Joshua Tree Music Festival May 2007
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The baked...and the sun-baked. Above: A Garaj Mahal fan getting down to Kai Eckhardt's bass solo.
Left: The Joshua Tree Music Festival (May 2007) crowd enjoying the music.
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I didn't have my camera during Scott Huckabay's breathtaking, rapturous solo guitar performance Saturday morning. Scott squeezes notes out of his guitar with all his being, using a loop pedal to augment his songs of spirituality. I bought his latest CD, "Secret Portal", which is enjoyable. However, I doubt anything could capture the joy and spirit and drama of one of his live shows. He uses a violin bow, E-Bow, ankle shakers and chimes, shimmering delays, backwards guitar treatments, and percussive tapping on his acoustic guitar to evoke something entirely his own, although some of Michael Hedges rhythms, Nels Cline's delay approaches, The Edge, and Jimi Hendrix also come to mind. Scott says that he tunes his guitar to 528 to vibrate with your chakras. Cool. Easily the most enjoyable, mindblowing musical act at this year's festival.
Any groovy bus is gonna have a VW bus mounted on its roof and run on veggie oil, right? We passed the Galactic Wizard heading east on Interstate 10 and knew that they must be heading to the festival.
Camping in style at Joshua Tree Lake, site of the Joshua Tree Music Festival. There's a video on YouTube of the two girls who own this bus getting soybean oil from a Thai restaurant. "Tags" for searching for the video include:
* adventure (17443)
* fun (132329)
* gypsies (303)
* hippies (1250)
* Nomads (351)
* travel (30143)
* travelers (137)
We weren't able to mount the VW bus on the top, but our Big Lots canopy laughed in the face of desert winds and dust, making a good home away from home.
You're never too young to learn about peace and love at the Joshua Tree Music Festival, which has some of the friendliest festival crowds just about anywhere.
Estarra dances to "bring the stars into alignment", thereby creating "cosmic union to the Feminine and Masculine" during Garaj Mahal's ADD-fueled set. Garaj Mahal supported her ecstatic dance by playing their spaciest groove of the entire set.
Fareed Haque of Garaj Mahal takes a second to tweak a setting on his guitar rig before peeling off another hyperactive solo.
The cool desert air felt great after a hot dusty day. A sliver of moon hovers over the concession stand canopies.
Los Amigos Invisibles, from Venezuela, get the crowd going with their funkified four-on-the-floor boogietronic salsa-soaked dance music. At least for festival crowds, is there an easier way to get the feet moving than four-on-the-floor kick drums?
