I had a moment of sublime satisfaction as I sat on top of an elevated truck bed in the middle of the Wakarusa tent city watching the Sunday morning sun rise.

The air of Mulberry Mountain wasn’t cold, and it wasn’t hot. For the first time all day, there wasn’t any music playing. Thousands of tents and cars sprawled out before me, temporary housing for Wakarusa’s citizens. Then the sky turned to daybreak. Up above the festival, I had the best seat in the house.

There’s something magical in a sunrise. It probably has something to do with the hope the sun brings in the new day combined with the calming beauty in its deep shades of purple and red.

I sat next to a stranger. I can’t remember his name, but he came all the way to see The Roots. By time he got down to the festival, they had already ended their set, and not long after he had lost his friend who was his ride home. Despite all the shit circumstances he encountered, the dude was more positive than I could fathom.

He just said to himself, “That’s life, man. Sure those things happened, but I also ran into my old friend Graham and got to spend time with him. And here I am, taking in a gorgeous sun rise on top of a truck. I’ll be okay.”

I told him I admired his spirit. So we sat, watching the sky turn from magenta to lavender and slowly turn into blue as the solar heat first warmed the air.

This was my second Wakarusa experience. The first time I was doe eyed and tempted to see as much as possible and not miss a minute. While myself and I’m sure many others feel like a visitor at first to a far away land where the culture and atmosphere is so radically different from the outside world, there’s a pretty welcoming feeling to it all. The trick to really enjoying Wakarusa, is sticking it out and letting that feeling in.

Because you see, Wakarusa is a state of mind.

I’d say it’s best explained in the words of “It Don’t Matter” by Wakarusa favorites, Mountain Sprout.

“Everything is cool if you think it’s funny, nothing matters if you don’t mind.”

As soon as you figure it out and just do what you feel like, that’s when things get great. Sure it’s hot. There’s some stuff you might get exposed to that is questionable, but I didn’t see anything that seemed evil or dangerous. I didn’t think I wanted to actually stay up all night Saturday with only EDM music to see with a group of people I hardly knew, but I knew it could only be fun. So I did it, and I got a sublime sunrise to take in atop a two-story truck. Did I mention it was beautiful?

It’s easy to presume Wakarusa is purely some kind of hippie music festival in the mountains, where the people there simply camp out and go see trippy musical acts. The thing is, that is only maybe half of the experience. While music almost constantly surrounds you, some of the best festival experiences happen in the blink of an eye or in the company of people you’ve just met. Multiply that by the possibilities in the seemingly endless tent city that spans all of the campground and you’ve got yourself a worthwhile life experience in a weekend.

I had the pleasure of doing the festival solo, which yes, at times can be lonely. However, I was able to do things on my own terms and mingle with groups of friends at my leisure. At times I’d have a companion, but then we’d split up, confident we’d cross paths again.

As big as Wakarusa is at about 19,000, it’s small enough to feel like just a really big party.

Beyond the awesome live shows the artists put on, some of my favorite experiences were when I was invited to a new friend’s campsite and got to meet people from all over the world, or while wandering on my own discovering little jam sessions or a secret show on the campgrounds.

But honestly, the best part? People watching. People watching all day. I loved it. People let their freak flag fly sky high at Wakarusa, and it’s so entertaining to behold.

Beyond looking either super cool, super ridiculous, super funny, or honestly, super attractive, the people were all so kind. Especially the staff. While I was hanging out with one of my groups of friends from high school (one of the perks of growing up in Northwest Arkansas) one us came up with the idea to light some sparklers. Thing is, those are a big no-no. Sure enough, after about a minute of mischief the group had created a giant cloud of smoke, getting the security to swarm in. I thought we were about to get the hard end of the law, but the guys thought it was funny and just put them out, confiscated them, told us not to do them again and wished us a good night.

Beyond that, just about everyone I saw I felt I could high-five, and staff members were always quick to refer to me as “brother” which again, made me feel at ease.

Let’s get rolling. What was Wakarusa 2015 like?

If Wakarusa is a microcosm of what music today is, it’s only alternative jam, folk, and electronic music. This is clearly understood when you look at the map.

