Camp Counselor Carmel Checks In With An Update on her Summer!

interview with Kris Meyers from Umphrey’s shortly after Summer Camp and even attended the CD release party for Similar Skin at AliveOne in Chicago the day the album dropped. Bayliss was there serving up drafts for just $2 a pint! I then saw The New Mastersounds as they celebrated playing in the States for the past decade. If you are not familiar, this British funk band knows how to throw a party. They featured plenty of tunes from their new album, Therapy, and even sent a shot out to Summer Camp during the show! I wrote a detailed review HERE  and check out the new album, I highly recommend it. Then there was Electric Forest. This was my first and hopefully not my last EFF experience. It was absolutely magical and I instantly fell back in love with The String Cheese Incident within the first few notes of their first set. My crew stayed at Lucky Lake and though it was quite a hike, camping by the lake was probably one of the best festival camping experiences I had ever had. I also bought a hammock right before Summer Camp this year and, needless to say, my life hasn’t been the same since! These things are the bees’ knees and EFF provided every opportunity to hang all day long while we smoked some meat and swam in the lake. Good times indeed. Phish weekend in Chicago was super crazy with music and pre parties and after parties and parties at the beach before the show as well as hotel and house parties. Yeah… it was one of those weekends. I got to see The Coop, North American Scum, AMRITA, Business as Usual, DrFameus, Zmick, and The Main Squeeze…  not to mention three Phish shows. Needless to say, that weekend was stacked and I had a blast. I participated in an Everything Too Fancy Picnic competition during the Umphrey’s McGee Ravinia show. I was the captain of All These Ninjas where our signature dishes were Nunchaku Nachos for 2 and Bright Lights Big City Sushi. We even had Utopian Fir-tune Cookies with Umphrey’s lyrics stuffed inside… We didn’t win but we still had a fabulous time! I even got to see Umphrey’s McGee slay that show from the third row of the pavilion after scooping up tickets on a rerelease the day of the show! I w as literally standing right in front of the sting quartet that joined them for an unprecedented live collaboration. It was completely magnificent! [caption id="attachment_20139" align="alignnone" width="520"] Photo by Brian Spady[/caption] That same weekend I went to a one night festival in rural Illinois called Down On The Farm. Hosted by Soap, this was the closest thing I’ve experienced to a small fest since the first year I attended Summer Camp back in 2004. The lineup was all our local favorites: Brianchild, Spread, Thinner Teed, Miles Over Mountains and Herbert Wiser Band. Steez busted out Madonna’s “Like a Prayer” for one of those intensely hysterical dance parties kids these days wouldn’t think twice about. This whole fest was super laid back, cheap, and easy. The best part was, it was 100% LIVE BANDS! Just like I like it. I attended Lollapalooza another Friday this past summer… big mistake. CHVRCHES was dope, but besides them and Zedd, I was unimpressed. The Gramatik late night at Concord Music Hall was killer, but that was just a small sliver of my day. Thankfully, Joe Marcinek Band played The Miramar the next night in Milwaukee with members of Family Groove Company, Kyle Liss from IndigoSun, and Allie Kral. The next night I streamed The Avett Brothers at Lollapalooza followed by a free Phish stream as I did laundry and recovered from a long weekend. Overall, it was another fabulous weekend filled with fabulous music. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KL60VpCzELk Then I went on tour with Umphrey’s. Louisville<St. Louis<Kansas City. The run was perfect in every way where each night left me longing for my next show. Well, now the next show will by my 100th! That’s right, I am about to be in the century club for my favorite band! I have traveled from Red Rocks to the Ryman with this beast and I can’t wait to see what it’s like on the other side… perhaps Holidaze? Anyways I am about to embark on a journey to attend The Boulevard Festival in Chicago this weekend, then Phish at Dicks, and Axe the Cables at Red Rocks… Life is good people. Go see live music! Cool thanks bye.]]>