure Hearts; I’m Not the Droid You’re Looking for; Thankful for Rain; Ethan & Ethan; Softest Dungarees; and Hoobastank.

Sponsor Highlight: Olde Jim’s Honest Artisanal Shoe Reflectors

It’s a simple fact: Sustained eye contact can be unbearable, a torture worse than death. But now you can enjoy an evening of quiet strums without ever having to take your eyes off the floor, thanks to these artisanal shoe reflectors. Each reflector is hand-crafted from barber shop mirrors and scrap metal from molasses barrel hoops, with straps designed to fit over any size chukka boot. They’re also a great way to meet cute!

Check out some of the weekend’s special events:

– Wes Anderson Cosplay
– Sign up at one of our sweater stretching tables
– Touch Brandon Routh’s hair
– Sidle up to our unpasteurized dairy bar
– Free dental night guard cleanings
– Scream your feelings into one of our vintage pickling jars
– Late night corduroy rubbings
– Contribute to our “sob quilt”
– See if you can make Stephin Merritt smile!

Directions

Run away from home, then meander through the pear orchard off Old County Road 4, making sure not to frighten the rabbits. When you reach the old dead tree where lovers scrawl their names, read quietly from your dog-eared copy of Salinger’s Nine Stories until you fall asleep in the moon’s soft glow. When you awaken, you’ll be standing in front of our security bag check.

#5.

99.5 ZJAMz and Walmart present the “SUNSET ON THE VERIZON MIDNIGHT SUMMER JAM! Brought To You By Weight Watchers, Skechers, and Pizza Hut,” Gillette Stadium, Foxborough, Massachusetts, October 4-6 ($500, VIP pass, $750 [includes free on-site Wi-Fi, and $15 Applebee’s gift card])

ARE YOU READY TO JAM AND GRIND TO THE HOTTEST SMASH TUNES AND UNFORGETABLE POP ANTHEMS?! 99.5 ZJAMz and Walmart© are packing three fun-filled stages with your favorite top-40 artists!

You won’t believe your eyes™ or your ears, at the LensCrafters© Stage where you’ll rock out to: BUCK 9, MC CHEETOS© & DJ ORANGE, MUCKA FLINTZ, KREWD, LADY LAD, SARONG, SEXKEN, KID NUGGETZ, and SSOAP.

Then step on over to the Payless© “Stomp Zone” and get down to some of the slickest acts to pump the urban beat: MUNE CREW FEATURING H.H. SMOKEZ, THE HORNEE BOYZ, SUFFA ISTUHKATED, YUNG BABY BUNTING, CORDWOOD DIESEL & BITCH HEAD, GLORY HO, and SKRATCHEEZEY.

Finally, it’s our “New Axe Stage” sponsored by Axe Body Spray©, featuring some of the hottest up-and-coming artists EVER!!!

TAKE A LOOK AT JUST A FEW:

Lil’ Shenanigans: A runner-up on America Has Things, this four-year-old rapper spits the hottest rhymes with the help of his hand puppet, Stinky Lion. These two are not afraid to tell it like it is, as evidenced in Shenanigan’s latest chart topper, “Old Lady I Smellin’ U Butt.” Go, Lil’ Shen Shen, Go!!!

Therese: A protégé of Katy Perry, Therese was discovered huddled in a Forever 21© changing room during one of Katy Perry’s after-hours closed-door shopping sprees at Cleveland’s SouthPark Mall. With perfect pitch, and a vocal range akin to a damaged roller coaster, Therese is fast on her way to pop stardom with such hits as “Gang Mouth” and “I’m In Your Kitten’s Stomach Now (Be Kind).”

Stratton Dees: After surviving a horrific chimp attack on the set of his hit show My Snow Globe Summer, Stratton endured a total of nineteen reconstructive surgeries and has nothing more to show for it than a face that resembles a rotting peach. The good news is that the damage to his vocal cords miraculously left him with the voice of an angel, and the horrible ordeal gave him lots of painful memories to draw on for lyrics! Thanks to a lightweight and very realistic-looking plastic facemask provided by Dow Chemical©, Stratton is able to perform without scaring too many of the pre-teens who flock to his concerts! Look for him to sing his hit single, “My Tongue Still Work, Bitch.”

