Beautiful Plants For Your Interior
Now that I have one music festival under my belt in my camper van I felt a ton more comfortable on the road. I spent the week after Wonderroad Music Festival in Indianapolis volunteering with Reverb at the Guster concert and the Lumineers, during both of the shows it was crazy hot out. Down the road I will probably circle back and make a post about this. But for now we are going to focus on the Green River Festival in Greenfield, MA which I have never been to before. From the time I left Indiana I had eight days to make my way to Massachusetts. After looking at the photos from that time period I had many excursions like concerts, Ohio antique superstores, and Maine. Anyways back to the music festival.
This festival was three days long and I also volunteered at this festival. I was on the Green/Compost Team so luckily for that crew I was only required to do one 4 hour shift. I had an early morning Saturday shift of just walking around and checking bins/picking up garbage. It was a fun time chatting with the local people and I was able to set up my chair a little early so I had a fairly good spot near the stage. The people I had my shift with, I can’t remember their names, but they were some really fun old guys that were very chatty. I learned a lot about the area and how this is a very hippie town (they protested a Walmart construction/plan in town and won). Anyway the shift was super chill and we were able to take tons of breaks. My whole volunteering experience was such a great time and it was such a grassroots organization. This whole festival gave off the May Day Parade and Tree of Life Ceremony (RIP) that used to happen in Powderhorn Park in Minnesota put on by In the Heart of the Beast Puppet and Mask Theatre. So in general the vibes were immaculate!
The first day of this festival was Friday and there was no one I really wanted to see. So I mainly just went to people watch and listen to some new (to me) artists. I was able to catch Guster’s set which was really fun. Other than that I just walked around and looked at all of the amazing things this festival had to offer. There was an art station in a barn that was completely free and people were able to make ‘stained glass’ windows or a paper lantern. On one of the days there was a parade that went through the festival lead by one of the bands that played that day’s brass section. The parade was full of puppets and art that was made in the art barn. Another awesome thing this festival had was you were able to park in downtown then for free they shuttle you on school buses to the site. All of the bus drivers were super friendly and helpful about what was cool to do in the area. At the end of the night all you had to do was jump on the bus and then you were back to your car in about 5 minutes. My first day at this music festival made me love community get togethers again so I was very pumped for the rest of the festival.
The next morning, I woke up and I was on my way to the volunteer lot that I had learned about the night before. This lot was a little bit closer and was nice for when I wanted to go back to my camper to get food or cool off. I checked in for my shift and met up with everyone at the compost tent and did the tasks I described earlier. The one thing I did forget was sunscreen on the back of my calves so because of the shift time and how strong the sun was my calves burned. After my shift I caught a set for a band called Love Crumbs. They were super fun and one of the artists in the band was from Greenfield. Then went back to my camper to cool off and change my clothes from my earlier shift. I rushed back to catch a set by The Dip, they had such a fun brass section which I always love. A little before their set ended Rayland Baxter’s started so ran over to the other stage to catch the rest of their set. Rayland was super fun and they reminded me of Ron Gallo a bit. This festival has been pretty chill for the earlier sets so it is easy to get up and close to the stage. After Rayland’s set I didn’t really want to see anyone until Lake Street Dive so I just walked around for a bit. As always it is fun to see random artists that I am not familiar with. On one of the smaller stages there had a super fun live local bluegrass band that everyone was up and dancing for. Another thing this festival had was a super small stage outside of a trailer/tiny home that the local college students made and at the end of the festival was going to be donated to some local people in need. (this is what I was told, not sure if this is a 100% accurate) This stage was the surprise stage so if you signed up for the text messages they would text you within 20 minutes or so before a surprise set. I was not signed up for the messages but everyone was rushing over there in super big groups. So I asked what they were doing and they said that Lake Street Dive was having a small ‘surprise’ set on this stage. It ended up being a super cool set with all of them around one microphone. Then later in the day they hit the main stage and were such a good time! I am so glad that I went out of my way/ all the way to the east coast for this festival. This festival also had a set list/artists just for people camping but honestly if you stayed after the last set you could watch most of it. So I stuck around this night and went to some of those sets, but luckily I left when I did because I barely caught the last bus of the night. They were so close to driving away when I knocked on the door to be let on the driver said ‘well it is your lucky day as this is the last bus of the night.’
The next morning I slept in as it was a long long night. Today the number one artist I wanted to see was Allison Russell (who was the other reason I went to this fest) and I was also excited about Waxahatchee and Father John Misty. But first I jumped on the first bus from the volunteer parking lot to go and take a shower which was much needed. There were showers on site where the music festival was for the campers. Luckily the volunteer crew was super chill and I talked to them about it and they said ‘for sure you are good to use the showers’. So I checked in with them, got my wristband and was on my way to take a shower. On the way back out of the festival I stopped at the first aid tent to organize all my stuff after my shower. They also had tons of sunscreen which is always a good thing to apply. At this point I decided to wait until the doors open and then go throw a blanket down over by the main stage to be able to have a good seat. At this point I probably wasn’t going to make it back to the festival until closer to the people I wanted to see. I was very exhausted from being out in the sun the last few days. On this last day before I went back to the fest I decided to take the school bus shuttle downtown to walk around for a bit. There were some awesome antique stores and a really fun food Co-op that I got lunch at. It was funny because after walking around for like 10 minutes I was like ‘yes I need to move here’, which happens in any small cute town like this. Then it was back to the festival where I saw Allison Russell, my first time seeing them live and they were so good! The vibes and respect that they had for each other was so touching. Then I hopped around to a few stages until Waxachatchee which I wasn’t super familiar with their stuff but they sounded great. The last set of the weekend was Father John Misty and it was the lead singer with a pianist so it was a super striped down set. He sounded pretty good but because he usually doesn’t do very long sets (he said that) it sort of felt off like he wasn’t sure what to do for this long period of time. This day felt like it had a smaller attendance and you could get like 10th row or so (comfortably) at the last set which was awesome. This time I made sure not to stick around too long as I wanted to make sure I caught the bus back to my camper. Then I was off north to Vermont to visit a college friend, Sarah!
What a fun experience from volunteering, to crafts, to fun people, and great artists. The volunteer crew/staff and everyone that was involved in putting on this event was so extremely helpful and nice. Overall this was such a fun event if you are in the area I would definitely go even if you only know a handful of artists because you will walk away with new artists and such great, wholesome memories.
As always thanks for reading & my next post will be out next week.
Sophie…
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A big thank you to my brother, Grant, for setting up this blog for me! If you need any blog or website help email him at