At one corner rests the Backwoods Stage, which hosted pretty much every Waka Winter Classic winner, and exclusively Americana acts. Next to it is the Satellite Stage (which is way more bad ass looking in comparison) which features only electronic and DJ sets. Two very different worlds, but they are the core of what Wakarusa is. In the main tents and stages it’s the much more popular versions of those two stages.

This year — I’ll be honest and critical here — I thought was a weak lineup. There were a few buzzworthy artists like The Roots, Major Lazer, Archnemisis, Jamestown Revival and HoneyHoney, but in general the headliners were Wakarusa staples. It just seemed like all the most happening artists were headed to Bonnaroo this year.

Now, after going to the festival with an open mind, I can say I definitely enjoyed all of the music at the festival. I went in as a guy who never gave EDM (electronic dance music) the time of day, and I opened my mind to it. I still can’t say I’m a fan of the repetitive, conditioning nature of the music, but I’ve learned how to appreciate it. More on that later

THURSDAY

Coming down from Fayetteville, the detour kind of sucked. One of the best parts of going to Mulberry Mountain from Fayetteville is taking the ultra scenic Highway 12. Yet, I got there a little later than I wanted to around 5 p.m. or so.

There were a ton of cops this year stopping people and a lot of bands coming to the festival. At a press conference with Ozomatli, one of the players commented on this saying “it was like the cops were shooting fish in a barrel.” This was also a common topic among some people I talked with and overheard.

Wakarusa looked the best it has ever looked this year.

There was definitely a real effort made by the production staff to include art and activity across the campgrounds, and the addition of the rainbow road to the main festival gate needs to stay. Satellite Stage was amazing to behold, either in day or night. I say keep up the good work, and I look forward to watching the festival evolve.

After getting my campsite in gear, I did a perimeter tour of the festival. I highly recommend checking out all the awesome campsites people build up along the road. That’s when I stumbled upon one of my favorite moments at the festival.

By chance, I stumbled upon a secret show out in the campgrounds Thursday night. The band, Mamafesta, was a four piece funk, rock n’ roll jam band from Austin, Texas, that played on top of a truck bed. The stage production was meager — two little PA speakers and two colored light cans on the band for lights — but it didn’t matter. The dudes kicked ass.

Sure, they played to my interests, but the singer sang with deep blues authority, the keyboardist did every right thing possible, the bassist was one of the funkiest white dudes out there and the drummer hit the skins like an animal. Not only were their originals great, they did awesome renditions of The Band’s version of “Don’t Do It,” Joe Cocker’s “Feelin Alright,” and Outkast’s “Fresh and Clean.”

The band wasn’t even on the schedule, yet here I was with roughly 20 other people watching the band play while the constant river of people walking by, occasionally grabbing a few new listeners. I couldn’t bring myself to leave. Hats off to these guys.

Later that night, I did my first Umphrey’s McGee concert. I know, I know, it took me this long? I was put off by the flurrying guitar work I had heard prior. But dude, even though Umphrey’s is that, they can do just about anything, and they click so well as a band and play it hard it’s difficult not to start yelling when the band jams up to an extreme and then barrels into the heavy breakdown. The shirtless dude I stood next to couldn’t help but go full primal several times. They are just a tour de-force, and yet they never go to the point of screaming, thundering metal riffs.

I also caught some of Fayetteville’s own Wakarusa studs, Vintage Pistol. The band sounded great, and it was great getting to see the band play their last show with their drummer. Lucky for me, the band took my advice when we did their interview to play the song they improvised on the spot. It was super jammin’.

After their sets, I headed back to catch The Floozies live out a personal dream of theirs, playing the Wakarusa mainstage. They were pretty kick ass, also. Their music I could get behind. In addition to the programmed music, the duo improvises funk guitar and drums to the beats.

Also, I noticed all of the light shows at the tents and stages had been amped up at Wakarusa. I had just as much enjoyment looking up to see the lasers cut through the night sky as I did looking at the animated psychedelia going on behind The Floozies.

