Summer Meltdown 2010

Summer Meltdown Thursday, August 5^th and Friday, August 6^th at Whitehorse Mountain Amphitheater in Darrington, Washington

We had never been to Summer Meltdown before, so we didn’t know what to expect. We have done the festival experience many times before, however Summer Meltdown is a lot different than other festivals. The drive up to Darrington is beautiful, nice windy roads with trees everywhere you look. Not to mention the cool crisp air and mountain backdrop. You were definitely in the woods.

Once we got our tent set up, the sleeping bags rolled out, our chairs up and beers in hand it was social hour at the campsite. We were camping in the artist camp site so our experience was a lot different from most. We were up on a hill overlooking the festival and there weren’t a lot of other people around us. The way Summer Meltdown is set up is the camping is inside the venue. You can hear the music from your campsite; there are stages in the campsites… in fact you don’t really ever have to leave your campsite until 5pm if you want to see the artists on the main stage. You can also bring your food and drinks to the main stage with you, yes added bonus you are not spending $10 on a beer or a hotdog. Though we did spend $5 on a slice of the most amazing pizza!

There are around six campsite areas inside the venue, each with street names so you don’t get lost and all of them string you back to the main stage hub. To the right of the main stage there was a beer garden with another stage (also the beer garden had a foosball table – score) and to the left of the stage there were three different kids’ tents where they can paint, play, learn how to play instruments, or you know just be kids. The stage had built with a concrete amphitheater seating around it, with a grass floor for dancing. At the top of the seats were artists, the community mural painting, shops, food vendors, and merch tables. The whole vibe of the festival was very relaxed and friendly. Everyone had smiles on their faces and kids were playing worry free. Also you could ride your bikes through the campsites and vendor area; it is a fairly large space. There were also hiking trails, places to get lost, and a crystal clear blue creek where you could swim (but it was ICE COLD) and where people would stack rocks. It was my favorite place at the venue! It is a do what you want when you want kind of festival.

From around 10:30am in the morning until 2-3am the next morning there was music that you could hear everywhere. We woke up to it and went to bed to it. The issue with the whole do what you want camping inside the venue was that people didn’t really go to the stages to see the bands. Most of them just kicked up their feet at camp and listened to it from there. We got to Summer Meltdown late on Thursday, we caught a few tunes from Flowmotion then danced a bit to EOTO, and ended our first night with Acorn Project.

Acorn Project was our gotta see band on Thursday and they played in the Beer Garden. Which by the way one of the prettiest beer gardens I have ever been in with lights, a totem pole, games, green grass and plants. Acorn Project drew in a good crowd with their progressive rock funk indie mixtures. They flip their styles music in the same song but it is all sewn together so well that it just continually flows through the set and everyone dances, sings along. They are a great live band with energy and stellar solos that are far from boring. It was a blast to see them play again and to dance along and have a beer. They even mixed in some Tupac and Radiohead, it was quite the night!

Friday we managed to see Be Careful, Belly Dancers, Spellbinder, the Presidents of the United States of America and Randy Hansen. Well we listened to Randy Hansen from the campsite at 1am as laser lights shot out from the Late Night Tent. Randy Hansen is the best Jimi Hendrix tribute by far, he acts like Jimi and shreds like Jimi. It was weird hearing it from our campsite because it sounded so damn good and clear, like it was Jimi. Plus with the laser lights, pretty wild! Spellbinder was really and the drummer is the actual drummer from Santana’s band at Woodstock. They were a super talented, tight, top notch band that had everyone blown away.

We have both seen the PUSA before, but it is always fun to see them live with so much wit, energy, and kicking. They still act like twenty year olds just having fun on stage playing music. They drew in the biggest crowd we had seen all weekend and had everyone dancing or at least bobbing their heads! We got to hear the hits from “Peaches” to “Lump” to “Volcano” to their cover of “Video Killed the Radio Star”, sing along, and Matt even took pictures from the stage. It was a lot of fun and they still fucking kill it live!

Overall Summer Meltdown is more about the camping and socializing verses the music. It’s almost like if you get bored there is music for you. It is still a lot of fun and a cool concept/take on a festival however it’s not your typical music orientated festival. I would do it again, maybe camp down in the actual campgrounds. Stay for the whole weekend, we probably missed a lot of stuff because we left early Saturday morning to come back for Black Happy and Morrison. Kids were still showing up too on Saturday Morning. I know I would have a completely different experience. However if you like music and camping, a very relax chill environment this is your festival!

Learn more about Summer Meltdown Here.