Rock Fest 2012 Part 2

There's so much to Rock Fest besides just the concerts. The camping and meeting new people is such an experience in and of itself, so the rest of the trip deserves its own post.

As I alluded to in my first Rock Fest post, this was my second trip out to the Fest. Man Friend was one of our Fest Virgins, my uncle has been every year, and my aunt hasn't missed a year since she started going about four or five years in. Having my best friend by my side and meeting three new really fun couples, I had even more fun than last year and couldn't have asked for a better four days.

I planned most of the trip with my aunt and uncle, partially because they have been going so long, and partially because they just have way more stuff than Man Friend and I do combined. Also, because Aunt and Uncle are frankly just awesome people who I really enjoy spending time with. Uncle is my godfather and also shared a duplex with my parents for a few years when I was a kid. Growing up, I spent a lot of time with him and we've always gotten along really well, so when he married Aunt, it was kind of like an automatic like. But I got along with Aunt right away too, and now we're just one big barrel of fun.

Unlike most people who surround me, I love the heat. I love summer, I love the sun beating on me, and I love being warm. However, it was really frickin hot this weekend. Just about unbearable hot. Luckily, at the campsite, we had a little bit of shade from Aunt and Uncle's camper awning, but that only took care of not having 90 degree heat beating directly on you. And in the concert area, we didn't have anything. Man Friend and I went through almost an entire spray bottle of SPF 50, and both of our fair skin still got burned. Poor Man Friend was was more burned than I was; even though he put new applications of sunscreen on frequently, he still looked like a lobster by the end of the trip.

Before I left, my dad said "Please
drink more than just alcohol this
weekend." So I texted him this from
our pit stop to Subway before
getting to the Fest grounds.

It was actually so hot that I was worried about dehydration all weekend. I got overly dehydrated once in Hawaii, and after nearly passing out on a school trip, I don't ever want to experience that again. I was pounding so much water that it was cancelling out my alcohol intake. Even though I drank A LOT, I didn't get drunk one day. I was a little bummed by that, but not bummed enough to stop gulping water. You have to know your body's limits and being able to feel the giddiness of being drunk is simply not worth risking personal safety to me. However, my favorite beer Summer Shandy and Jack Daniels Downhome Punch wine coolers did go down really easily in that heat.

Enjoying a Shandy with my awesome homemade coozie from
my younger cousin.

Our campsite was actually made up of a group of many sites. Aunt and Uncle have a lot of Rock Fest friends, and they all reserve sites together. Our area consisted of eleven couples and two singles, all coming in from Minnesota, Michigan, Iowa, and of course, Wisconsin. I had so much fun hanging out with the people I had met last year, and getting to know the people who I was just meeting. Even though there's about a twenty year age gap between me and the majority of the people in our group, they never fail to deliver a good time. Not to mention, not one of them has ever treated me any differently because I'm so young. They just all accepted me (and this year, Man Friend) into their Rock Fest family.

In between shows and before concerts started for the day, there was never any shortage of things to do at the campsite. One couple (from Michigan) brought the game for bean bag toss with Detroit Lions and Green Bay Packers bean bags. We played that game a lot, and it was especially fun whenever the Packer fans played against the Lions fans. Nothing like a little healthy competition to get things going. We also sat around an inflatable pool, occasionally dipping our feet in to cool off during the day and around the fire at night.

Man Friend and me playing Bean Bags. I had to be the Lions :(

On Sunday, the last day of the Fest, there weren't too many bands any of us were especially eager to watch. The big two were Poison and Def Leppard, but they didn't start until after it was dark. With nothing to do during the day and after sitting in the beat sun for three days, we decided to spend a few hours swimming. About a 45 minute drive from the campground was a nice little beach everyone referred to as "The Falls." Don't ask me which "Falls" these were. I have no idea. Anyway, despite my reservations, I really enjoyed myself.

After nearly drowning as a child, I'm terrified of water. Absolutely terrified. Needless to say, pools and natural bodies of water aren't exactly my best friends. As soon as the water reaches my waist or chest, I get really nervous and typically will not go any further. In fact, I will likely back up or get out. I don't swim well, and if I can't touch the bottom with my toes, I'm over it. Well, much to my distaste, we got to the Falls and I found out that in order to actually get to the beach, you need to cross a part of the river (or lake? who knows) because there isn't any adjoining dry land. Already I was hesitant. Then our group started crossing, and the water was up to their waist at least, and they're all way taller than me. At this point, I was way past hesitant, and ready to say fuck it and just wave to them from the other side.