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Top 5 Favorite Things At Wakarusa

1. This is super cheesy, but seriously, I saw some love out there. It was really heartwarming to see so many people getting along and enjoying their time there.

2. The luchador in his underwear Ozomatli brought up onstage during their Sunday set. The man got his freak on as he moved his body like a noodle, showcasing an entertaining combo of ridiculousness and skill.

3. Chris, the older man who danced around like a jazzy, pointing bird who showed up at just about every show I went to. Hands up if you know exactly who I’m talking about.

4. The Satellite Stage was very well done. It definitely felt like I had entered a forrest nightclub whenever I made my way to the late night sets.

5. The best campsite (out of the ones I knew about) has to go to the man named Porter. He had rigged a second level out of his truck bed you could hang out on top of and look out over the festival. Underneath, he had built his own bedroom. After doing the whole Saturday night tour, I got to watch the Sunday morning sunrise from it. Magnificent.

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FRIDAY

Friday seemed to be the day the festival gave Americana and rock n’ roll its spotlight during the festival at the Revival Tent.

I started out with catching the Waka Winter Classic Revival Tent winners, Apex Shrine. They’re coming to Fayetteville in July, and I wanted to see what they were all about. They were young, but they sounded like some vintage rock ‘n’ roll. Talented guys, too.

Afterwards, the kick ass Nashville rock unit Natural Child took the stage. (I got an interview with them you can check out here). The band is known for their high octane, dirty southern rock. They were much more reserved and relaxed at this show. It may have been due to the low turn out.

That’s another thing worth pointing out, the average time of activity at Wakarusa seems to be from 4:30 p.m. to 4:30 a.m., with everyone sleeping or going to the river in the other times. So, this seemed to kill the crowd size on the earlier shows — and generally more rock n’ roll shows.

Right after Natural Child, I jumped into an interview with the darling duo, HoneyHoney. I had to miss the Delta Saints, but hey, I was working here.

With the recommendation of What’s Up’s Kevin Kinder, I caught the Old 97s. Little did I know, the lead singer, who I think looks like only slightly aged rocker at 34, was actually 45 years old. Looking around, I saw quite a few of the older generation (Wakarusa knows no age limits) in attendance. The Old 97s were an important part of the alternative country scene with acts like Uncle Tupelo, the Drive-by Truckers and the Jayhawks. It was cool to get a little bit of history with these guys.

Later that night, having already seen STS9, I decided I’d go see James and the Devil. Great choice.

Immediately getting there, I see their people handing out free CDs and glowing devil horns (that people wore the rest of the festival. Bands, take note). I already felt a budding community in the audience and the band hadn’t even started playing yet.

Then, I witnessed one of the most unique bands at the festival go at it. At first it was extreme, complex metal. Then 30 seconds later it broke into some super chill funk-reggae and the lead singer just started spitting rhymes. The bass player totally carried the band, and the guitarist and violin lead section was super cool to listen to together. I mean, I got down to it.

About midway through the set, the lead singer made an announcement. He tells all of us that a year ago he was diagnosed with brain cancer, and in the moment he almost started to cry. It was heartbreaking. I was able to notice then how frail he looked, and that he wasn’t as active as the rest of the band. Yet, as a crowd, we all seemingly saw how cool it was he was here, rocking out with his bandmates and doing his thing despite his challenges.We all cheered him on into the next song.

I learned then if you’ve got the Wakarusa mindset, the love can’t stop. This guy was compelled to perform his art despite all odds.

Then, best of all, Andy freakin’ Frasco comes out and starts conducting a bad ass jam session. I swear. Wakarusa is nuts.

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 Nick’s Top 5 Acts

1. The Roots

2. Portugal. The Man

3. Big Gigantic

4. James and the Devil

5. Mamafesta

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SATURDAY – THE NIGHT OF EDM

After catching the awesome Roots show, which seriously was one of the best performances at the whole festival, I made plans to hang out with some old friends who were EDM fans to finally try and get my ass into the wildly popular music trend.

I’ve never really been one to get into the genre. I’m more of a rock n’ roll, blues, funk and jam band kind of guy. I’ve always thought EDM felt too emotionless, too programmed. However, I wasn’t blind to the genre’s popularity.