Special Events:

Record a virtual duet with a dead relative at the Sony© Holograndmatorium™!

Buy a pair of Mario Batali Meal Crocs™ and gain entrance to the snack tent sponsored by Tim Hortons© and Long John Silver’s©!

Free unlimited bathroom visits, thanks to Charmin© and the Neville Brothers™!

Enter for a chance to win a day’s supply of meals from Carl’s Jr.©* (*a charge of $5 per entry will be applied)!

Directions:

Type the code “Walmart95ZJAMzVerizonPHutSkechersFest@GiletteTimHorton” into your GARMIN© GPS, find your listed zip code, then enter: “CheetohsBataliCrocCarlsJrBurgerRDeliciousWeightWatchersGoodIdea” and follow the directions. If you do not own a GARMIN© GPS you will not be allowed entry to the festival.

#6.

“The Electric Gravy Boom-Boom Psytrancival,” unused portion of Rikers Island, New York, New York, September 1-3 ($250, or free for anyone wearing butterfly wings)

The Second Annual Electric Gravy Boom-Boom Psytrancival is an inter-generational event built on love, energy, and a sacred pledge that all men over 40 not wear any inner or outer garments with the slightest hint of Day Glo.

More than SIX Earth-Shattering, Energy-Infused Staged Areas, all complete with separate state-of-the-art sound systems, each borrowed just for the weekend from the Promise Keepers Ministry in Dallas!

“Groovy Anagalactic Beach”: LASERS! SMOKE MACHINES! Slinky mimes! Liquid ice! Powdered clowns! Used sock-puppets! Colorful streamers! NON-SANCTIONED TRAPEZE ARTISTS WITH ZERO HEALTH INSURANCE! A group of gay men in Dr. Seuss hats feeding each other tapioca pudding with sustainable paper sporks! Chill factor: Very.

“The UpsideDown Freeqy Garden”: Foamy fun! Glow sticks! Go-go dancers! ONE STONED MAN WAVING A HANNUKAH CANDLE! Anything can happen at the UpsideDown Freeqy Garden, as evidenced by the Great Tent Fire of 2011!!! Chill factor: Not much.

“The Sunken Crystal Nocturnal Rainbow Emission”: Join world-famous DJ “Infected Mushroom” as he spins his own unique brand of “Edgy Trance,” all the while riding a mechanical bulldyke. Chill factor: Zero.

“Licorice Convergence II”: Watch Miss Dubstep 2012 as she sucks on a nitrous oxide canister and goes “wee wee” in a box filled with sand shipped over from Ibiza! OBSERVE AN EXHAUSTED CRISPIAN MILLS OF KULA SHAKER AND A BEWILDERED JAY KAY FROM JAMIROQUAI SWAYIN’ SIDE BY SIDE! Chill factor: the Highest.

Special Events:

Seminars on How to Make Your Own Organic Trade-Free Coffee Enemas!

Midnight Bubble Orgy!

Post-Orgy-Cleanup and Smoked-Fish Deli Spread!

Observe Moby Beating a Man to Death for Attempting to Initiate a Country Line-Dance!

Special Apps to Hone in on Disease-Free Genitalia!

Directions:

2,3,4, B,Q, F or G trains to Riker’s Island front gate. Take prison jitney to concert site. Follow the miserable off-duty guards holding glow sticks and wearing neon wigs. Enter the Zone. Leave behind your inhibitions. Lock and load your libido. No bottles, no food, no job, no interest in what the rest of the world might call “acting normal and grown up.”

#7.

The Totally Rad, Totally Awesome ’80s Food, Fun & Music Throwback Festival: Grant Park, Chicago, August 4-5 (sold-out)

On August 4th and 5th 2012, Chicago’s historic Grant park will transform into a retro ’80s orgy of kick-ass tubular synth-rockin’ sounds and delicious phantasma-gaseous smells!

When was the last time you put on your Members Only jacket and danced the Safety Dance? Does Every Step You Take, and Every Breath You Take, remind You of How You Used to Be? When was the last time you blasted your awesome teenage toonage on your jumbo boombox? Not lately? Well, then, it’s morris-day-and-the-time to hop in your magical DeLorean and make your way back to 1986 . . . because Sweet Dreams are made of this two-day Festival!

