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Bear Creek

Posted: Sat Nov 14, 2009 5:53 pm
by lucasdavidsamuels
really wish someone was twittering setlists for the boys in their various incarnations

Posted: Sun Nov 15, 2009 3:06 am
by harrymcq
I don't know anyone who is going to be there...

Posted: Mon Nov 16, 2009 6:41 pm
by tom
i was there! sorry no updates! Superb weekend, very spun so you will have to bear with me. setlists and photos will come as soon as i return home later this week

Posted: Mon Nov 16, 2009 6:42 pm
by lucasdavidsamuels
ah the anticipation is killing me!

Posted: Tue Nov 17, 2009 2:21 pm
by harrymcq
Awesome! See any tapers?

Posted: Wed Nov 18, 2009 12:03 am
by harrymcq
I see from Facebook pics that Phrazz was there! It is hard to tell if Marco was playing with Davis as the picture only shows the core 4. It also looks like there was a CD duplicating operation there - maybe the sets were recorded for sale? I can't seem to find any evidence of it on the Bear Creek website.

Posted: Wed Nov 18, 2009 12:08 am
by lucasdavidsamuels
and not a single pic of just The Slip, how unsual for Phrazz...

this seems to be such an elusive festival, i can't find any show reviews/tapings and very few pics

Posted: Wed Nov 18, 2009 10:27 am
by Cleantone
Digital Soundboard dot net recorded 4 track (soundboard and onstage mics) of SMMD and The Slip. I don't know if they sold them onsite or not.

Posted: Wed Nov 18, 2009 1:11 pm
by harrymcq
They are not selling it... somewhat unclear whether it was even recorded. I emailed them about The Slip, Davis and The Duo. Here is the response:
Hi Harry,

Sorry to say, these are three bands we were not able to engage with at Bear Creek.

--Dave
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
David Morrison
DigitalSoundboard, Inc.
http://www.digitalsoundboard.net
phone: 973-627-3875
email: dave@dsbd.net
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

get your asses to Bear Creek next year!!!

Posted: Thu Nov 19, 2009 3:08 am
by Phrazz
lucasdavidsamuels wrote:and not a single pic of just The Slip, how unsual for Phrazz...

this seems to be such an elusive festival, i can't find any show reviews/tapings and very few pics
You check the Bear Creek boards yet?

It was a gigantic party, people missed their flights...while you're sitting typing, we're trying to work on top of doing all our unpacking and recovering from what was an EPIC festival. The only thing elusive is that you weren't there...there were five or six thousand in attendance and I can assure you a majority are still nursing their brains, bodies and vehicles (among other things). I bashed my shin jumping a fence chasing Cory with my camera as he ran off into the crowd playing trombone and then climbed a stage tower (like Brad likes to do, only scarier) and kept playing...just one of hundreds of highlights, sit-ins, killer jams and rididiculously fun times. Noone even knew (except a few insiders) that Derek Trucks was showing up. Lots of surprises all weekend (and the weather was perfect).

I found shows and "light" reviews...the more intensive stuff will take time. Hard to recount four days plus late-nights and secret stages deep in the woods, misty lakes with fountains, a wedding I missed (but tried to find) and raging backstage like the rock stars we all know and love.

There is too much to tell in such short attention spans. My own review will take a long time to write, and takes a back seat to getting my photos ready for publication (I won't say who yet, but let's say a pretty well known mag). I took over 5,000 photos using 3 cameras and on Friday covered 18 performances plus the stealth stage in the woods and countless random pix of awesome costumes and friends having great times...the best times...there are few festies like Bear Creek...it is by far the best-run festival and the most relaxed and friendly (Creekside comes to mind, but was far less extensive, though the swimming was awesome...High Sierra is comparable on the left coast). Bear Creek is vast, established, totally professional and completely ridiculous amounts of fun.

As some have seen, I've posted two sets to Facebook and one set to Smugmug so far...it took almost four hours just to drop all the photos onto my computer!!! It's going to take me the rest of the week to put up a few more sets...will try to get Slip and SMMD soon, but I have priorities. This weekend I'll plow through some more...have to get a representative set...and I do have a day job. Working up a set of 90 or so Royal Family took me almost 4 hours...and I completely forgot (missed) my set of Soulive shots from the surprise show (easy since I was working from the old schedule...I also need to update this as well as the lineup since they added quite a few surprise guests as well, even still I missed a couple big names though I did cover 80 percent by myself....somewhere around 40 to 50 sets of performances and thousands of people shots). Impossible to cover it all but I did my best because I was working for photos and the Royal Family (not for SlipLive ;) ).

Sad to say, The Slip were slotted against Galactic...and as much as I tried to tell people, few knew who they were down south. Though one girl did tell me she came to Bear Creek just because the Slip were on the bill...but she said also since they almost never play down there. I still hit both The Slip and SMMD sets (all of the latter, most of the former...but I had to duck out of the tent once for other business...so I missed maybe one or two songs).

When you're really "focused" on shooting a festival, you do a lot of running around and sometimes only can spend 10 or 15 minutes at a stage. There's also the dreaded "first 3 songs" rule which severely restricts access to the pit. w/o easy access, it can take twice as long as that to jockey through a mass of people who won't budge an inch, so you end up spending more time navigating the crowd than shooting. Then there's the inter-stage travel time...fortunately only about 5 to 10 minutes for most of the stages at Bear Creek. So after shooting for maybe 40 hours off and on, how many hours to select, edit and assemble the best of 5000 photos? Realistically it can take a whole month to do a thorough quality job. Less time means shoddier work and that's a tough call when photos are getting published (online or print). I'm already behind the 8 ball, but at least I've made progress yesterday (when I returned home) and today (my first full work day...I also put in 10 hours billable, not the free time when I work on photos).

That is a really mysterious response from DigitalSoundboard...but I won't bother to understand further. I have too many balls in the air. Already, someone has posted a Lettuce set to Live Archive.

I really hope The Slip return with a better time and stage slot, but I'll still go to Bear Creek regardless. The crew is awesome and the people are, too. It's going to be a lot easier for me next year now I know the ins and outs. And already I started on the ins...which is a wonderful feeling (to belong to something meaningful) and I am solemnly obligated to contribute to such a great community.

Next year I'm going with a writer. I can't shoot AND take notes...way too much work just keeping all the gear safe and in working order. I recruited a good friend for Up North Festival and she wrote a phenomenal article (Taso, for those of you who know her)...which was published on StateOfMind.com (hopefully we'll see Up North return, but don't hold your breath...Bear Creek is definite...I have to plan to help those who know how to plan 8) ).

-Phrazz

Posted: Fri Nov 20, 2009 3:30 am
by harrymcq
Did Marco play with Davis at Bear Creek?