Luckily, though, my ever calm better half convinced me it would be okay and we slowly made the trek to the other side. We had to watch for some really slippery and sharp rocks at the bottom so we wouldn't fall or slice our feet open. Oddly enough, this added danger was a little bit of a relief to me. It gave me more excuse to go extra slowly without worrying about holding up the rest of our group or feeling like an idiot. When everyone is cautious, you don't really stick out much. Once we got to the other side, the water actually wasn't very deep at all. I waded in up to about knee length and sat on some of the higher rocks with everyone. I ended up rather enjoying myself after the worrisome crossing was over. And when it was time to go back, I knew what to expect which takes care of half the fear.

Man Friend and Uncle swimming

Year two of my Rock Fest excursions was quite the success. It was worth every penny I spent and every moment of unpaid work days I used. I had so much fun all four days; it was a wonderful little vacation, even if it wasn't anywhere fancy.

Rock Fest 2012 Part 1

I just got back from my second annual trip out to Cadott for the highly anticipated Rock Fest, and while I'm really bummed that the weekend quickly came to an end, it's nice to be home.

There's so much about Rock Fest, so many amazing stories and details crammed into four days, I don't know where to begin. I'll jump right into it, and I'm probably going to be all over the place. So keep up.

Man Friend and me waiting for a show to start

This was the 19th year for the four day fest, and according to my uncle who has gone every year, not very much has changed from year to year. It's an outdoor music fest out in the middle of nowhere on a gigantic plot of open land that used to be a pig farm. There's tons and tons of camping space, where you see every kind of camping (or not very camping) imaginable. From people who drive in on their motorcycles with barely anything with them to small tents to huge tents to pop-ups to massive RVs, the Rock Fest grounds has seen it all. And of course, the important part: the concert area. The stage is at the bottom of a grassy hill where you can bring in your own chairs and leave them to save a spot for the day if you'd like. Right before the stage is also VIP seating for the people willing to pay the big bucks. Up on the hill can be kind of hard to see the band, but whatever you can't see on stage you can definitely make out on the big screens they have on either side of the stage.

In my opinion, the line up this year wasn't quite as impressive as last year's, but it was more than worth the tickets. I was the most eager to see Shinedown, Five Finger Death Punch and Halestorm, with Papa Roach, Buckcherry, and Black Stone Cherry coming in closely behind. I was pleasantly surprised the most by Alice Cooper and Iron Maiden.

FFDP

Shinedown

Shinedown and FFDP are two of my top favorite bands, and I was so eager to see them live. It was my first time seeing FFDP and second for Shinedown, but that was years ago and before I really listened to a lot of their music. Both shows I knew nearly every song the bands played, and couldn't have enjoyed their shows anymore.They had incredible energy, great lighting and actively engaged the crowd. FFDP even brought about 10 kids in the first few rows up on stage for a song or two and rocked out with the "next generation of rock music" as lead singer Ivan Moody put it.

Lizzy Hale

Even though I'm a new fan of Halestorm, I've liked everything I've heard by them so far and found out they certainly do not disappoint live either. Lizzy Hale is a phenomenally talented woman on lead vocals, guitar and even piano on some songs. She has great stage energy and it's so cool seeing a woman as the front line of a band. It is so rare to see a woman in a mostly male band, especially a harder rock band like theirs, and I love it.

I'm not a huge 80s hairband/metal fan, but I was really surprised at how much I enjoyed Iron Maiden and Alice Cooper. Maiden was the headliner for Saturday night, and actually played for about two hours instead of the typically allotted hour or occasional hour and a half. I only recognized one or two songs, but their entertainment value was so great, I stayed for about 3/4 of the show. They had great lights, so many background banner changes, film clips and pyrotechnics that it was hard to not enjoy watching them perform.   Alice Cooper was also wildly entertaining, and added bonus, I actually knew some of his songs. He had outfit/costume changes after nearly every song, little skits acted out to songs and was just all over the stage.

