Ready for Rothbury

June 29, 2008

Do you have your Rothbury Music Festival tickets yet? If not, you’d better get moving -- the four-day inaugural music festival featuring more than 80 acts is selling fast, and the Double JJ Ranch in Rothbury, MI, is making all the preparations for the onslaught of music fans that will hit their little rural town over the upcoming 4th of July weekend.
National acts such as Widespread Panic, Snoop Dogg, John Mayer and Modest Mouse have put West Michigan on the map as hosting one of the biggest rock festivals in the country this year.
And just how much are those tix, you ask?
Rothbury’s Weekend Ticket (July 3-6) includes a wristband for the entire weekend, plus camping/parking Thursday through Sunday for $244.75 per person. That might seem pricey at first, but when you consider that’s your concert tix plus your lodging, that puts things into perspective; just think what you’d pay for four nights at a hotel.
If you like your festival weekends a little more posh, there are also a limited number of VIP weekend tickets for $475 pp, which includes a stay at the fest’s VIP campgrounds, air-conditioned bath facilities, and access to the two main stage VIP viewing areas, which include premium sightlines and specialty food and beverage vendors.
And yes, folks, there’s one more level up - the fest’s Good Life Lodging packages, which start at $1,319 pp and house you and your crew in a ranch bunkhouse, log cabin, log home, or in the Back Forty RV park; Good Life packages also include those fancy bath facilities, access to electricity to charge your phones and MP3 players, and a gourmet buffet brunch each morning.
In addition, Rothbury’s Green Tickets allow attendees to soften the environmental impact of attending the fest by carbon-offsetting their festival experience; all offsetting funds will go to planting trees in Michigan and building new Midwestern wind farms.

SPEAKING OF THE ENVIRONMENT
Rothbury has a dual intent - music, of course, being the first - but they also have a strong focus on sustainability and improving the environment, worthy causes in this day and age.
They’ve got extensive plans to carbon-offset their own production usage - including green office products - and are using biodiesel and solar power (even on the stages, light towers, and festival golf cart transport), and they’ve set up recycling and composting as well as organic, sustainable, veggie, and vegan food vendors throughout the fest.
Even the - ahem - TP - is reportedly 100% recycled. And in addition to the Green Ticket mentioned above, they’re offering festival fans plenty of other ways to be environmentally helpful.
Recycle bins will be found throughout the Rothbury grounds, and a volunteer Green Team will be on hand to help with the recycling and sorting as needed. Several shuttles and eco-buses are being offered to help fans get to the fest in an environmentally-friendly way.
An Energy Fair will also be on site to help people learn more about how to be green - and all of the fest’s leftover usable products (decorations, wood, sponsor items, etc.) will be donated to local charities and community centers; they’re also funding the Solar Schools program, which this year will benefit local Shelby High School with solar outfitting.
And perhaps the quirkiest - but remarkably helpful - environmental program at Rothbury has been dubbed “Don’t Be a Litter Butt” - they’re giving away free pocket-sized personal ashtrays (made from recycled materials) for smokers to use at the festival.
No big deal? Then consider this - cigarette butt litter is one of the world’s greatest environmental litter problems, with almost one in three cigarette butts ending up as litter. Cigarette butts have been found in the stomachs of whales, fish, and other marine animals; they can leach chemicals such as lead and arsenic into our marine environment within an hour of contact with water; and it takes 12 years for a mere cigarette butt to break down.

ON TO THE MUSIC
Next, of course, you really want to hear about the bands, right? Well,
there will be plenty to choose from, especially considering that this is Rothbury’s first year.
The general consensus is that
Rothbury is kind of combining the sensibilities of Bonnaroo (roots/jam bands in a farm/ranch environment) with a smidge of Lollapalooza (a few edgier bands, some DJs, and those aforementioned environmental concerns). Be aware, though, that the lineup for this first fest is way more “Bonnaroo-y” than anything else - heavy on those jam bands and Americana-rockers - so if you’re looking more for sounds along the line of the Raconteurs, Bloc Party, or Louis XIV, you’ll probably want to start saving now for those Lollapalooza dates in Chicago in August.
That said, there’ll be a lot here to really noodle-dance to all weekend long.
Phish-heads will be delighted to find out that three out of the four members of Phish will be present at Rothbury - Mike Gordon and Jon Fishman as well as Trey Anastasio, who will be performing for his first time since December of ‘06. Phish’s brothers-in-arms, the Grateful Dead, will also be represented by two of their members, Mickey Hart and Phil Lesh. All six members of the String Cheese Incident will be on-site - albeit in different bands - and you’ll find members from Yonder Mountain String Band, Gov’t Mule, The Allman Brothers Band, Taj Mahal, and Railroad Earth on the Rothbury stages, too.
Blues-rock, pop-rock, and hard-rock fans will dig performances from 311, John Mayer, Primus, Dave Matthews Band, and Jakob Dylan and the Gold Mountain Rebels, while disco/club sets will be spun by the likes of DJ Rekha, DJ Harry, and DJ Rootz, as well as a special DJ set from Crystal Method.
Reggae and worldbeat jams will be provided by Steel Pulse, The Wailers featuring Elan, Michael Franti and Spearhead -- and Atmosphere and Snoop Dogg will even show up to throw a little rap and hip-hop into the mix.
For those who prefer their tunes on the folky side, they’ll want to check out Iron and Wine’s Sam Beam, Derek Trucks and Susan Tedeschi, and Trampled by Turtles.
And for those big-city hipsters that choose to brave these dusty, tie-dyed, countryside festival grounds, they’ll be rewarded with sets from the short but critically-acclaimed indie-band roster: Modest Mouse, The Black Keys, Thievery Corporation, Beth Orton, Of Montreal, Dresden Dolls, Gomez, and The Secret Machines. Whew.

BUT WAIT, THERE’S MORE
In addition to the music, there’s the aforementioned Energy Fair, the Establishment Lounge, a Circus and Theater, and plenty of other eclectic offerings. You’ll find buskers on the grounds, aerial performers in the air, and new cars to test-drive that will demonstrate the cutting edge of auto energy technology. The Epicenter Fair will let you test out new gadgets and games; or you can start your day with yoga, an art show, a fancy costume to wear, or a new hairstyle.
Or get even smarter environmentally by checking out the many activities scheduled at the Think Tank. Set to host a mix of workshops, film screenings, Q and A sessions, and keynote speeches, the Think Tank is meant to encourage interactive participation regarding finding energy independence.
Share and listen to solutions for how to lessen our ecological and carbon footprints alongside such environmental leaders as Bud Ward (editor of the Yale Forum on Climate Change and the Media), Dan Scripps (Michigan’s 101st District State Representative Democratic candidate), Brandon Knight (founder of the Michigan Student Sustainability Coalition), Chris Baumgartner (consultant at enviro-music marketers MusicMatters), and Dr. Eban Goodstein (direction of Focus the Nation).
The speakers have almost as much celeb power as the musicians on the Rothbury stages - which should make for a great mix of musical fun and environmental action all weekend long.

The Rothbury Festival will take place July 3-6 in Rothbury, just north of Grand Rapids and east of Muskegon, a two-three hour drive from Northern Michigan. Ticket outlets and more info can be found at www.rothburyfestival.com.