(Published 8/15/07 in Fairfield Weekly)
If you’re curious about what traveling with the circus is like, living with the smelliest and craziest people on the planet on the hottest days of summer, or if you’ve ever wanted to party with men on 12-foot stilts spinning in the sun, ignoring all your brain cells to the point of complete musical serenity, go to the Vibes next year.
Will we host it next year? G.O.V. Communication Director Jon Lobdell said, “We are very hopeful to be welcomed back. We loved it there.”
And what’s not to love? Picture the usually empty fields of Seaside Park filled with thousands and thousands of hippies, hundreds of tie-dyed vending tents and a giant yoga peace circle, and you’ve got an idea of the overwhelming and totally unbelievable sight last weekend. Mr. P.T. Barnum sat in his giant chair looking out to the ocean and had no idea what was going on behind him. Maybe that’s good, but I’d say he was missing out.
Until the place was cleaned Sunday night, every picnic bench was taken, every trash can was filled and all the lush green grass was trampled. Native Americans cried single tears all weekend and the hippies were too high to notice. But we were all a part of the “Vibe Tribe,” and I saw so many people picking up cans and bottles all weekend that I was moved to do the same. There were reminders all weekend to recycle, to keep the place looking better than last week and even to pick up your neighbor’s trash. And most people did.
Only the baseball fields were off limits to campers and no space was off limits to drug-dealers. You have to listen close, though, or you could miss out (but maybe that’s a good thing). “Rolls” are ecstasy pills, “doses” are LSD, “headies” or “nuggets” means pot, “tabs” is usually acid, “boomers” is shrooms and “yip yap” is cocaine. Oh, beautiful Bridgeport park, how innocent you were with your small-scale drug dealing before this jam-packed insanity rolled on through.
George Clinton showed everyone why “Funk is so Loaded” by requesting a bowl from the crowd, and receiving one. The Deep Banana Blackout came out donned in black suits, and the normally-shirtless Fuzz kept his on the whole time. Jen Durkin and Bob Weir were at the top of their festival game, playing with almost everyone Friday and Saturday, each time more energetic than the last. Keller Williams did not play as a bluegrass trio the whole time (as predicted last week), layering together recorded clips of his own live music for at least two mind-blowing solo jams. Les Claypool scared everyone with his pig mask and wildly eccentric bass solos before removing the mask and playing with Weir and a drummer in one of the most confusing performances of the weekend. The Wailers revived all Marley’s songs with great Jamaican energy and was a common favorite from what I heard on my many walks to and from the camping area.
Life at the festival was hot, sweaty, hungry, thirsty, and it reeked of pot. The cops don’t care though, and the kids think it’s tobacco. The point is to get as gross as possible and survived hell with a smile. If world-famous “hippie geezer” Wavy Gravy can, anybody can. The man was the human manifestation of psychedelic mushrooms, announcing tripped-out revelations about space and time before each band.
Maybe you went into the event totally unable to dance. You might not like sitting in a shade-less sun-blazed field for eight hours and you might not want any of the overly-available drugs. But none of that really matters. It’s all about hearing great music, trying to find the shade, loving your fellow man and woman and dancing like an absolute idiot.
You let go of everything outside the fenced perimeter and allow the music to seep in through your red, raw skin. Work doesn’t matter, traffic is a long-lost worry and clean clothes are pointless to the point of being hilarious. Become an animal, jump in the mud and come along for the ride. You’re not in a cubicle anymore, and you’re not even stuck doing yard work. It’s just feel-good funky music playing from 10 a.m. to 2 a.m. for no other reason than to help you wiggle in the sun. Joyful adults, laughing children and a completely friendly attitude that’s different from anything you can find anywhere else. People literally travel across the world for this sort of thing.
I knew the whole gathering of the Vibes scene was especially unorthodox for the Bridgeport area. But what I couldn’t figure out was whether it was because the festival was so close to pristine towns like Westport, Southport and Fairfield or if it was because the festival was actually in Bridgeport. These festivals usually take place in the middle of nowhere, in an abandoned farm in Ohio or upstate New York. With so many attempts to advertise the changing perceptions of slummy B-Po this year, it seems the Vibes weekend was a real “Bridgeport. Who Knew?” moment.