HEADLINING: Tommy Shaw from STYX, performing a solo, acoustic version of the Kilroy Was Here rock opera, in its four-hour entirety! You might as well just . . . Jump!

OTHER ACTS, ALL HASTILY REFORMED JUST FOR THIS FESTIVAL, WITH AT LEAST ONE ORIGINAL MEMBER: Man at Work, Katrina and the Wave, Edie Brickel & Bohemian, The Romantic, Simple Mind, The Bangle, Duran, and the World’s Number One Middle-Earth-Themed Transvestite U2 cover band, The Unforgettable Shire (with a brand-new Bonaux!).

FOOD TENTS GALORE! Sweet Burgers O’Mine, Total Eclipse of This Hot Dog Cart, Don’t Stop Eatin’ Fudge, Every Corn Has Its Butter, Sweet Dreams (Are Made of Fried Ice Cream), John Hinckley’s Spaced Frittered Invaders, Explode-in-Ya-Challenger Curly Fries, Oliver North’s Hot Nuckin’ Futs, Sun City Segregated Chipwiches, and many, many more!

Special Events:

Matt Frewer, the creator and voice behind Max Headroom, r-r-r-r-reads Bright Lights, Big City!

Group sing-a-long to 1985’s Shoah!

Symposium and Q&A with the Now-Retired Schoolteacher Who Moaned Over and Over on “Hungry Like the Wolf”!

Michael Winslow Makes the “Whocka Whocka Whocka” Pac-Man Sounds!

Air-Guitar Contest in GG Allin Tent!

Morganna “The Kissing Bandit” Attempts to Solve the Rubik’s Cube with Her Breasts!

The New Filipino Singer from Journey Talks About His Love for All Things Cabbage Patch!

Directions:

Follow the scent of failed hopes and dreams. See you soon! Fur shure! Fur shure!

#8.

Skull Valley Music and Arts Festival, Skull Valley, California, July 27-29 (3-DAY PASS $250, VIP PASS WITH HYDRATING SALINE DRIP $300)

Most of the year Skull Valley is nothing but a vast desert, hostile to life and relentlessly raped by the sun, but come every summer it’s also home to the biggest, funnest music fest in California! Expect an estimated 80,000 attendees, 73,500 of whom will successfully make it through the 2-mile hike from the parking lot to the festival entrance without experiencing heat stroke!

About that hike: SAVOR it! The dusty trail leading from Lot 47D wends its way through security checkpoints (where a teenager in a floppy hat will administer a brusque pat-down of your cargo shorts or bikini bottoms – grin and groove with it!), past a SPRAWLING TENT CITY alive with the moans of music fans coupling after their third Coors Light of the morning, and onwards toward the distant sounds of air horns, bowel-pounding bass, and co-eds shrieking because they saw a scorpion!

Stay hydrated! Wet stuff comes at a premium in the high desert, and fans not interested in paying an arm and a leg for bottled water are strongly encouraged to dig their own CANTEEN-REPLENISHING IRRIGATION DITCH from one of the nearby date palm orchards! Bring a shovel, a sweat towel, and 10 or 12 of your most jacked-up ditchin’ buddies!

But that’s not the only way to stay WET! Stationed at the foot of every stage is a friendly Skull Valley staffer, on hand to spray the crowd with NON-POTABLE WATER FROM A HIGH-PRESSURE HOSE otherwise used to ward off the tweaking desert dwellers who scrounge through band gear for copper wire!

With hundreds of world-class musical acts performing on 17 stages—everyone from a reunited UGLY KID JOE to a Serbian synth duo who only have half of a song but plenty of BLOG BUZZ—expect to do PLENTY of trekking between sets. Be sure to rest at one of the several corporate-sponsored “OASIS TENTS.” We’re partial to the Beats by Dre-sponsored “BEANBAGS BY DRE,” WHERE YOU CAN SINK INTO A BAG MADE SLICK ‘N’ SICK BY SUNBLOCK, JÄGERMEISTER SWEAT, AND PIZZA RUN-OFF left behind by your fellow desert rats!

Directions:

Up to you, but pay special attention to burrowing under the sands at night to avoid perishing in the startling cold.

