All Good XV - beyond this point, there be dragons

All Good was all good! We busted ASS, and raged that mountain! Seth and I left Rock Camp Wednesday morning, picked up Jeremy and Justin in Rich Creek Va and headed to Morgantown. Jeremy fell asleep in the backseat while Seth drove and we listened to 'Jamtronica' on Jam-On. We stayed at the Morgantown Motel. We saw this amazing "rasta-bus" in the parking lot outside our building, so immediately ran down to chill with those people! It was a great 'lot scene' in the Morgantown Motel pre-All Good.
We woke up early the next morning and headed to check in at the Ramada. We were thrilled  to not have to stand in the incredibly long line, since we were checking in as artists/performers. Seth and I got "grassroots" artist laminates and Jeremy and Justin got vendor bracelets. We really need the laminates at these big festies...they make our passage through gates, check-points, and the crowds so much simpler. They tell people "we were hired to do this"...


We met up with some of our caravan, Christian Critzer and his wife Jenn as we were leaving the Ramada. They followed us to Masontown, but we lost them on the way into the festie. We had a "vending" parking sticker on the truck, they didn't.
At the first security check point, we got All Good's playbill/schedule booklet...and there on page 15, was our billing. It still wigs me out that an, albeit brief, piece of literature I wrote was published by All Good! Check it out here!
We got all the way through the check points and back roads, only to end up in the wrong place, unable to get to the RIGHT place. We back tracked to 'gate one', and headed through the main entrance of the festival, escorting Christian and Jenn down Production Ave straight to our camp site behind the yet-to-be-graffittied water bus. We set up camp and relaxed in the heat of the day. Then Seth and Jeremy and Justin and I donned some goofy hats, wigs and sunglasses and went for our first stroll through the festival.
We met some cool cats from NJ over by the ferris wheel, then got our pictures taken as dancing bears (teehee)!

We headed back to camp to do our first real bear set of the fest. Jeremy jumped into our orange bear suit, Justin into the red one, and Christian into the blue rasta bear...I donned my skeleton body suit and roses and out we went!
It was a long bear set, we covered a lot of ground, kept our poor hotter-than-hell bears as hydrated as wee could, and stopped for LOTS of impromptu photo shoots. Everybody loves da bears!
After our crazy bear stint we headed back to camp to chill out for a long while. It was hot, and for 5pm on Thursday at All Good, we were doing really well.

As the sun set we did another bear set, this time heading into the venue rather than canvasing the crazy camping areas. We were a hit, stopping for pictures with babies and babes, old hippies and young ravers. We danced our bear buts off to the sounds of Hot Buttered Rum, then headed back to camp.
While we'd been our bearing it up, two more of our crew arrived. Brendan (and his brand new dragon who we fondly named 'Tronic) and Raph were setting up camp in the dark.

When the John Butler Trio came on we did a set with Puff T. Magic-Dragon...and got a shout out!! To us, under the dragon, it sounded like someone right next to us made the "I hope that psychedelic snail-slug thing is helping the night" comment...but lo and behold it was John Butler!!!
After that knock out Puff set, we went for a round with 'Tronic, the newest member of our glowing family. Brendan was thrilled, he'd been looking forward to blowing it up for STS9. I was on 'Tronic's head, Brendan on the battery-pack-backpack right behind me, various other crew members filling the rest of the dragon out. We raged the second half of STS9 so hard we blew a fuse! Brendan RAN back to camp to get another, and we finished out the crazy set, and the crazy night.

Friday was a whole new day. First thing in the am we body painted up Brendan and Jeremy as metal bunnies. This requires some explanation. All Good bases it's theme every year on the Chinese Zodiac. Last year was the year of the tiger, the year before was the rat, etc. This year, 15, was the year of the bunny. More specifically, according to the Chinese Zodiac, it's the year of the metal bunny (as opposed to a wood bunny or a water bunny etc). So we sent our two male metal bunnies for a jog. They headed straight up the crazy All Good hill into the camping areas. Bradley, another RCP crew member showed up to camp right after they left.

They came back sweaty and smiling and surprisingly body paint intact. They only met a few intolerant festie goers on their jog (receive a few slurs, "faggot" among them). However, we didn't let that phase us. We painted up most of the rest of our crew (as metal bunnies of course) and two of our neighbors as skeletons and "All Good Man". We went and staked out a spot under the red lanterns, organized our body paints and brushes, then I in all my naked, body painted glory started advertising FREE body painting.

Justin decided to opt out of the body painting, for fear of roasting alive in the sun (he has very fair skin) but held the umbrella for us so the rest of the bunnies could have some shade.
After hours of body painting mischief we headed back to camp. Jeremy, Raph and I went to wash our body paint off at the water bus fifty yards from our camp site. That was cute until I'd washed of most of my paint....then I was just that naked chick washing at the water bus cause she didn't want to pay five dollars for a shower.

FINALLY it was time for Furthur. Though they started their four hour slot super late, we were ready with a puppet and a dragon. We got Puff T. Magic-Dragon and Sid Glo out there with the brand new glowing beating heart I made for Phil. We RAGED it...gave Gertrude the Jellyfish a hug from Sid and made our way down to the front during "We bid you goodnight"...expecting a "donate your organs" speech from Phil (and an encore)...but sadly, nothing. The plan had been to hand Phil Lesh the afformentioned heart when he called for the audience to donate their organs. We were bummed out about the lack of speech, but Big Gigantic raged SO HARD immediately, we didn't have time to pout. Sid chase Puff out of the venue and home to camp.





Saturday morning started off hot and slow. We went out for a bear set with Rex Jam, and canvassed the crowd to help raise funds for the local school music and arts programs. We were out in the hot sun for TWO HOURS...and returned to camp completely dead. I passed out immediately until right before our night shows.
We got Sid out for the end of moe. and the begining of Primus. Then we really busted out Puff for Primus...fighting our way through the tough and rough crowd. At one point I turned around at a tugging from behind my vantage point of the first rib, only to see Puff's tail wrapped around a random audience-member's fist. This bro was playing tug-of-war with our dragon! We got a shout out from Les Claypool...although leave it to him to give us a quote we can't REALLY use....something about his manager smoking crack and chasing dragons.
Then...FINALLY...it was time for Pretty Lights....we pushed to get ALL of our glowing cast of characters out there for this crazy bumpin' late night! Sent Sid out for a loop, chased him with Puff T! then sent Brendan and a crew out with 'Tronic. My camera battery gave out before this, and I'm bummed, because there were some great photo ops with our crazy cast of glowing characters! We were all back at camp when he remixed Country Roads, and our crew collectively groaned, knowing we shouldn've been out there for that climax....but we were ALL beat from a crazy weekend (and a CRAZY bear set for Rex Jam).
Sunday was a light day. We did a single bear set, then packed up camp and said our goodbyes (for now). We were all sad to hear about poor Nicole, the young girl who died in a tragic accident Sunday morning. What an awful way to end such a wonderful weekend.
Still, we put our hearts and souls into this All Good show. We blew minds and held hearts. Next year is the year of the "water dragon"....Seth and I are already planning our show for All Good XVI!