Out of 150 Wakarusa Acts, it seemed like EDM related acts were the majority. This reflects how the genre has since grown to become a popular mainstream musical style, with a dedicated festival fan base. As a whole, the EDM industry is worth approximately $4 billion per year. According to the International Music Summer (IMS) Consumer Report 2012, EDM is the fastest growing mainstream genre in the United States.

So with my sour attitude toward EDM, I decided this would be the year where I would branch out and open my mind to this crazy, occasionally funky genre. I wasn’t going to be a grumpy old man about it. I was going to embrace it with open arms. I committed to doing a full night of it, the way the cool kids do it. To sunrise.

Here’s what I learned:

See, the thing is with EDM, it’s just pretty cool. Its recent popularity keeps the air of it being new, despite it being a genre since the late 80s. Once you combine that kind of excitement with the insane light shows of lazers, light up masks, glowing everything, the very clear nod toward weed culture (and molly, for that matter), the gravity well of scantily-clad rave women (where the women are, so are the guys), you’ve got a good thing going. Then the bass hits you.

The bass envelopes you at these shows. I don’t know how those speakers can move air like that and hit an entire mass of people, but I can see why people dig it. It moves you.

When I finally accepted that it was dance music and that I really needed to dance to it, I gave in. It’s actually some good old pure fun, even if the music sounds aggressive.

Probably the best thing about it is finding your own dance to do along to the song. If you treat the music as theme music and then think of how you need to move to it, it’s a lot of fun if only for a little while. You might think you look stupid, but then you see the shirtless guy in a bra and wig and realize no one gives a shit what you look like.

Yet, I found it to be pretty repetitive to be constantly conditioned into the build, build, release, chill, build, build, bass drop. It all really sounded the same pretty quickly after that.

Despite Diplo cutting the music and talking over most of his set, Major Lazer was a lot of fun. He actually had several moments in his set where I could hear some good music at play.

The new Major Lazer album is called “Peace is the Mission.” The emcees had the entire crowd move together as a team and hold hands with one another to the beat of the song. After I figured out the repetition I took a second to think about how the gestures felt like team building and trust exercises. Everyone seemed to be glazed over at the bright lights and sonic sounds.

Could they really be doing this? No.

It haunted me. Was Diplo, the DJ behind Major Lazer, hired by the US government to brainwash the youth into world peace? If not peace, what did we get programmed to do? I thought back to the video boards. Images flashed rapidly. How many of those contained subliminal messages? Did I just get brainwashed? I couldn’t say with certainty that I hadn’t.

Only time will tell.

SUNDAY

I don’t know about y’all, but Sundays are where it’s at. Each day has its own energy and attitude. By time you stick around for Sunday, it’s well worth the reward. For one, nearly all vendors have relaxed to the point of either selling things for cheap, giving you a little extra food or introduce you into a new food combination because they know you by now, vendors like Starbucks at this point have too much stock and have to walk around giving away entire bottles rather than sample cups away. People are either super chill or going hard because it’s the final day.

This was the atmosphere of Sunday. It was the final day. Even though a lot of shows had a even more of a dearth of attendance during the day, the sets allowed for a lot of relaxed fun from the artists. Ozomatli had a bunch of dancers in costumes from the crowd come onstage and dance along to the music. It was awesome.

By far one of my favorite shows came in the form of Portugal. The Man. The band played almost none of their songs like how they were originally recorded, covered “Day Man” from “It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia,” “Don’t Look Back In Anger” by Oasis and jammed in such a cool way I was sold. They were just some cool rockers doing cool stuff with their instruments. I loved it.

With that, I packed up my temporary home at Wakarusa. With an entire special edition to culminate in two days, I needed to head back to rest up and get a head start on my coverage.

If there’s one thing I think we all could learn from Wakarusa, is that the accepting, easy going mindset doesn’t have to stop once you return to the real world. Sure, the festival is only four days. More than that would honestly be too much, and begin to get excessive.

I’ve seen it in dozens of people who go for their first time;

There’s just a magic in the air of Mulberry Mountain, and it’s a good thing.