[live review] Camp Bisco was barely real life

This isn't real life.

While this rather tired adage can be used to describe many a pleasantry, it can probably be best applied to music festivals: two to four days of eschewing responsibility; hordes of bands you give a shit about; Class A to Z drugs at every turn; probably the only situation other than holing up in your bedroom for a weekend in which hygiene doesn't much matter. Clearly, not an enviable lifestyle for all, but those in the know can pick up what I'm putting down.

I've been to a handful of festivals in my lifetime and none possess quite the aura of abandoning reality like CAMP BISCO. Not that it varies much from any of the above qualifiers -- three days of unrepentant filth; more than 100 acts mostly plucked from the ever-broadening guidelines used to define electronic music; people flipping LSD, K, DMT, GBH, PCP (okay, so I didn't actually hear anyone peddling those last two).

But having just attended my fifth incarnation of the festival, I can confidently say what truly sets Camp Bisco apart is the palpable ‘don't-give-a-fuck' attitude that permeates through the campgrounds of Indian Lookout Country Club. I'm sure that most of the 30,000 attendees had some inkling of employment/schooling/livelihood to attend to this past Monday, but there's no way of telling from watching them drink/bump/ingest everything in sight for 72 straight hours.

Security at Camp is maintained by Hell's Angels, who own the property that rests about an hour outside of Albany, and there isn't an inkling police presence to be found. Admittedly, the Angels do a remarkable job of keeping order, but c'mon. I'd liken it to letting the homicide convicts manage the prisons. Are the murderers going to let the lesser criminals run wild to an extent? Sure. Are the lesser criminals going to consciously check their behavior in fear of being murdered? Of course. Flawed, yet sturdy method.

And while I've always maintained that reviewing jambands is a fruitless task -- like, what can I commit to print that is going to keep anyone from seeing their 153rd Phish show? -- it must be said that the DISCO BISCUITS leave it all on that massive field, year in and out. Seeing as it's their festival, they hold down six sets over the course of the weekend, totaling roughly 7.5 hours of playing. And anytime you mix in break-neck bass drops, sing-songy choruses, and motherfucking laser beams, it can turn into a party right quick.

This year was particularly impressive considering the infestation of brostep and their zombified fanbase, with Bassnectar, Pretty Lights, Skrillex, Nero, 12th Planet, etc. all featured. In years past, hats prominently featuring Biscuits logos seemed to be the clothing du jour amongst attendees. While this year, you couldn't travel 10 feet without bumping into someone wearing a "Bass Head" shirt. Or "Sex, Drugs, & Dubstep." Or "Mary & Lucy & Molly & Dubstep."

Not implying anything of biting significance really, but much credit is due to the Biscuits for having the brass to continually trot out their unchecked variety of jam throughout the weekend when half (or more) of the audience were merely there to receive a bass bludgeoning.

Of course, there were other acts. And because I've already rambled at great length, and because bouncing between four stages was such a stream of conscious experience, I'm going to limit this recap to the top five acts I caught over the weekend. Here they are, in order of appearance because who am I to judge...

After a sleepless Wednesday night and a Thursday afternoon spent pretending to sleep in a sweatbox of a camping tent, music was necessary. Cue the first hood ass show of the weekend courtesy of SBTRKT. The UK bass producer has been garnering some buzz around the internet thanks to his recent self-titled LP, which sounds like what ice cream tastes like. Luckily he didn't fuck around all that much, accentuating his DJ set with some knob twittling and significant standout cuts from Blawan, Julio Bashmore, and his own "Wildfire," complete with the Drake verse from the remix. Tired isn't a setting at Camp Bisco. You're either wide awake or asleep. Following SBTRKT's 70 minute set, on which they actually had to pull the plug to clear the stage for the next DJ, I was wide awake.

A couple vodka/Red Bulls later, I was even more wide awake and CUT COPY was playing on the mainstage. I purposely avoided their House of Blues show last month, knowing full well I was going to catch them at Camp. Without any notion as to how that show went, I'm going to say that I'm glad I waited to see them in a field of 10,000 people. At times, the amount of sound emanating from the stage wasn't conducive to their on-stage motions, hinting they may rely a tad heavily on preset recordings, but that doesn't matter much when during "Hearts on Fire," singer Dan Whitford had me jumping high enough to dunk on a 12-foot hoop.

FOUR TET has always been tough to peg. Last year's There Is Love In You sounded like nothing he'd released prior and he seems to be growing increasingly comfortable within an electronic music landscape that possesses increasingly uncomfortable boarders. With that said, Friday's Four Tet show was either exactly what I expected it to be, nothing like what I expected, both, or neither. He stuck to recent material (last year's LP, the Ringer EP, unreleased tunes) for a live set during which he would lay the groundwork for a track and just run with it. So while he stayed away from his more IDM-leaning output, he still was able to take it rather far out there before reeling it back for heavenly drop after heavenly drop. Unfortunately, we didn't get any of the recent Burial/Thom Yorke material, but we got an astounding version of "Love Cry" and the set of the weekend.

Following Friday night's Biscuits > Ratatat > Biscuits sandwich, I stumbled into the tent that MSTRKRFT was playing and immediately turned back around in search of something with a little more kick. And I don't know how many times I've said this, but thank God for James Murphy, who was holding down the DFA TENT alongside Pat Mahoney and Holy Ghost! Cigarettes, sweat, vinyl, repeat. First time I've seen Murphy since the final LCD show back in April and he looks like he's been using his time off wisely. They dropped "This Must Be the Place" to close out the set and I danced all the way back to my tent and into my sleeping bag.

Saturday was a tad bit muddled music wise. I stood in Mad Decent's moombahton tent for three hours and still can't tell you a single thing about the genre other than 18-year-olds fucking eat it up. Neon Indian was cool, but not as cool as last year. The tent Pretty Lights played in smelled like someone dubstepped in shit and I lasted approximately two minutes before ejecting myself. So maybe it was by default, or shear unruly riotousness, that DEATH FROM ABOVE 1979 took the day. I mean, they incited a violent mosh pit amongst a crowd of serotonin depleted kids, probably the first of its kind in Camp Bisco history if I had to wager a guess. Saying something. Jesse F. Keeler took the stage head-to-toe in black, and Sebastien Grainger in all white, including bleached blond hair. Perhaps a "Spy vs. Spy" wink wink to the fact that they split five years ago because they allegedly couldn't stand each other anymore. They have roughly 15 songs in their arsenal and they played them all, cracked some jokes, and sent us along our bruised way.

Shout outs to Araabmuzik, Das Racist, Treasure Fingers, and Lotus, who all threw down massive sets in their own right, but I can't be writing this thing until next Friday.