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Thursday, July 23, 2015
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com ARTS
I turn to the man to my right and
ask, “So where are you camping?”
He and the other journalists and
photographers at the table start
laughing.
“We don’t camp out there,”
said the woman next to him in a
hot pink skort and cowboy boots.
I realize I am the only one burnt
and unshowered.
I’m in the media tent behind the
main stage of Faster Horses — one
of the largest 3-day country music
festivals in the country. Staff keeps
asking to double check my creden-
tials. Each time I show them my
media and photo wristbands their
eyebrows raise in disbelief. I have
“random crazed fan-girl trying to
sneak backstage” written all over
me. The room is filled with middle-
aged men in T-shirts and cargo
shorts, wielding very big camera
lenses. My Canon Rebel T3i is the
laughing stock and I know it. I
don’t try to pretend to be a profes-
sional photographer, or a profes-
sional journalist for that matter
— instead I weave between the
realms of media and fans, observ-
ing yet never belonging to either.
“Alright,
photographers
line
up,” said astaffer who looks like a
drill sergeant at the entry to the
main stage.
I look around and follow the
much bigger cameras into a line.
“You know the drill,” Staff Ser-
geant announces. “Stay around
the front of the stage, and return
to the media tent after the first
three songs.”
And then we start to walk. We
walk out into a cheering crowd,
into the space in between the front
row and the stage. The drunk and
crazed fans stretch their hands out
to me, high five me, pose for me.
I look around and realize the
other photographers are position-
ing themselves, prepping, taking
test shots. Then, the interim music
ends, lights come on, and Frankie
Ballard begins.
Before this festival the extent
of my country knowledge was an
occasional Zach Brown Band at a
darty, that song about fried chick-
en, and all the other songs about
getting even with a cheating ex in
a trucks with a gun. I didn’t under-
stand it and I didn’t really want
to. The night before I left for the
weekend I went through and lis-
tened to at least a few songs from
every artist that was on the line-
up and made brief notes. My note
for Frankie Ballard reads, “Album
2014 called <em>Sunshine and
Whiskey</em>, also popular song
title, lyric: ‘Every time you kiss me
it’s like sunshine and whisky’ it’s
about a girl and a beach and want-
ing to hookup with her with gun
allusions.” So why am I so giddy
right now? I didn’t even know who
he was 48-hours ago.
From a pure performance stand
point he shocked me. He is spec-
tacular. He interacts with the audi-
ence just enough so you feel like
he really cares, but not so much
that you feel like he is trying too
hard. He rips off his jean jacket
and throws it in the heat of the
moment, only to politely ask for it
back because; it is in fact his favor-
ite jacket. He promises the lucky
recipient something else.
Three songs end in the blink of
an eye and we are escorted back
to the tent. The other photogra-
phers make similar comments on
his animated performance. Every-
one sits down and starts looking at
their photos, checking their email,
scrolling through their assorted
screens. I get confused. The show
is still going on, things are hap-
pening, and they sure as hell aren’t
happening inside this tent.
I leave the tent, the media, the
stage and wander back to the camp
inside the speedway race tracks —
where the real story is.
This
camp,
referred
to
as
“infield,” houses a large portion of
the 40,000 attendees to the fes-
tival. Trailers, trucks and tents
line endlessly inside a fenced-in
track — creating a dystopian alter-
nate universe. Men wearing horse
heads patrol the grounds in the
back of pick-up trucks. You know
the movie Mad Max where people
revert to tribal behavior while
driving trucks in a barren waste-
land where oil is currency? Well
it’s like that except the currency is
ice. Because it is so challenging to
get out of camp and return, all meat
and produce is kept fresh in cool-
ers that are refilled with ice daily.
Because the small convenient shop
in the center of camp knows they
have a monopoly, ice is ten dollars
a bag. The food and water is simi-
larly priced. Rumors heard in the
bathrooms suggest that discounts
are given to women who flash their
breasts. Discounts. Women aren’t
even getting free ice for exposing
their bodies. The horror.
A few girls in my camp encoun-
ter a notorious man in the infield
whose wife had gotten significant
breast implants and sits with just
duct tape over her nipples. The man
announces that he “paid $40,000
for those tits” and then encourages
girls or certain men to touch them.
During my stay in the infield I
realize that the festival does not
center around the stage, but rather
on the camp. People spend days
without even going into the festi-
val, trailers and converted buses
host parties at all hours, and it is
rare for anyone to leave for the fes-
tival until close to dusk.
After the headliners on the
main stage end around midnight,
everyone rushes back to the
infield. The open area surround-
ing the bathrooms in the cen-
ter of camp become a gathering
spot. Next to the bathroom are
two large tents with a homemade
stripper pole with a fluorescent
sign reading “Cameltoe Bar.” It is
unclear whether it was an estab-
lishment receiving money for the
alcohol provided, or if it is just a
very friendly man pouring mys-
tery juice into peoples cups. Two
rows down to the right is a bit
quieter, less rowdy “bar” called
Pilgrim. It is a wooden bar next to
a converted trolly of some kind,
with a tent covering it and tables
in front of it for drinking games.
The alcohol is poured out of plas-
tic bins — payment also unclear.
But the real hot spot of the infield
is on the main road leading to
the entrance to camp. It is a dou-
ble decker red bus revamped to
allow for maximum capacity with
speakers on either end. Music
blasted day in and day out. (I lost
my lens cap there one night and,
when I returned in the morning
to a middle aged woman sweep-
ing layers of cans, she very kindly
found and returned it to me.)
A storm came and broke our
tents and scattered our food. Trash
littered the yard. I strained my
Achilles and sought help from the
single medical tent in the infield
where I was treated with a wrap
and Benadryl by a one-eyed-
doctor. I began verbally sexually
harassing men as they walked by
me in an ill-thought-out attempt
to retaliate against the constant
chirping. Extreme things happen
in extreme places. But amid the
chaos was an indescribable cama-
raderie. Between the artists and
their fans, between strangers who
happen to stand next to each other
in line, between neighboring camp
sites. Within this microcosm the
people you knew for a day felt like
old friends. The world may be a
constructed absurdity, but the rela-
tionships built felt authentic.
I came to realize that it is this
idea of authenticity that lies at
the core of country music. On the
first day I skeptically asked my
campmates what was so great
about country. One said, “It’s the
only thing that is easy to relate to.
They don’t hide behind metaphors.
There are good stories and they are
real. They are honest.” That was
the point of it all. I didn’t find this
raw, unedited, dirty, exciting truth
inside the media tent. I found it in
the infield.
It was full of contradictions.
It was real yet the stories sound
fabricated. I can’t decide if I want
to never do it again or do it next
week. Some elements I know I
will never culturally understand,
but I’ve accepted not understand-
ing. Last night I was driving on
the highway in the dark and my
Spotify turned on Thomas Rhett’s
“Crash and Burn.”
Festival Report: Surviving Faster Horses
By FRANCESCA KIELB
Daily Arts Writer