Every year around the world, music festivals are set up in massive fields and parks and, in some cases, gorges. Yes, gorges. Like Sasquatch Music Festival in George, WA. This music festival is different from many due to its beautiful landscape and the Northwestern camaraderie that is so unique to this great area.
Edward Sharp and the Magnetic Zeros at the mainstage
Memorial day weekend houses the 4 day festival in which people from all over the Northwest, including British Columbia and Alberta, come together and live in tents and listen to music. I have been to Lollapalooza in Chicago, which was three days and would end at 11 pm and I would go back to my aunt and uncle’s 3 story house in Lincoln Park every night to rest up for the next day. This is not how you do Sasquatch. You live on campgrounds with your good friends, and if you’re lucky, you are joined by crazy Canadian neighbors. We ate out of the back of our cars, usually bagel sandwiches or burgers, and would just sit and wait until the first band we wanted to see would go on stage.
My friends Travis Shetter, Kelly VanPatten, and Shane Seaman, ’15, at our campsite. Picture taken by Andrea Eaton ’15
Living at Sasquatch is another world, it’s an adventure all in itself. My housemate, Andrea, and I slept in her 6 person tent for four nights just the two of us, one of the few luxuries of our trip. Because The Gorge Amphitheater is in Eastern Washington, on the other side of the Cascades, our surroundings were dry desert and farmland, causing extreme weather changes. We would go to sleep, freezing, bundled under blankets and our mummy sleeping bags, waking up sweating and running out of the steaming bubble our tent would become. But it was awesome because all we could do is sit and talk and bond and laugh and wait. We had to rest up before our long walk to the stages, a trek that was about the same time period as a short show. But oh, it was worth it.
My friends Shane, Jordan, Sara, Travis, Jeremy (’15) and I at Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros
People keep asking me what my favorite show was, but I can’t choose one. The shows were all exceptional and I couldn’t stop moving at any of them.
Friday:
We wandered over to Red Fang, which was a massive mosh pit, something I don’t like. When it finished, we waited for Japandroids, but our Canadian friend, Matt, started another mosh pit, so my friend and I took it as a great opportunity to take a nap. I then saw The Arctic Monkeys, where the lead was suave and charming and held a Johnny Cash type persona with a thick Northern English accent. And then the moment I had been waiting for came, Vampire Weekend, a show that caused me to almost cry several times. I felt like I was in high school again and it was amazing. We then ended the night with Baauer and “The Harlem Shake”, a great day indeed.
Saturday:
A longer day with a longer list of acts-
- The tail end of Michael Kiwanuka
- Devendra Banhart (swoon)
- A laugh with Nick Offerman
- Bloc Party
- The XX
- Totally Enormous Extinct Dinosaur
- Finally, an awesome dance party at Laidback Luke, where I ran into Michael Kiwanuka who I think was a bit overwhelmed with our very energetic dancing at the back of the techno tent
Sunday:
- Danny Brown, the craziest rapper in the world. On the way, we ran into Seattle rap duo, Brothers From Another, who are friends with the KUPS members and play house shows for us.
- Tallest Man on Earth
- Dropkick Murphys, a Boston band that does Irish punk, but I lost a shoe and had to crowd surf out of the moshing mess
- Edward Sharpe & The Magnetic Zeros
- Earl Sweatshirt with Syd the Kyd
- Ended the night with a very fun show of Grimes
Earl Sweatshirt with a horse head mask
Last but not least, Monday:
- Chvrches
- Comedian Mike Birbiglia, who my friend met and then accidentally complimented him on another comedians joke (oops, but it’ll be a good addition to his show)
- Dirty Projectors
- Toro Y Moi, where my friends and I were able to be at the front for
- Disclosure, where we were also at the front because we stayed planted after Toro Y Moi
- We chilled out at Alt-J
- We danced around at Ariel Pink
- We then ended our 2013 Sasquatch experience with The Postal Service, an awesome blast from the past
Matching with my housemate, Andrea, at Chvrches
Front and center for Toro y Moi
Disclosure
A picture from Google Images of my friends and I at Disclosure
Alt-J
It was a great weekend, a great way to spend my last days as a teenager (I turned 20 a couple days later), and a great way to send off the friends who are studying abroad next semester/year. I would say for Puget Sound students who are able to save up, it’s worth experiencing at least once!
This definitely made way for an awesome summer!
The end