Electric Forest “24: Lucienda’s Swamp Coaster

It’s alright to open your eyes again. The worst is over. Maybe it didn’t even happen. It all could have been a dream or perchance a forced hallucination emanating from deep within the miles of tangled psyche. It’s so easy to slip. Whatever it was, it was brutal, sordid fun of the very first order. An elevated story and a heightened sense of things. With Electric Forest behind them the wranglers, like everyone else could only hope to revisit in their mind’s eye the tsunami of adventure and experience that ultimately acommpanied this seemingly endless party June 20-23 near Rothbury, Michigan. Trying to make some sense of it. Headliners such as Pretty Lights, EVERYTHING ALWAYS (Dom Dolla + John Summit), Excision, Subtronics, Charlotte de Witte, Nelly Furtado, Ludacris, John Summit, PSYREN (CloZee + LSDREAM), Gigantic, NGHTMRE, Black Tiger Sex Machine, The Disco Biscuits, Ben Böhmer, Knock2, Umphrey’s McGee, The String Cheese Incident, and more helped design a brilliant framework of silly fun chock full of art installations, vendors, artists, classes and every conceivable version of renegade entertainment. Choices were made. The entire experience was an E ticket roller coaster Tokyo Drifting sideways into a muddy power slide. Welcome to Electric Forest “24: Lucienda’s Swamp Coaster. You made your bed, now you sleep in it. Look ma, no hands.

There lined a parade of thugs heading north from Bonnaroo in Tennessee to EForest in Michigan pursuing all manner of hustles from Dippin’ Dots to Ali Babba’s Pizza. BroccAleeya, the professional cuddler’s “Cop Magnet” 2000 got pulled over thrice and The Savage also managed to find himself on the wrong end of a billy club. The road between festivals is a chance to showcase adult caution. In the words of Hafiz, “Overstuffed clown cars should not travel dirty.” Lucy waited until she got to Montague before stopping at the dispensary, where she would acquire the scores of prerolled joints to be used for gifts and trade. Festival lubrication. Greasing the wheels of the machine.

They were headed to Electric Forest, a different kind of festival, due to its size and insane production value. A little bit of everything. All hope to get lost at the show, but the kind of lost that happens here is reserved for special confusions. My time is your pleasure. You’re welcome. Sorry, not sorry.

Kamp Happiness was splintered into three camps with Lucienda in the Cherry Orchard, Sheriff Pedro and Bfly in the murky depths of GA and BroccAleeya somewhere in the Afghani village known as staff A and B. Spaceman Sketch would be thrilled to know the cherries were blooming again, a perk when camping in Lot G. Nothing says summer in Michigan like fresh cherries and EForest and it doesn’t matter where one camps, adventure is ripe. The scope of this festival is so great that one can’t hope to see it all. It’s an explosion of color in every direction and the hope is to merely scratch the surface.

Lucy was driving VIPness golf cart shuttles in one of her favorite hustles of the year. She loved any job where she didn’t have to stand on her wet cardboard ankles for twelve hours. After recent dumpster fires behind the soybean curtain she was still rolling small dog. She’d made it through Bonnaroo safely and as of Friday, she hadn’t yet been fired or for that matter, reprimanded. After all, what nine year old wouldn’t want to drive a golf cart through the mud? We are now channeling our inner child. Join the fray.

They all managed to spend quality time in the Back 4o, a shaded tent/RV area off 80th with some of the headiest campers anywhere. Tone and his crowd certainly made an impression with a promise for future adventures. Look for their continuing escapades at the Hobo Kamp at Hulaween. It’s nice to work with professionals. This is a higher science for certain and a communication usually reserved for otherly dimensions.

Electric Forest is about side adventures. Even with a discernible plan, these are the unexpected, unpredictable journeys one ends up tangled in. During the second Code Red, which lasted a while, Lucy ended up in Torre’s RV with Jacob and the Chef. Things were getting decidedly colourful when, at some point they turned off the lights, cranked up G Jones and gave Lucy an impromptu rave glove show. How serendipitous. Unplanned silliness. Thank you Electric Forest, you never disappoint.

It was early in the day when Fabian got lost walking back from Pretty Lights. He could still manage to turn letters into words but they no longer made any sense. They were just words, vacant and useless when it came to directions. For that matter he didn’t know what section he was in. All of the guidepost animals in GA looked the same to him and all the statues in Sherwood Forest were made of LEDs and kept changing, making it impossible to create any kind of useful grid mapping system. At one point he became hopeless, sure he was going to be lost forever. C’est la vie. When he eventually arrived home he would chastise his mother for doing such a piss poor job of raising him.

A “professional” with the Detroit drywall taint brush, Sheriff Pedro knew her way around a tube of spackle paste and even that wasn’t going to save her now. Choices were made. The camp had already morphed into the standard version of her typical Sanford and Son trash heap but with the rain and mud things were spiraling into a new low. Welcome to the trash portal. Recently she’d been seen blowing her nose goblins on BKs dirty sock. Her and Bfly’s “possessions” had been shoved under the vehicle and Pedro slept under the neighbor’s dripping canopy. The reek of sepsis and regretamine at the The Danger Swamp flea market trash garden was palpable. Closed by the Health Department until further notice.

