Photo Credit: YourEDM, Tristan Leto
Hey All! We decided to do something a bit different for this festival review. We picked one amazing fan to give us an absolute, first hand perspective of the Dirtybird Campout East. Our amazing fan, Hur An, has given us a beautiful breakdown of this incredible festival, that overcame massive odds of a temporary shutdown, to provide dancers with one of the greatest kick-off festival experiences of 2018! Take it away, Hur!
Ah where to begin? When people ask “how was Dirtybird Campout”. Let’s just say there’s not enough words in the dictionary to describe the entire weekend.
The excitement builds up with anticipation as you drive towards the entrance through this tropical dusty path. You gaze at the open fields with palm trees and other dirtybird fans gathering together, creating an immense amount of excitement as you get closer and closer. The vibes were radiant with positivity from the begin to the end of the weekend.
Thursday night when Claude von Stroke and Seth Troxler opened up the festival for the early birds was the best way to start this dirty campout. All sorts of birds were dancing around as if it was the last day. Claude Von stroke doing what he always does getting us down and dirty. Then Seth, in incredible fashion kept moving the crowd as if he was a conductor of an orchestra, bringing the festival to a crescendo.
Even though the festival grounds ended at 3:00 AM the party kept on going in the camp grounds. A couple of campers with their RVs would set up their own rig to just keep the birdies dancing well into the early hours of the morning with the sunrise barely peeking over the horizon.
As all of us were getting ready for Friday to begin, we got some sour news and all sorts of rumors, left and right. We were hearing the festival gates were closed, that no one is allowed in anymore, the whole festival was shutting down due to noise complaints, dirtybird didn’t get the right permits, blah blah blah.
Here's the full story, officially from Dirtybird's home-base:
“At the 11th hour, Dirtybird Campout East reached out to Leslie Jose Zigel who together with his partner Joe Geller of Greenspoon Marder persuaded County officials to agree to a compromise in reducing the hours and decibel level of the music to allow the festival to go on, while being sensitive to the local community noise complaints.”
We were all concerned for the festival and our friends who have yet to make it to the campout. Then as we were hearing better news that they were letting people back in, we are told that there would be no music for the rest of the day.
But that didn’t stop us from throwing down our own parties.
Our mentality was that if we can’t go into the festival then the people will be the festival and we continued to play our music in the campgrounds. There were many different renegade parties from one campsite to another.
The quote “when life gives you lemons, you make lemonade” felt so relevant to us that day.
The only thing is, we didn’t just make lemonade, we had lemon party!
Everyone was very welcoming from campsite to campsite and just wanting to genuinely have a great time with other dirtybird fam from around the country.
Even though majority of us were exhausted, we were so ready for Saturday, in hopes that the music will return and it surely did. But being a tech head, there is no such thing as being exhausted. We started off the day with Mija, who couldn’t play Friday, throwing down a party in the campgrounds.
Then heading over to the Bass lodge, we got funky with Madam X and Ivy Lab. All of us raged up again all day long, and the highlight of that day was being able to witness an amazing, once in a lifetime set by Walker & Royce.
Photo Credit: Brittany NO FOMO
They threw down one of the best sets we have ever witnessed. It was during their set when everything sank in and everything felt pure bliss. None of us had a single thought of all the troubles we left back at home and purely enjoyed the moment. Everyone was dancing as if no one was watching and no sense of judgement at all. I couldn’t have asked for a better crowd.
Now Super Bowl Sunday was upon us and it felt as if the whole festival was split in half between Patriot fans and true Eagles fan with their bandwagons. It was all out friendly competitive sports trash talking back and forth. Even though it was the last day and we were all running on fumes for energy, and it being Super Bowl Sunday, we all pushed on through and raged our lives away. We got down and wonky at Eprom playing some dirty tracks and also got to witness what only Holy Ship was lucky to see so far; and that was Claude Von Stroke B2b Justin Martin jungle set.
Everyone that we got to see played phenomenally Sunday from Eprom, Justin Martin, J. Philip, Ardalan, Pillow Talk, and Wolf + Lamb. It was hard to keep track of who was playing due to new set times and some artists being late or not showing up. But all in all it was a great day for Dirtybird and EAGLES FANS!!
In closing, Dirtybird Campout East Coast 2018 was THE best festival to start off the year. If you feel bad that you missed it, then you will have your redemption in October for the West Coast. But until then, Dirtybirds, keep dancing.
-Hur
