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Rothbury Festival Review |
Rothbury saved our lives, perhaps. Rothbury saved us from ourselves. I mean that Rothbury was an event unlikely to happen again for a long time. There will never be another Rothbury, and while that’s predominantly because the steely jaws of bankruptcy are eating the owners of the Double JJ Ranch alive, it’s also because people are going to know what they’re getting into if there is indeed a ‘next time.’ No, this Rothbury was a unique moment in time, where people of all backgrounds went on a journey to a place where security was limited, drugs were passed out like opinions, dancing was highly encouraged and you didn’t have to sleep alone or sleep at all. And, of course, there was music. Acts that spanned from Phil Lesh to Dave Matthews to Snoop Dog with everything from vaudeville and electronica in between.
Rothbury was named after the town it took place in, and it’s a town you probably hadn’t heard of before. Rothbury is a town in Michigan—you know, Michigan, the state nestled by the Great Lakes, and battered by a failing economy. The venue, specifically, was The Double JJ Ranch and Resort. Styled like the Old West, the Double JJ is over 1,500 acres of water park, golf course, horseback riding and hotel. It opened in 1937 and Rothbury Music Festival was perhaps the biggest thing to ever happen to it. Unfortunately, it wasn’t enough. The Double JJ’s eyes had been bigger than its pocketbook during the construction of new amenities, and so, still crippled with debt, The Double JJ filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in mid-July. As of September 3, The Double JJ suspended all operations and announced their hopes that someone else would buy it come autumn.
But before those fields became a ghost town, it was haunted by hippies, vaudevillians, rockstars and those who’d come looking to be saved.
It was Fourth of July weekend, but no one seemed too concerned about the birthday girl. Rothbury was split up into different areas, where elaborate stages had been constructed in spaces of open field. Vendors selling overpriced hot dogs, noodle cups and pizza slices were interspersed with bartenders pouring pints and attempting sangria. Everywhere you went, a volunteer stood by trash and recycling barrels encouraging you to be green. Ah, yes, being green. Rothbury wanted to be green, wanted to prove to the environment that we could party responsibly on its behalf. They provided portable ash trays, and had crews of volunteers dedicated to picking up after us on behalf of Mother Earth.
During the day, Rothbury was a commune of hipsters and hippies alike. They did yoga, they browsed the farmer’s market, they nodded thoughtfully while looking at the largest structure ever created out of cans – to be donated to a good cause, of course. They sweated, and they burned in the sun, and they took their shirts off and they smoked marijuana in circles and no one seemed to mind. They pretended they weren’t at all interested in seeing The Dave Matthews Band. There were workshops by artists, there were concerts on multiple stages, there were girls walking around with nothing on their breasts but crudely painted butterflies. So, really, just another day touring the music festival circuit.
However, by nighttime, the drugs had circulated and one was hard-pressed to encounter anyone not a) wasted b) caught in the rapture of MDMA (mostly asked for by uttering: “Has anyone seen Molly… you know, guys, Mooooolly.”) c) totally baked or d) a combination plate of all four.
Night is when people fell in love with humanity. And yes, it might have been the oxytocin talking, and yes, it might have been the serotonin surging, but all anyone seemed to want to do was dance. In groups, by themselves, Rothbury became a mass of fist-pumping, idiot-grinning bastards concerned with nothing more than finding a downbeat and holding onto it for dear life. The Crystal Method played a set until 3 a.m. on Sunday morning, and no one was ready to quit.
There was a forest. They were calling it Sherwood Forest, as creative people do with forests, and in that forest you could meet a stranger and ask them about their lives. They’d tell you and it didn’t matter if it was true, because you’d never see them again. And just because you’d never see them again, it didn’t mean they weren’t automatically your friend. No, these people were at one with the planet (and they deserved to be, because they spent all day putting trash in the appropriate receptacles and drinking out of cups made out of recycled materials!). These people were on a vision quest, they had realized they were a unique beings of flesh and blood and at one with all other humans! These people were voting for Barack Obama. It did not matter that they made their pilgrimage to Rothbury in SUVs, that they stopped for McDonalds and Starbucks, that they were sleeping on the soil of a state that boasted the highest unemployment rate in the country, because goddammit, they came here to have a good time and they were having it. Or else, they were there to see what might potentially be a Phish reunion. And it wasn’t – so fuck those people.
Would I be lying if I said that we didn’t lose our minds a little? That we didn’t eat what was discretely palmed to us? Would I be deceiving you if I claimed that when the whole forest erupted that night into the same song that we had nothing to do with it, that we objectively watched these shenanigans from our pedestals of journalistic integrity and total sobriety? And would I be wrong to tell you that when the security showed up on horseback and kicked us out of the forest for having a peaceful sing-song riot that one of us (certainly not me) declared all the way back to the campsite that no motherfucker on this whole universe could force me to go to bed, no, sir, not on a weekend!?!
Maybe.
But what happened in Rothbury stays in Rothbury…sort of. Rothbury was a contained environment of music, kindness, mercy, dancing, human spirit and copious substance abuse. Rothbury was a special place. Someone rich, please read this and buy the Double JJ and let’s do it all again.
Click here to see photos of Rothbury in the Wide-Eyed photo gallery
