Adventures at Wanee 2012

As spring rolls around and schools comes to a close for the year, Blues lovers from all over the country swarm upon the Spirit of the Suwannee Music Park for The Allman Brothers Band’s fesitval, Wanee. This year’s Wanee took places from April 19-21 at the Spirit of the Suwannee Music Park in Live Oak, FL.
Day One
Thursday, April 19th

Upon arriving at the lush spanish moss covered grounds at the Spirit of the Suwannee music Park, on Thursday, April 19th, I made my way down to the amphitheater to give the “Music Lives Here” bear my traditional pat on the head. For me this is something more than just a ritual of good luck. To me it symbolizes another epic journey of musical adventures at the SOSMP. After patting the MLH bear and perousing the stages, I made my way up to the campgrounds.

All week the weather forecast for the weekend was forecast to be pretty damn rainy with the chance of severe thunderstorms. As you can see here many a gray cloud hovered around Live Oak on Thursday afternoon. Fortunately, none of the clouds decided to rain on the festivals festivities. At least not until later in the weekend.

Each festival, my best friend and I, Michael Parker, always set up some kind of crazy fort, which we have dubbed our NOOK. At this years Wanee both Mike and I were runnign a little to getting to the SOSMP, compared to the rest of the crew who got there the previous night. Jack Davisson, whose sitting here with the giant ball under his feet, took the mission of creating the Wanee NOOK for our tribe. I have to say he and our fellow tribe member did a hell of a job of building our NOOK for Wanee.

Festival Goers wander the campgrounds and check out the vendors as the sun peeks through the clouds on Thursday afternoon.

A man takes a quick nap in one of the many Hammocks adorning the amphitheater before Devon Allman’s Honey Tribe hits the stage.

As the afternoon progressed more and more people began to filter into the Amphitheater for the evenings shows.

Conspirator
Conspirator is simply awesome. No surprise there, considering the members of the band.

Conspirator was formed in 2004 by fellow Disco Biscuits members Aron Magner(Keys) and Marc Brownstein(Bass), recently Chris Michetti(Guitar) and Darren Shearer(Drums) of the New Deal have joined the group to bring you Conspirator’s most compelling jamtronica creations.

Day Two
Friday, April 20th
Photo by: Mark Roomy
Dat Two began with the arrival of another one of our NOOK Tribe members, Mark Roomy, who happened to fly into Live Oak, FL. and snapped this photo of SOSMP grounds during Bruce Hornsby’s set.
Umbrellas, ponchos and raincoats littered our campground as everyone anticipated the rain that was sure to come in the afternoon.

Here’s a wide-shot of the back end of our campground.

Heidi Thorpe chills out at the campgrounds as she waits to head down to the River with the rest of her crew.

One of the essentials at any Suwannee Muic Park fest is a bike. Cars take forever to drive around the park because of all the people and all the other cars/trucks/RVs. Bikes are allowed into the festival grounds, as are golf carts, so you can really get around quick on a bike. I highly recommend bringing with one to you if attend a festival here.

Alex Fabian headbutts a water soaked ball which covered him in dirt and water.

Nicole Stellato chills in her cocoon of a hammock as she rests up for the Zach deputy Band

Zach Deputy on the Traveling Stage
As the morning continued on many at the festival headed down to the river to catch Zach Detputy on the traveling stage. Little did we know we would only get to see aboout 10 minutes of Zach and then security stopped about a thousand people from continuing to watch the show. You can watch it all here in this video.

Bruce Hornsby & The Noisemakers

Video by Jack DavissonVideo by Jack DavissonVideo by Jack Davisson

Around The Festival and Campgrounds
Nicole Stellato, Maryscott Moore, and Jack Davisson walk around the festival grounds before the Tedeschi Truck’s bands set.

Tedeschi Trucks Band
Tedeschi Trucks Band tore it up as always. Check out the vidsVideo by Jack Davisson

Video by Jack Davisson

Zach Deputy Band
Zach Deputy is not to be missed at any festival. His live sets are usually played solo but this time around Zach brought his band with him.

Backed with a band Zach is able to unleash his talent on the guitar and really evolve the songs all of his fans have come to love.

Furthur
This is what I call the battle line. Its amazing that all weekend long you wont see a couple of these guys and gals until the major bands like Furthur. It blows my mind that they don’t pay attention to the other bands and focus only on the bands that everyone else are covering.

Video by Jack Davisson

The Allman Brothers Band
Theres so much I could say here about The Allman Brothers Band. First off, as always, they were amazing, almost impeccable. Second, the atmosphere of Suwannee does something to amplify the power of ABB’s music to a magically spiritual level. If you scroll down to night 2 of ABB you will find the videos and you’ll see what I mean. Make sure to give “The Sky Is Crying” a good listen, Derek Trucks and Warren Haynes solos are ridiculous.

Particle
As I sat tripping out to Particle, I realized the easiest way to describe them. They sound like a robot spaceship on an intergalactic mission to make everyone and everything dance.

Day Three
Saturday, April 21st
Like all festivals, there are always people trying to sell all kinds of stuff. This guy was trying to sell this awesome window, Im pretty sure he wanted like 1500 bucks for it.

Earlier in the festival fellow photographer, Jeffrey Dupuis(jeffreydupuis.com), recommended I try a chicken and waffle sandwich from the food truck. So finally Sunday morning before I headed over to see SOJA, I hit the food truck up for one of these so-called Chicken and Waffle delights. Needless to say Dupuis was right. Basically the sandwich consisted of a hand-breaded chicken filet with home-made honey gravy smooshed between two homemade pieces of a Belgian style waffle. It was ridiculously delictable.