I was sadly disappointed by Buckcherry, and even more so by Godsmack. I really like Buckcherry as a band, so to see them do a mediocre job live was such a let-down. They had a decent amount of energy, but I felt the only crowd-interaction they had was when the lead singer used the crowd as a sounding board to vent his life story. The only time it made sense to include some ranting in between songs was when he talked about his drug experience before the song "Cocaine." If I didn't know any of their songs, I probably would not have enjoyed the show much.

Godsmack was just absolutely boring to watch. I'm not a huge fan, but do enjoy some of the songs I've heard on the radio throughout the years. At the beginning of the show, the singer said "I don't have much to say tonight, so I'm just gunna play a bunch of songs for you guys." And he wasn't kidding. He just played song after song with faked enthusiasm for about 3/4 of the show. Finally, the second to last song before the encore, he started telling the crowd to "wake up," which is a pretty clear indication that everyone else was as bored as I was. I recognized the first song, and then not any again until that second to last song. The next three were the more popular ones that have come out in the last couple of years. Why you would lump all your biggest hits together at the end of your set is beyond me. If the whole show was like the last 15 minutes, I probably would have enjoyed it a lot more. But it wasn't. So I didn't.

More to come about the campsite and the rest of the vacation in the next post.

Weekend Camping Adventure

This weekend, a group of six of us went on a camping excursion in Boulder Lake for Man Friend's best friend's birthday. With only a few minor disasters, it was about a 90% success...which is pretty high if you ask me.

The weekend started off a tad on the rocky side. There hadn't been very good communication or organization of the trip until about a day beforehand, which drove my very anal retentive self crazy. I need to know exactly how everything is going and have a borderline unhealthy need to plan things down to the detail. The campground and site weren't even chosen until Friday morning, less than ten hours before Man Friend and I were supposed to leave town.

Well, the site was determined and I started to feel a little more at ease. Not so fast. Nothing ever goes that smoothly. It started pouring and even hailing in some areas. After checking the weather, I found out the area where we were camping was expecting intermittent showers throughout the weekend. Assured Monica very quickly grew into Grouchy Monica. I did not want to spend the weekend cold and miserable and went into the trip expecting the worst...and in a very sour mood.

Alas, the rain ended (for a while) and by the time we reached the campground, skies were mostly clear.

Saturday did have some scattered showers, but luckily for us, it was mostly just sprinkles. The worst part about the weather, though, was that all the wood/logs/sticks were soaked and nearly impossible to start a fire with. Man Friend and his BFF ended up going into town mid afternoon to get more wood. Anyway, the camp ground was really nice and I definitely wouldn't mind going again. Clean, big, no one too rowdy and the grounds had a beach as well. We swam for a while in the afternoon, even though I initially would have rathered sit on the beach reading. I'm not one for water, and by that I mean, I hate swimming, and am scared of it. It took quite a bit of coaxing from Man Friend for me to even get in waist deep. After a while I did manage to have a decent amount of fun with everyone else.

Back at the camp site, we made a little friend with a friendly chipmunk. At first we decided to call him Alvin, you know, from Alvin and the Chipmunks. Man Friend started throwing Reeses Pieces towards him and we very quickly discovered that apparently chippies love them. The little guy was stuffing every one in his mouth, occasionally scampering away to hide it somewhere unknown to us stupid humans. It didn't take long for a game to develop to see how much and/or what he would shove in his mouth. The answer is pretty much anything, which turned into the new name of Theodore, you know, like Alvin's fat brother. Theodore's biggest accomplishment was fitting an entire Carmello square in his mouth and running off with it. He was also particularly fond of green grapes and my pesto noodle salad.

Approximately 5:00 Sunday morning, it started storming. And hard. Rain was pouring down and thunder and lightning started. Storms are loud enough normally, but when only a tent is between you and a storm, it seems about a zillion times louder. I'm typically not scared of storms at all, but the whole being outdoors with next to nothing for shelter changes that. I was pretty scared we could get hurt by the lightning...not to mention paranoid water would get in the tent, leaving me cold, wet and miserable. This was everything I didn't want out of the trip. It took quite a while, but eventually the storm subsided, I was able to chill out and fell back asleep.

Despite the few glitches, it was a really relaxing weekend. It was so nice and, and frankly, much needed, to be away from home for a few days and leave the stress of reality behind. And really, is anything better than having a few cold beers around a fire?