#9.

Toffifay® Presents “SUMMER UNCOVERED: THE ALL-TRIBUTE BAND GRAND SLAM (MAN-MADE) LAKE JAM,” Lipton Lake County Park (formerly Lipton Saltpeter Quarry), East Otis, NY. (7-Day Festival Tickets $145/Special “Leave Early” passes, $195)

Imagine ALL of your FAVORITE musical artists gathered in ONE landscaped picnic area for a weeklong ROCKSTRAVAGANZA! Well, this is kind of like that. You’ll bear witness to over 250 of the world’s greatest tribute bands, cover artists, sound-alikes, concept acts, and budget-friendly “in-the-style-of” musicians. Squint your eyes and press soft bread into your ears and you’d swear it’s the real deal—however, on the advice of our legal counsel and an unfortunate precedent established by the landmark copyright infringement case, Fabulous Thunderbirds vs. Fab Buelless and the Thunderbergs, we are obligated to remind you that this is not the real deal.

This year’s maestros of mimicry include:

Steel Dirigible (Led Zeppelin cover band); Eruption (Van Halen); Earth, Wings & Fire (Wings); Dave Navarro’s Beard Trimmings (Jane’s Addiction); Second Gunman (Dead Kennedys); SNIX (INXS); Hard to Explain (The Strokes); The Strokes (Billy Squier); Mr. & Mrs. Brownstone (Husband and wife Guns ‘n’ Roses cover band); Crème (France’s #3 Cream cover act); Hal & Oates (featuring John Oates); and the Spanish and Cantonese language shoegaze music tribute band, The Jésus & Mary Chang.

MORE Means MORE!

For the first time at this festival, we’ve assembled select members from several different tribute acts to form incredible SuperCoverBandGroups™.

Slip on your aquasocks (required, due to our lake’s recent razor clam problem) and swim out to our floating stage, where you’ll be rewarded with a one-time-only concert by Traveling Wilburies tribute act, The Wavering Tarbellies—featuring Jerome Hunt of ELO tribute act, Mr. Blue Sky; Dr. Ron Glassman of the Bob Dylan tribute act, Blonde on Ron; and three-time Masters Tournament Champion Phil Mickelson of the Beatles cover band, The Fab Fore.

Plus . . . a COMMAND PERFORMANCE by all five David Bowie tribute acts who, together, cover Bowie’s entire catalogue: LAUGHING GNOME; MAJOR TIM; THE THIN WHITE DUDES; LODGER; AND CRAPPY BOWIE.

Groove With a View

If you don’t have a pre-existing heart condition or experience an adverse reaction to difficult odors, you should scale the old saltpeter dunes for a MOUNTAINTOP MUSIC MARATHON at our “Shape Up Stage,” sponsored by Reebork® brand affordable athletic footwear. Enjoy the cream of the crop of one-man cover bands, including: Ron DMC; Brad Company; Leonard Skynyrd; The Village Person; Biv; and Peter, Paul & Mary Minus Peter and Mary and also Paul Plus Howard Schlemmer, CPA.

Get Your Snack On!

We’ve completely taken over the old mineral silo where that boy died in ’02, and turned it into the multi-level TASTY TOWER, where festival attendees can chow down on sweet and savory treats from some of the leading off-brand snack food companies and casual dining franchises. Crunch a bunch of Riffles™ brand potato snaps, sample a finger-lickin’ feast from Kennedy Fried Chicken, or cool off with a warm carob sundae from Blisskin-Ribbons 2 Flavors.

Special Event: a Live Reading

Fresh off her virtual book tour, the legendary tribute rock groupie, known only as “Available Annie”, will join us for a live reading of her tell-all memoir, Wait…I Just Fucked Who?

She’s done ‘em all, and now you’ll get to find out which world-famous cover artist had the most impressive hog. Was it Alan Stock of Huey Lewis cover band, Alan Stock & the New Drugs? Or Jerry Gorley, lead singer of the Smashing Pumpkins cover band, The Pumping Smashkins? Only Annie knows!

Directions:

See that clearing in the distance? With the people milling about, looking uncomfortable? No, this way. Yes. Just keep walking. Don’t look back. We said keep walking.