Walking towards the main stage area, we heard the experimental psychedelic rock sound of Constellations. The Denver, Colorado band soothed the early morning crowds’ hangovers, it was noon. Soon my allergies kicked in and we went into the Coke Zero promotional bus. This place was awesome! The double decker bus was dedicated to passing out free Coke Zeros, awesome, and it was a cool place to watch Camp Bisco migrate.

While watching the masses, Beats Antique started to play. Admittedly, I wasn’t sure what to expect from Antique. I had never heard of them but they blew me away. Their eastern influenced electronica sound is accented by a horn section that brings all listeners into their trance. Check out their myspace page here http://www.myspace.com/beatsantique then go see them whenever they are by a town near you!
Next was Earl Greyhound. Sitting upon the fabulous Coke Zero bus the rain began to fall and the crowd scattered with it. Unfortunately, this was exactly when Greyhound was playing. Their guitar laden English classic rock sound may have never gotten the attention it deserved but to be honest I wasn’t too into it.

Next , RAQ appeared on stage, yet another band that I didn’t know what to expect from. The Progressive, fun, jam-esque style fit well with the festival. Their vocal harmonies in “Georgia” give you a Phishish experience. Definitely, someone I have added to my Itunes.

Watching Camp Bisco funnel towards the main stage again, Big Gigantic began their set. Big Gigantic killed it with their usual soulful synths and saxophone solos. The raging crowd grooved and raved to all of Gigantic’s hits like “light of Day” and “High Life”.

As psyched as I was to see Wu Tang Masacre: Method Man, Ghost Face, and Raekwon, they were over thirty minutes late and Big Gigantic had to awkwardly extend his set to cover. Finally, Wu Tang walks on the stage, Method Man with a blunt in his hand. (Hint hint this is what held them up) They rock their shortened set but difficulties with sound and time restrictions kept this show from living up to expectations.

After emerging from the cloud of smoke that was the Wu Tang show, we went back to our “campsite”. In reality, our “campsite” was my 2007 ford focus. We chilled in the air conditioning, escaped the sun, and recharged for the Major Lazor show.
Feeling refresh and ready for Major Lazor, I was pumped. I had missed him a few times back in Knoxville and was ready to see all the hype I had heard all year long. Well, it was a good show. Diplo was djing for the set and had a sick show, but Major Lazor spent the majority of his set humping a dancer and being his own hype man. He yelled “Major Lazor” the whole show. He later redeemed himself by having forty random women from the crowd dance on him for a good five minutes. Bad set. Good aesthetics.We chilled through the Disco Buiscuit’s set on the Coke Bus then went down to see Bassnectar.

Moving to the front of the crowd, we saw Bassnectar throw down for Camp Bisco. The last time I saw him, he played a horrible show. This time I was left satisfied. Watching the lights and having the crowd heave glowsticks on the down beats was incredible. By far best show of the festival yet.

Finally, the Disco Biscuits played their last set of the night. Having lost our photographer after Bassnectar’s nasty set, we wondered into the crowd. At first, we were frustrated that we had lost someone but we looked up at the Biscuit’s layered lightshow. Also, the set was voted on by the fans so the Biscuit’s classics were played. We didn’t find our photographer until after the set. It was worth it for the most ridiculous light show.

I’ve never lived in New York, but for three days in mid July the rolling hills and breezy weather of Mariaville, NY feels like home. Like heading to our 10000+ member family reunion hosted by our brothers with our best friends in tow ready to rock a hole in the NY sky.

We expected that arrving early would allow us to not deal with the drama that checking in a Camp Bisco size crowd can offer. Though we were ahead of a majority of the crowd, arriving early also meant that the staff had yet to work out the kinks of the entry process, leading to the entry lawn being transformed into a parking lot. Our frustration was short lived as we turned this into an opportunity to get to know our fellow camp biscuites. After a thorough search of our car a traffic director directed us to our camping area. Our hood was touching a row of trees and our trunk was a car length from another car. This would not have been a problem if this camping spot was efficient space for two full camp sites. If we had planned on spending any significant amount of time at our site this oversite would not have gone as unnoticed.

After getting our camping area situtated we headed off to explore the new set up of the Camp. The expansion of the main stage meant a continued listening experience of main acts with an option to check out more acts on the two other stages. This meant we would get more main act awesomeness, but also less time to check out local and lesser acts lest we risk missing something big on the main stages. Either way the second stage was the most noticeable change at Bisco and ultimately made Bisco a next level festival experience.

