This weekend I made the trek back to Phoenix Fest.

For those who either don’t remember, or have chosen to forget, the last time I went to Phoenix Fest all hell broke loose. Or rather, all hell broke loose after I returned from Phoenix Fest and wrote about it for The Seattle Weekly.

The editor pushed for ever more prurient detail, I tried to navigate a 36 hour deadline, and the result was an article that the editor felt was a little “puffy” (i.e. too glowing) and that just about everyone else thought was an intentionally malicious handwritten note from the devil that would single-handedly bring about three things:

1. The absolute death of Northwest rave culture at the hand of conservative, blood-thirsty Seattle Weekly readers
2. The imminent dismissal of the Klickitat County Sheriff and total county-wide anarchy
3. The end of public sex as we know it!

Naturally, none of these things happened, but for a few weeks in the eyes of a few hundred people I was Seattle’s Most Hated Raver.

Never mind that I’d dedicated almost seven years of my life to the rave community or that I’d spent four years editing a magazine that sought to portray the West coast rave community in the most positive light possible. No, circa August 2002, I was a rave pariah, a whore of the highest degree (and yes: people actually called me a whore — thanks over-reacting rave community!). Everyone seemed to be angry, except for my editor at The Weekly, who sent me an excited email for every letter to the editor that was received about my article. He was pleased as punch that the community was so up in arms about something published in The Weekly, not a publication typically noticed by Seattle’s ravers.

Anyway. That was two years ago. Realistically, the whole thing was an excellent learning process for me, and I like to think a few other people as well. I learned a lot about editor’s goals vs. writer’s goals, quick turn-arounds, and how to gracefully stand your ground when criticized for expressing an opinion. I like to think that others learned a little about perspective and relativity.

Life goes on, folks. Ultimately, no one really gives a flying fuck what was printed in The Weekly two years ago. But for those who do, here’s a little treat: For the first time, I’m making my original draft of my 2002 Seattle Weekly Phoenix Fest article available to the public. You can read it here. Those of you who hated the final product can take a look at the original intent of the piece.

Perhaps as a peace offering (perhaps not, who knows?) one of the core organizers of Phoenix Fest gifted Andreas and I with two tickets to this year’s festival. So we went. And, in the spirit of Lotus Magazine event reviews, and the spirit of The Weekly desperately trying to sound more like The Stranger by snarkily writing about underground events, here is my event review. You’ll have to excuse me if I’m a little out of practice on this kind of writing.

The venue for this year’s Phoenix Fest was excellent. The fields where the event was hosted were under the looming shadow of Washington’s Mount Adams, and caught breezes intended for the Hood River. We camped in the Quiet Camping area, which was sheer heaven for aging ravers. The soundsystems were a 10 minute forested walk away. This meant that yes, there was a muffled continual thump of bass at the edge of our hearing, but only occasionally could we hear Chickenhed, my most reviled soundsystem from 2002.

We arrived in Klickitat County late Saturday afternoon, and found the weather ideal. Warm, but not too hot. Dry, but not excessively dusty … although I say that in relation to Burning Man. The temperatures hovered in the high 70s and low 80s for most of Saturday and Sunday, and got down into the upper 40s during the night. Perfect temperatures for modeling freaky techno-tribal daywear as well as trashy Burning Man freak-duds at night.

In terms of performances, I would have to say that the high point of weekend for me was Saul Williams. This strikes me as ironic: at a music festival, I was the most profoundly affected by spoken word. But if Saul Williams had taken a moment to scan the crowd, I’m sure that he would have seen that I wasn’t the only one who spent over an hour with my jaw unhinged muttering things like “…shit!” I don’t think it takes a writer to recognize that Saul Williams has a magical way with words, and when I went to tell him so afterwards, I got all choked up and blubbery with gratitude. (Dude: who is this sappy sniveling creature I’ve become? What’s next: weeping Jesus figurines on my mantel?)

Unfortunately, Saturday night also reacquainted me with a type of raver character I’d forgotten: the headtripper. Allow me to introduce the concept, although those of you who’ve spent time at raves, Dead shows, or other such events will know right away what I’m talking about.

There are people at these sorts of parties who like to have a little social gimmick. Perhaps they’re insecure and looking for a social crutch, or maybe they’re just tricksters who get a kick out of what they’re doing. Whatever: these headtrippers like to fuck with high people at parties. The sad thing is that they seem to assume that everybody at the event is fucked up, and most of them don’t seem to have much of an idea of what to do when they encounter someone who’s wits are still fully about them.

I had an encounter after Saul Williams with one such person. I got cold near the end of Saul Williams’ set, and spent the last ten minutes standing at the back of the crowd hooping to keep my blood moving. Next to me appeared a guy in a large top hat, a mask, and what appeared to be a foam rubber pumpkin costume. He stood next to me, strumming a guitar and waiting for me to acknowledge him. I, meanwhile, was complete focused on Saul Williams. Pumpkin guy kept strumming and trying to get my attention.

After Saul was done, I went to go have my afore-mentioned blubbery thank you moment with him. As I walked around the back of the stage, guitar guy followed me closely, strumming and sort of dancing around. I finally got irritated and turned to him and demanded, “Did you need something?” He seemed taken aback (”Wait a minute — SHE’S NOT TRIPPING!”) but refused to step out of character and acknowledge that he was trying to trip out someone who wasn’t exactly receptive or interested. I mean, I think I was supposed to be like “WOAH! GUY IN WEIRD OUTFIT! WOAH!! AM I SEEING THIS? WOOOOOAH!” Instead I was asking him what he wanted, and he answered by dancing around and saying “Ooh, I’m not shadowing you … I’m not shadowing you!”