Lucy worked the 4pm-4am shift because “that’s where the action was” and the fields were ripe with colorful examples of the human spirit. When she got off at 4am she accepted the reality she had to walk from their compound on 80th St. all the way to section F in GA, literally up against 31 and about as far away as one could be and still be on the property. What’s to be done in this case? Lucy laced up her boots and put one foot in front of the other, past the Back 40, Tripoli and the feral animal pen that is General Admission at Electric Forest. It stretches forever in every direction in an uncharted zoo of delicious festival craziness. This became her daily schedule and in preparation of her 4pm shift she would again make the trek all the way back to her patch in the Cherry Orchard.

A little after sunrise they decided to go cross country to staff camping and find The Savage, who at that point was lucky to not be in handcuffs. They found him hanging out with the Red Witch not far from where they’d met two years earlier. She suggested they go to the beach which Lucy expected to be some mud hole with a hand pump, while it turned out to actually be Lake Michigan. For all her times in the area, she’d never seen the water. The fog rolled in from all sides as Lucy and Pedro took their only bath of the week. The Savage even managed to come away with their first Jolly Roger. It was a VIPness beach party with guitars, IPAs and rampant exfoliation. Call Ka’aoli for free legal advice. 888-8888.

Happy Rain Forest. Stand by for an all call. We are now in a Code Red. Saturday’s overcast sky was perfect for hippies catching up on sleep. Thinking it was 11am, Lucy woke up around 3pm late for work. Time for the “late walk” with a beeline to work, over a mile away. The rains didn’t come till later but the ground was ready to get soft under the feet of the herd. Ever stalwart. I smell a hit.

Princesses deserve to wear pretty things. Lucy was draped in all manner of kandi and she looked as if a spray can of flat primer had exploded in her face. She was proud to be in Michigan. This was, after all the home of the first wranglers. It’s understood, the Michigan wooks are the source, the acorn that becomes the oak. They were there at the convergence in Live Oak and it was then everything changed. There is a difference in knowing the path and walking the path.

Date Night. As they walked from Main Street through the venue, they caught the best of each set. The tabs were just taking hold as they got to John Summit at Tripoli, which would eventually give  way to Subtronics and then LSZEE at the Ranch Stage. Date night found Lucy and Bfly lurking through Sherwood Forest, exploring as many crevices as they could. “Let’s check out a little bass”. Famous last words from Lucienda as they ended up on the rail getting pounded by Sara Landry. By the time she noticed pieces of “Twilight” by Electric Light Orchestra woven into the song, her brain had melted beyond all repair.

“Moons out, spoons out.”

Pedro’s Ghetto Swamp Market. They’d always heard that EForest GA was for professionals but in this case, the Hobo Kamp was the sloppy camp, albeit the one with the hot air balloons and skydivers. At some point Paul the Jello Shot guy came around with this year’s Danny Devito shirt and some Jello shot snacks. Pedro’s daily special, Calvin Kleins of course.

The scum line had reached a new low. The dumpster fire thought they knew low-bar, but this was something else altogether. This was the kind of filth that could only be measured in kelvin. All the way down.

River Pirates Ninja Coaster. It almost seemed unfair. Once Lucy figured out how to strategically use her golf cart to acquire Jolly Rogers, the game was afoot. She would scour the horizon for booty as she made her laps and as soon as the guards went into the show, she struck like a chicken snake. No one was safe. Like a silent fog creeping under the door. Remember to fly other flags. Including the Savage’s hoist from the beach, the final number was eight Jolly Rogers from Electric Forest. Sorry, not sorry.

Fortunately they were making a little money because Lucy was excited to buy another 26$ pack of Camel blues from Steve and Sarah, said no one ever. By this time she had “wet brain” and was making questionable choices.

This gas is gas.

The Hobo Kamp still had a cooler of cool Busch Light Peach brews. Somebody who smelled like a yeast infection had lost one of their space braids in the mud. Lucy lost track of time zipping around the grounds in her golf cart swamp coaster. 80th St. was sloppy and at one time her cart died in the middle of the road, only to be pushed out of the swamp slush by lighting girls. Why was the sun still up at 10pm? She was still having trouble keeping up with the time.

By Sunday, Lucy’s feet were covered in blisters and everything she owned was wet. She had just about begun to dry out when the rains came again at midnight. After that, the renegade stages in GA hosted the rest of the party. In an effort to escape the rain and cold, Lucy ended back in Torre’s RV where she found a warm spot under the breakfast table. She was covered up in Jacob’s pashmina and used Evileen’s stuffed chicken as a pillow. It would only be a few hours until sunrise and then there would be the egress.

They were almost out of Modelo when the first car got stuck in the mud. The driver was crying uncontrollably, even after she got unstuck. She wouldn’t be the last time. There were still plenty of questions. Choices were made and they would live with the consequences. Electric Forest was behind them and everyone who’d traversed the gauntlet was somehow better for it. It was at times a painful transcendence. It was time to head to Detroit for pina coladas with Emma Jay and naturally on the way they would hit another dispensary. See you next year.

Visit the Electric Forest website and like their social media channels on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, YouTube and TikTok. Thanks to Alive Coverage for the festival photographs. Thanks to the media team and to On Location for keeping the night shift spunky. Keep up with the wranglers as we head to Secret Dreams right before the triumphant return of FloydFest.                           Namaste y’all.