Lost in the Moss: Suwannee Hulaween 2015 in Review
Let me start this off by saying that I am ashamed, as a festy vet, this year was not only my first Suwannee Hulaween but also my first time at the Spirit of the Suwannee Music Park. Pitiful, I know. But in the context of this review, I find it to be a great advantage. I don’t have any other festival at Suwannee to compare it to in terms of crowd or lineup. It’s just Hula to me. I was, however, fortunate enough to have made the trek with a seasoned group of Suwannee regulars who showed me around and gave me the lowdown on the venue and the festivals it hosts.
This year marked the 3rd birthday of Hulaween, and it’s safe to say she’s growing up fast. What began as a festival of a few thousand attendees ballooned this year to over 21,000 festivalgoers – the largest festival Suwannee has ever had – nearly tripling the attendance of last year. If you ask any Suwannee veteran, they will tell you that any festival there is a no-brainer to attend. However, new visitors to the park are what drove up attendance this year, myself included.
While Hulaween itself was a Friday-Sunday affair, the pre-party on Thursday set the stage for the weekend to come. People had begun to camp at the park several days prior, claiming prime spots around Spirit Lake. Those who showed up Thursday still had decent camping options, as well as an intimate opportunity to explore the moss-drenched woodlands and sets from Leisure Chief, Herd of Watts, EOTO, Dumpstaphunk and Joe Russo’s Almost Dead. The crowd was decent, yet it was only a precursor of what the next day would bring.
By the time the music kicked into gear on Friday afternoon, the park was filling up. Thousands upon thousands more feet that had ever been there before set foot on the soil of Suwannee. First up for me on Friday was The Hip Abduction, a Florida band from St. Petersburg, on the Amphitheater Stage. I had been waiting for a while to catch these guys live, and it was certainly worth the wait. People were still setting up, but the crowd was decent, and the guys set things off just right for the weekend with their mix of island beats and jams.
From there though, things started to get intense. Word started to spread of a line backed up hours on the interstate outside of the park. They stopped letting people drive in to camp, and a shuttle service was started, and the thing had just barely started. Hulaween and the Suwannee regulars were in for a surprise as the mass of people slowly grew. But as I mentioned before, all of this meant nothing to me as I was experiencing everything about this festival and venue for the first time. Those who frequent the park commented on the immense crowd, but to me, it felt right. Yes, there were a lot of people there, but it never felt overwhelming. At other large-scale festivals, crowds are packed so tightly there is no moving from your spot once you have claimed it. We were able to move freely throughout many of the shows, the grounds were kept clean, and the buzz of disturbances was minimal. From this newbie’s perspective, that crowd was meant to be at that Park.
Once the initial hiccups subsided, Friday continued to wow us all with sets from many of the highly anticipated names on the bill. Sister Sparrow & the Dirty Birds (all dressed in full Back to the Future garb) broke in the main stage, followed by energy-filled, midday sets from The Polish Ambassador and Slightly Stoopid. Despite cold temperatures last year, Florida dealt us some of the warmest temperatures on record for this time of year. Thankfully there was plenty of shade!
But the real hum of the festival was for later that night, as everyone wondered how the Amphitheater, a sloped stage scattered with trees, would handle Primus . It was the first true test of what this new, excited Hulaween crowd would be like. The crowd, as expected, over flowed the bowl and out into the road. But people were excited. People were happy. As Salad Fingers came into view on the screen behind and giant inflatable mushrooms adorned the stage, “Primus sucks!” was chanted from the crowd, and the weird, fun and exuberant show from Les Claypool and his gang filled the park. It didn’t matter if you ACTUALLY thought Primus sucks; everyone was there and everyone had an amazing time.
Then came Pretty Lights. The crowd shifted from The Amphitheater to the main stage field, and Derek Smith took the stage. If you want to know what brought a crowd like this to Suwannee, it was this guy, and for those who came to see him, he didn’t disappoint. And did I mention this was still technically night one? It’s not even Halloween yet!
The Hulaween organizers did an excellent job of staggering sets, making it easy to see many of the performances, which made discovering new music or seeing your favorites a breeze. They also paid magnificent homage to local talent, with the locally-run Campground Stage hosting almost exclusively Florida-based bands, most of which are not new to the festival scene, such as Come Back Alice, Flat Land, Greenhouse Lounge, Holey Miss Moley and Displace.
The String Cheese Incident, Photo: Brian Hensley
The String Cheese Incident played SEVEN sets throughout the weekend, each filling the field. But it was their Ghoul Train set on Halloween that really had the crowd going. With special guest GZA from the Wu Tang Clan, it set the tone for the rest of the night to come. You would think with seven sets, each 90 minutes long, that the energy would start to wane or the crowd would start to slow. Not a chance. Every Cheese set was played and met with the energy that was palpable all weekend long. They call Hulaween Cheese’s festival, and though it may have brought a slightly different kind of crowd this year, it still belonged to them. Many festivalgoers who came for the electronic sets left new fans of SCI and may very well be trading in their glow sticks for tie dye.
However for me, and for many others that I have talked to since, the late-night Halloween set from ODESZA was the hallmark of the weekend. Whether you were anticipating the Seattle duo or not, you got drawn into it. The energy EXPLODED out of the packed Amphitheater. It was powerful and, for many, extremely emotional. Having that many people so full of energy in such a small space, and on Halloween no less, it was an experience that I think few will ever forget. Which became an unfortunate side effect for Chance the Rapper, because that was one tough set to follow up.
As people peeled themselves off the floor of the Amphitheater and made their way to the main stage, most people were completely emotionally and physically drained. Chance made it known he wasn’t happy with the enthusiasm of the crowd, but did you see ODESZA though?! Despite some of his gripes, he put on a great show as part of his Social Experiment project. The ebb and flow of his delivery energized the crowd, and before long, everyone was dancing with him.
Once people regained consciousness on Sunday and crawled out of their tents, they were met with much needed relaxing notes from The Shook Twins and Elephant Revival. SCI took the stage twice more to round out their full weekend of entertaining the masses.
But it was a mid-day set from DJ GriZ that surprised everyone. There was no shortage of DJ sets throughout the weekend, but with a 4 pm time slot on the last day of the festival, what would this be like? Amazing, in case you were wondering. GriZ himself even seemed surprised that he was able to draw and energize such a crowd in the middle of the day, and it only seemed to amp him and the once-again overflowing Amphitheater up even more.
As if that wasn’t enough, Lettuce brought the funk for us one last time before Tauk and STS9 closed out what has easily become one of my favorite festivals.
It’s been a week since Hulaween, and I am still at a loss for words to describe it. The love that went into this festival, from the exceptionally stunning and entrancing art installations, the beauty of the woods and Spirit Lake, and the energy the bands and the crowd brought to this once sleepy little music park is hard to describe. Hulaween will only continue to grow, as will many other festivals at the SOSMP. What once was a hidden gem in northern Florida is now on the radar for the rest of the world. Keep an eye on the lineup and ticket sales for next year’s Hulaween in June and July, and if you didn’t make it down there this year, do yourself a favor next Halloween… be there.
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