People who go to parties just to fuck with high folks need to get something better to do. It’s a bit mean-spirited, but more than anything else it’s really irritating to those of us who don’t get so fucked up that we’re completely confused by someone in a mask and a guitar, or someone making meowing sounds in the dark. Maybe other people get a kick out of this sort of thing. I never have. At a party many years ago, I once helped a friend procure some acid. The guy who I got it from assumed that I had injested it, and then tried to fuck with me by speaking in strange rhythms, reallyfasttalking and then really…slowed…down…speech. I told him to shut the fuck up, stop assuming I was high, and get out of my face. I hate headfuckers.

Perhaps I was just irritable at Phoenix Fest. I had an encounter later in the night with someone who was heckling Blackalicious. Chief was taking a couple moments to introduce one of their more political songs, and heckler was standing in the back of the crowd shouting “PLAY SOME FUCKIN’ MUSIC! SHUT UP AND PLAY SOME MUSIC! I GOT CNBC AT HOME! PLAY SOME FUCKING MUSIC!” I finally just had to storm up to him and remind him that he had six stages of music to choose from, and could he please shut up. He sloshed some of his beer and slurred, “There are a thousand people here — why you gotta talk to me?” Dude, because you’re a prick. Now shut the fuck up. I didn’t say that, though. I just said, “Hey: I’m just reminding you that you’ve got a lot of options here.” Somehow this became a metaphor for me about people who would rather bitch than take the situation into their own hands, but realistically I think the guy was just drunk.

Seriously: if he was going to heckle Blackalicious, he should have heckled them about their continual shout-outs about “How’s it going, OREGON!” I winced every time. Whoever picked these guys up at the airport needed to let them know that they were playing in Washington. Every time they said something about “Let’s hear it, PORTLAND!” I thought about how cool it would have been if they were like, “HEY KLICKITAT COUNTY, GIMME SOME NOISE!” Or, “TROUT LAKE, LEMME HEAR YOU!” That would have been incredibly cool.

I spent most of Saturday night wandering from stage to stage. I like the house stage in the far corner of the field, but the trance stage next door was set up in a way that created some really awful sound bleed. The breakbeat stage was gorgeous, and I caught part of Tipper’s set, which wobbled between totally inspired and somewhat intolerable. Guy can scratch, and I liked some of his deep bass-y tunes, but some of it felt undanceable to me, and so I didn’t catch the whole set.

I caught the fire performance. I’ve written critically in the past about fire shows, and I’m afraid that this performance lived down to my expectations. The performers did not seem to be having any fun and as a result, I didn’t have fun either. The fire performers did have the best heckler of the evening, though. Kudos to the woman who walked by shouting, “Oooh! LOOK! FIRE! BURNING THINGS! THERE’S A BURN BAN! THERE’S A BURN BAN!” It’s true. There is a county-wide burn ban in Klickitat county, something that was at the forefront of my mind when the fire dancer with the flaming hula hoop got tangled in her hoop and threw the flaming circle onto the tinder-dry yellow grass. Everything was fine, but I couldn’t watch the remainder of the show.

I also liked the techno/house stage near the vendor area, but the fluorescent lights that were facing outwards into the field from the dance area pushed me away. I spent 40 hours a week under fluorescent lights…having them set up facing outward was like a reverse magnet, pushing me farther and farther away, despite how much I liked the music. The ambient barn, while gorgeous, was too loud. I mean, it’s an ambient barn! And the music was REALLY LOUD. And there were BEATS. That’s not ambient, although I will not debate that it was in a barn. And that the barn was decorated gorgeously.

Like the aging raver I am, I was asleep by 2am. This meant I missed Eddie’s sunrise set, which sort of breaks my heart. But I will say that I slept GREAT. The quiet camping area really was QUIET (unlike last year, when the “quiet” area was filled with the sounds of one Chickenhed clapping).

I think I heard my favorite musical set of the weekend Saturday afternoon. Swank hit the nail on the head for me with a mix of Sting, Outkast, and various songs about lazy sunny afternoons. PERFECT.

Socially, I saw people at Phoenix Fest who I haven’t seen in many many years. I even met a couple people who I knew of, but to whom I had never been introduced. I met one NWtekno.org regular who informed me that I was “much cooler” than he expected, and he thought I would be seven feet tall. It was all a sham, of course: I secretly am a seven-foot tall stark raving bitch who eats event promoters for dinner and shits out op-ed pieces. I only look like a normal person when I’m trying to get a good pull-quote for an article. My talons pop out once people’s backs are turned. Oh, and I have an army of flying monkeys.

I was especially thankful to have an excuse to explore this gorgeous corner of the state. My camping crew and I stopped at Multnomah Falls and hiked for an hour on the way home. The people-watching was exquisite! We even got soft-serve swirly cones.

Oh and PS: For anyone who criticized me in 2002 for writing about “public sex” at Phoenix Fest, I witnessed people having sex out in the open again this year. Believe it!

Also, I have a few pictures.