Wanee Festival 2010   Friday April 23 2010

Most of the family vacations we went on in my youth were camping trips. My parents, my brother, my dad’s parents, and I traveled all around the Southeast together during my first decade of life. I was so little that my memories are not specific stories, but more indistinct collections of sights and feelings and smells, and because I was so little, these are the things that were ingrained in my developing brain as equaling total contentment and bliss, utter happiness and universal right-ness: campfires, sitting and listening to wind blow through the trees, the way the inside of a tent smells, being cold at night and hot in the daytime, being very quiet in hopes that some deer will emerge, swimming in a mountain lake trying to float very flat so as to only touch the sun-warmed surface of the water, watching bugs crawl across the leaves and sticks on the ground while you eat your dinner, and sitting in a whole entire world of darkness with just a little fire to illuminate your immediate surroundings. These are things I will never be able to disassociate from ultimate happiness (and why would I want to?).

Camping is the best.

I also spent my earliest years listening to a lot of the music of my parents’ generation. My parents were always really into music and I absorbed and internalized a love of the music of the 1960s and 1970s in the same way that I did for camping– due to near-constant exposure during my developmental years.

I have never known a world without music and camping.

I remember standing in the family room of the house in Ft. Lauderdale where I grew up. We were listening to the Allman Brothers Band.

“Who is this?” I asked.

“This is the Allman Brothers,” said my dad.

“THE ALMOND BROTHERS!” I said incredulously, envisioning that this band was pretty much the California Raisins, except with Almonds. “Why are they called that?”

“AllMAN,” dad said. “There are two guys in the band, and their last name is Allman.”

“Oh,” I said. And that is my earliest memory of the Allman Brothers Band.

For the past couple of years, the Allman Brothers Band have hosted a music festival called Wanee Fest at the Spirit of the Suwanee Music Park in Live Oak, Florida. I have wanted to go for a long time, but it happens in mid-April, exactly when exams happen and papers are due, and I was never able to go before. But this year, I knew I’d finish my work for the semester a lot earlier than normal, so I decided that it would be the year for Wanee.

Given my long familial history with music and camping, it seemed only right that my parents should come, too.

And so we went!

We found ourselves a sweet campsite way back in the woods.

It took about twenty minutes to walk back and forth between our campsite and the concert area.

And once we got there, we watched many excellent concerts. (Including!: Stephen Stills, Dr. John, Mofro, The Black Keys, Gov’t Mule, Susan Tedeschi and Derek Trucks, and of course the Allman Brothers Band–and many others, but those were the best!)

It is so wonderful to hang out amongst the trees, communing with hundreds of friendly strangers, who maybe are different from you on a normal day–but today, you are all dirty and smelly, and you all love trees and music, and it feels good to be there all together.

Fried pickles!

We also got to hang out with some of my excellent Tampa friends, who had come separately.

Including, but not limited to:  Schuman!

…and Alex!

…and Anthony!

Perhaps it is strange of me, but there is nothing I like better than when my family and my friends all get to hang out together.

At night, we would go back to the campsite and make dinner.

And sometimes in the interest of good spots, I would have to take a nap in front of the stage between concerts.

It was, I must say, a completely fantastic weekend. I feel quite blessed to have parents who taught me about camping and music, and who are as much fun to hang out with as my friends are.

I definitely foresee a return trip next year.