Summer Camp Music Festival 2023 - Sunday Recap
The final (ever!) day of Summer Camp festival, like the first three, was jam-packed with amazing music and energy across all stages of Three Sisters Park.
Kicking off the day was Eggy, hitting the Starshine stage for their second set of the weekend. After an excellent performance in the VIP lounge on Friday night, a sizeable crowd turned out to watch the Connecticut quartet. Keyboardist Dani Battat was able to utilize his full rig on the bigger stage, unleashing the power of his organ and Leslie speaker on the early afternoon crowd. The well-jammed set included a fantastic cover of Elton John’s “Bennie and the Jets” that saw drummer Alex Bailey showing off his impressive vocal range.
We headed to Moonshine next to see the incredible mandolin player Sierra Hull. While I am definitely not usually a huge fan of bluegrass music, Hull’s incorporation of drums and even electric guitar into her band makes it much more appealing – plus, she seriously SHREDS!! One of my favourite moments of her set was a beautiful rendition of “Black Muddy River” by the Grateful Dead.
As an active member of the jam band scene, I naturally have heard stories and seen videos about what it was like to see an Andy Frasco & The U.N. show – but yesterday was the first time I had the opportunity to see it in person. Drawing one of the biggest crowds to the smaller Starshine stage, Frasco absolutely whipped the crowd into a frenzy with his in-your-face music, all while eating mushrooms given to him from the crowd, giving birthday lap dances, and more general debauchery. Hull made an appearance on mandolin, which gave a really cool contrast to the distorted electric guitar played by Shawn Eckles. All four members of Eggy also sat in, each sharing instruments with their U.N. counterparts and adding to the general madness of the set.
The set ended with probably twenty naked people on stage, celebrating the history of Summer Camp in the most Andy Frasco way possible. What an absolute wild ride of an hour!
As the sun began to set, it was time for the long-awaited set from Willie Nelson. The legendary 90-year-old musician sat on the Moonshine stage and delivered an absolutely incredible set. Being in the presence of such a legend who clearly adores performing even at his advanced age was inspiring and I truly hope I get the opportunity to see him play again. Members of Umphrey’s McGee, moe., and Sierra Hull (she had a busy day!) were invited up to add vocals toward the end of the set, adding to the emotion of the moment.
One of my most anticipated sets of the weekend was Vulfpeck, a band I have really loved for a while. Given that they don’t really tour, this was my first opportunity to see a show, and I was STOKED. Coming on stage to “1612,” the seven members were all dressed in the “schvitz” costumes that have been the centrepiece to their recent shtick.
With a set heavy on vocal songs and many debuts from Schvitz, I was locked in from the first note and had an ear-to-ear smile on my face as I danced to songs both old and new. One of the highlights of the performance was the live debut of “I Can’t Party,” a song released as part of bandleader Jack Stratton’s Vulfmon side project. While the studio version was minimalistic with very little instrumentation, the song came to life on stage with the full band, taking on Vulfpeck’s customary deep grooviness. The band worked one verse of Stevie Wonder’s “I Wish” into “It Gets Funkier” before crowd singalong and closer “Dean Town” blew the energy up one last time.
The final Umphrey’s McGee performance of the weekend I attended was another really solid set, this one containing a more familiar song in “Ringo.” I can now confidently say that I am 100% sold on UM after this weekend and really look forward to seeing them again very soon!
Note to self: karma exists. I skipped the second set of Umphrey’s in favour of attending the late-night Cory Wong & Friends set, so naturally they played a huge “Attachments,” my favourite song. Oh well :)
The Wong set was an intimate affair in the special Red Barn room and was essentially just a bonus set of the funk guitarist’s band absolutely ripping up their catalogue. With sit-ins from Lettuce drummer Adam Deitch, Sierra Hull on mandolin, and Antwaun Stanley on vocals, it had all the amazing energy and musicianship of a classic Cory Wong show plus the amazing guest artists!
I finished the festival with a very late-night Circles Around The Sun show. Keyboardist Adam MacDougall is an absolutely phenomenal player and getting to watch him work his clav and Rhodes in person for the first time was exceptional. There are few bands that work better in a 2-4am slot at a festival than CATS, and it was the perfect way to end off an unbelievable weekend of music.
My first full music festival experience was an absolutely unforgettable one – thank you to Summer Camp for putting on such a smooth and well-run event as well as every person (musician or otherwise) that I met or got to interact with throughout!
Thank you for reading my recaps of this past weekend! I’m home now for just a few days before jetting off on new musical adventures – subscribe below to keep reading all my show reviews and more!