Morning Teleportation being the opening act of the festival we felt it was a must to check them out. The band brands themselves as psychedelic but if they are it’s in a new wave sense of the word. The most obvious comparison on some of their songs would be Modest Mouse, especially in the vocal area. On “Snow Frog” and “Just a Figment” the band shows their ear for pop sensibility before feeling the need to strongly urge you that they’re the farthest thing from it. Their strength lies in their refusal to actually stick to one genre and their inability to find a balance is a reward for our ears. This was the best band that I had yet to hear of before the festival and defintely worth checking out.

We were interested in seeing the transition between 2nd stage and main stage and it seemed at first that things went by seamlessly and without much lag time or confusion. At a Electronic/Jam Band festival it was expected that we would see our share of raggae bands, the only thing we could ask for is originality. We weren’t lucky enough to get that with Dubskin. Though they did what they came to do fairly well, they did less to reinvente the wheel than any band on the mainstages of the weekend leading us to fill our need for upstate New York pizza and continue our exploration of the grounds.

After getting our fill we were anxious to see what Rubblebucket was talking about. The last page of the Camp Bisco book advertised Rubblebucket with some really catchy statistics of “top 25″ and “editors choice” making it intersting considering we had never heard of them. With the amount of people on stage for Rubblebucket I would expect them to incinerate the stage with ease. As they began to move through some of the songs on their myspace it seemed as though they were dealing with what we would find out was continuing technical difficulty on the 2nd stage. The trumpet player and drummer seemed to have differentiating opinions on correct levels continually pointing at the sound guy at any time possible during and between songs. Though they made it through the set, if there were the amount of problems that it seemed at this point Kalmia’s ability to move on without causing a scene puts her in place as one of the best performers of the weekend. Sound problems or not the band was able to keep it together and translate a performance worthy of their accolades.

Seeing Gift of Gab at least twice this year aleady, we decided to take this chance to refresh on drinks and check out the newly added PS3 and Coke setup. The lack of rain meant less nastiness to deal with but in its a place a sweltering heat. The ability to escape to an airconditioned space AND enjoy DJ Hero while still taking in the mainstage acts was one we had to take advantage of often over the course of the weekend.

After getting schooled by Walter on DJ Hero we headed to the 2nd stage area to check out Future Rock. I had seen these guys a couple of times already and was anxious for Walter to check them out for his first time. Today it seems as though Future Rock should change their name to Fathers of Future Rock. The sound that they developed in 2004 has been run over time and again by people with infinitely less skill them them by the time Camp Bisco 9 has rolled around in 2010. Mickey Kellermans skills on the synth continue to inspire awe and few people can touch what he does with the keys. Felix Moreno sites their latest live album as the best representation of  Future Rock. And hes right, they don’t translate nearly as well across Myspace or Itunes as they do in the live setting. This is a band built in front of and for an audience and they showed why they stay continually touring. See this band live.

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My relationship with the Disco Biscuits has been one of love hate. At times I love them live, but I can’t seem to agree with those that consider them the ”Greatest Improvisional Rock Band” of our time. Their rabid fanbase has taken over the online community making all googling of Biscuits a self satisfying and gratifying session for the same rabid fans. Their festival is one of the best and has the potential to be and probably will be of ridiculous size in the near future. Their ability to implement different styles into one band is incredible and will ultimately lead them to not run the course of their career until they decide it is time to call it quits. I’ve seen a few bands live and I have yet to put the Disco Biscuits at the top of the list after seeing them over 10 times. The shere fact that I’ve seen them over ten times and still don’t know for a fact that they are the best leads me to believe that they aren’t the best I’ve seen. This year I was determined to see what I had missed all the other times I’ve seen them. The chance to seem them during the day gave me my first chance to take in a strictly auditory expericence. The problem I have with the Disco Biscuits is the fact that their live performance moves slightly away from the electornic aspect of the jam that makes their recordings so interesting.  Electronic aspect is defintely not necessary to make a band enjoyable to me, but it is what makes the Jam band aspect interesting and not redundant. Their ability to blend songs and improvise is unparalleled to anything I’ve seen live, lending some credability to the rabid fanbase. Having the setlists choosen by the fans this year may have helped to convince those of us who don’t follow them from date to date. After listening to their first days sets no love was lost but I was still ultimately unwilling to conceide the fact that they are the messiahs of live rock music.

