Over the course of our four-hour crawl down the winding country road to Camp Bisco’s main gate, our staff witnessed festival goers slip from (relative) sobriety into a state of unbridled inebriation. By the time the gruff Hell’s Angels (posing as event security) had searched our car and let us into the festival grounds, there was no question that we were in for quite the party. However, we did wonder if it would be possible for Camp Bisco, a festival known for being jam-centric, to successfully pull off an apparent switch into catering for the wider indie and electronic loving crowd.

Thankfully, to our delightful surprise, Camp Bisco 9 turned out to be a rousing success. Bigger and better than ever, Bisco’s charm lay in its freely flowing atmosphere. Rarely was a performance without a swarm of silly dancers pressing up to the stage, even in the midday heat or the late night thunderstorms.

What Bisco lacked in mud this year (see: Camp Bisco 8), it made up for in fun and variety. From indie gods LCD Soundsystem to members of the legendary Wu-Tang Clan to the ever crazy (and ever aging) Ween, there was a little of everything at Camp Bisco 9…though if drum and bass is your thing, the odds were heavily in your favor. DJs reigned at Bisco, and bands that favored computers and synthesizers were favored by audiences in return.

While Camp Bisco is still evolving, still working through its minor setbacks, we at Inyourspeakers see the potential for Camp Bisco to become THE northeast's festival to attend.

Section One: Organization/Production

Camp Bisco lost some points here mainly due to the extraordinarily long wait to get through the festival gates. Though security was plentiful, their thorough search of the incoming vehicles meant exasperatingly long, disorganized lines of idling vehicles trying to crunch through the festival gates. This, of course, is no surprise to recurrent festival attendees but 4+ hours is way too long; it’s practically a workday. Taken in stride, most Bisco patrons happily drank the time away—it’s a miracle the amount of tents correctly pitched thereafter.

Campsites were plentiful and shade was available to many. We didn’t have to wander too far at any given time to find a trailer with actual toilets, and there were plenty of port-a-potties scattered throughout…though the area around the main two stages, being were downwind from a cluster of these plastic saunas and stunk something awful when currents picked up.

Immediately noticeable within the festival grounds was the lack of vendors. Yes, they had enough to feed the masses, but having a more artful variety would have been nice. Luckily, what was available wasn’t too far fetched as far as pricing goes; ice could have been cheaper, but it certainly was in high demand.

The Bisco volunteer greening crew certainly kept the park clean for the first day and a half, but the last few days of a festival are the true test of endurance and the trash definitely started to pile up here and there, but the volunteer crew did a fantastic job of and made the best of it (see: Sustainability Practices, below).

My favorite part about the festival, at first glance, was the behemoth double main stage set up and loaded I would later come to find out, with some powerfully advanced lasers. The music was scheduled and run extremely efficiently and, with the exception of that incredible thunderstorm and a few rappers, very minimal time was spent not listening to live music. Upon deeper exploration of the festival’s charm, however, I wound up sticking around the dance tent more often than not, as the crowds were always more intimate and the intensity of dance was tenfold.

TOTAL: 24/30

Section 2: Presentation

Although there was a visual uniqueness in what the crowd decided to contribute artistically (you should have seen some of the weird shit people were found wearing by the end of each night), there wasn’t anything out of the ordinary as far as what Camp Bisco had to offer aesthetically. There certainly were a lot of small artistic contributions placed pell mell throughout the festival grounds (i.e. – a fire show synchronized with The Disco Biscuits performances, various wall paintings, the random appearance of two girls painting an abstract landscape during various performances on the third day) but not much else that hasn’t been done bigger and better at competing festivals. Camp Bisco was much more audiocentric, focusing primarily on amping up their live performances with traditional crowd pleasers such as lasers, lights and, you know, good music.

TOTAL: 11/20

Section 3: Sustainability Practices

Having camped with a number of the volunteers, we were able to get the inside scoop on Bisco’s greening practices. The festival’s organizers definitely put their money where their mouth was, with each volunteer dedicating eight-hour shifts to passing out color-coded trash and recycling bags, picking up rogue plastic bottles and lost paraphernalia and, of course, encouraging others to do the same. One volunteer in particular made a game out of cleaning up during Soja’s set, excitedly running around gathering trash and recyclables into a pile in the middle of the crowd, convincing those that saw litter around them to help toss it all into his collection. Plenty of Zerohero waste stations were placed throughout the festival grounds, so the baffling amount of waste that surfaced was easily cleaned up. For the record, of the approximate 886 cubic yards of Bisco refuse collected during and after the festival, nearly 44% ended up being recycled. Not too shabby.

Though the third day proved messiest (one group of campers made a statement by playing “trash limbo,” sticking pieces of garbage they found onto a long stretch of duct tape, chanting “How low can you go?! / Get trash in your hair!!”), as per usual, Bisco’s volunteers stayed well into the next day to ensure the fields were cleared of evidence. Not as creative as Bonnaroo 2007’s artistic installations made entirely out of waste collected at the festival, Camp Bisco focused more on spreading the word through volunteer action and good deeds.

The only real shortfall of this year’s Camp Bisco was that its carbon footprint was not entirely offset, as was the case with many of this summer’s major music festivals. Once this is taken care of (hopefully next year), Mariahville’s premier music festival will be well on its way to setting the example for the rest of the festival crowd.

TOTAL: 13/25

Section 4: Non-Musical Entertainment

Though most people came for the music, we surely can’t rage all day long…or can we? Only offering a small handful of activities not involving music was a small setback for Camp Bisco, and they only need to do a few things to improve this area dramatically, the most important of which is perhaps to attract more vendors. Bisco was noticeably lacking in this department. How else are we going to blow all the money we didn’t spend on food and drugs? What they did offer was interesting, however. The Color Wars is a weekend long game in which participants can join a team of other festival goers for such friendly competitions as the “Wookie” Makeover, the Annual Spelling Bee, Co-ed Arm Wrestling and something I am entirely unfamiliar with entitled the Annual “Bacon-off.” Sony’s Playstation trailer made an appearance as well, offering momentary air-conditioning and a chance to play event-appropriate video games such as DJ Hero.

TOTAL: 7/10

Section 5: Overall Atmosphere

The reigning emotion over Camp Bisco this year was joy. Yes, joy. In the words of R.E.M., Bisco goers consisted almost exclusively of shiny, happy people - holding hands, even, when holding hands was called for. There was a feeling of communal unity during the monstrously dance-ridden performances by Holy Fuck, LCD Soundsystem, Major Lazer, Wu Massacre, Diplo and Girl Talk. That feeling held even when live music was absent, the festivities from each night blurring into the festivities of each following morning. Next year’s Camp Bisco may have to prepare for national recognition, and with it, even bigger audiences. With a few tweaks, Bisco could be a top notch, grade-A festival. America, beware.

TOTAL: 15/15

Conclusion

So there you have it, Camp Bisco is a rising star in the music festival world. To sum up our findings, the music had a pounding beat and thumping bass that kept the kids dancing, and if it not enough attention was given to physical aesthetics, it hardly matters by comparison. In our increasingly conscious world Camp Bisco did an admirable job with carbon offsets and recruiting its clean-up people, that by gosh, even made an effort to make the crowd pick up after themselves. The food was decent, and what vendors were there were enough to pass the spare time in-between artists you wanted to hear (such times were few)...All in all it was a good time with good people and things will undoubtedly only get better.

Final Score (Multi-Day Festivals): 70 / 100

Written by Derek Duoba and Joe Michon-Huneau