The lighting of the LED screens moved us like pavlovs dogs toward the 2nd stage to recieve our treat of the sounds brought by Derek Vincent Smith. With every performance its as if PL has to prove their is more to him than a visual specticle. His catelog has stretched to the point that rocking a crowd has become easy, the only choice is which way he wants to get it done. This time it seemed like a inzone dance infront of a crowd that was as large as it would be all night. “Hot like Sauce” and “Cold Feeling” came early with the usual pandemonium during the intro to each song. DVS onstage presence feels as though he’s at his most comfortable, like he is less scared that he is not going to make it, like he has less to prove. The performance was loud and visually stimulating as usual and he made it look easy as usual.  Make it look any easier and he  might not be doing anything.

The one performance  I was genuinely interested in seeing was of the local band Dirty Paris. Last year this psychedelic band had a hidden gem of a guitarist in the rough scene of people trying to prove they’re the next in line to level up to the main stage. Out of all the bands that I had heard across anything this was one of the only that I felt had the potential to take a major step by the next time that I would see them. Though they had yet to get the attention of a major record label they had secured a spot for the second year in a row at the festival and it was obvious why. Their sound had evolved from the looseness of their psychedelic sound to incorporate more of a tightened up traditional rock sound. The band was louder faster and tighter than the last time I had seen them and still offers more promise than most upcoming bands that I’ve seen over the last year. Expect to hear of them outside of New York soon.

After taking in a taste of the local seen we headed to the main stage to see LCD Soundsystem. Though we say LCD Soundsystem in a way we mean James Murphy. Though I want to give Pat Mahoney his props its easy to see who owns the stage during any LCD performance. James Murphy is the killer of young Rock and Rollers dreams. He is the shining example of why you will never be able to rock the stage in a way that touches the crowd in the way that he does. He makes making hit songs seem easy. He gives you the false sense that shouting at the top of your lungs for two hours a night won’t kill your vocal chords. He makes the music that he wants to make and plays the ones the he wants to play. The rest of the band seems satisfied with being in the same stage show as him and who would blame them. If he is not one of the best performers performing now he is defintely one of the most intense. He leaves it all on stage under a disco ball and white lights attempting to pass off the illusion that he is not a rock star, but something else. The only problem is he is a rock star and one of the best ones that were going to get before we aren’t intersted in arguing about it anymore. He always seems on the verge of getting too jaded with the music industry to continue in it. Let’sjust hope for our sake that it doesn’t happen too quickly.

Upon watching the closing of the first day of the main stage in glorious fashion we decided to head to the dance tents new location to get a listen on the new surround sound (last year was plagued by the fact that those of us in the back didn’t get the full effect from the undersized speakers at the front). By the time we got there Caribou was on the last song of their 30 minute set. From what we heard of “Sun” Caribou was tight and sounded rehearsed, we only wished we would have seen “Odessa”.

Two Fresh’s performance last year was to take place between Pretty Lights and STS9. For a relatively unknown band that could have turned into either a gift or a curse at equal ends of the spectrum.  Their last set @ Bisco ended up being the latter. This year the group was given an hour set and you could see the excitement at the chance to redeem themselves on all of their faces. Though most bands would find difficulty in playing a 15 minute set you would think that Two Fresh would have taken the lesson to heart. If the same set time were handed to them this time around, it would be hard to see the result as being any different. Though their set began to pick up steam the fact that they had run into problems before would lead you to believe they would leave the picking up steam part for another time. Out of all the times that I’ve seen Two Fresh I’ve started to notice a trend of peaking in their shows. It’s not from lack of having songs that can get the crowd moving, it’s like they get enjoyment from making you wait for it…and wait for it…wait for it….ah now the goodness. With so many tricks up their sleeve why not give the crowd all of it up front. Especially as artists in their level of the game. None of us are ever going to be able to tell them how many licks to the center of a tootsie pop. This youtube generation is too impatient for all that noise.

New cut off Sir Lucious Left Foot. In stores July 6, 2010.

It feels like it’s been 3 years since Klaxons released an album. This sounds like it’s going to be worth the wait.

Klaxons – Echoes

New Cudi.

Kid Cudi Feat. Kanye – Erase Me

Mediafire

Young Jeezy – Blowin Money Fast

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For those of you who still feel like the 80′s aren’t back in action.

via StereoGum

I can’t think of a better festival to add a Silent Disco than Camp Bisco. The chance to strap on headphones from 1 in the morning till sunrise and jam with 500 people to the sounds of these artists sounds amazing. It’s going down Friday and Saturday night. Check the lineup.