Sunday, August 12, 2012

KahBang Music & Arts Festival 2012

KahBang Music & Arts Festival
Bangor, ME * August 2012

 For it's fourth year in the business, the KahBang music and arts festival has shown immense growth in just a short amount of time. The festival focuses on discovery; allowing emerging musicians to shine on one of the multiple stages and engage new listeners and loyal fans alike. Whether it's a crazy dubstep DJ or a sweet funk band from Athens Georgia; the talent didn't go unnoticed by the energetic crowd and there was something for everyone to love.

The Vendors this year were great. A favorite of mine would be Pizza Pie On The Fly; a traveling wood fired oven that makes the most delicious pies at festivals all up and down the New England coast. I always make it a point to stop and buy a slice from these guys who are always working hard to pump out favorites like pepperoni and cheese, and tomato and basil.

Other vendors were slinging band merchandise, hula hoops, pipes with live glass blowing, live wood carving, a skateboard demo, and multiple tents with local DJs bumping their latest mixes. A few new performances I got to catch were Paper Diamond, Reptar, Wale and Penguin Prison.

Bassnectar
Bassnectar definitely stole the show. This was my 3rd time seeing him perform. I was introduced to his music in 2010 at Camp Bisco in Mariahville New York. I remember people literally passing out around me at the awesomeness (maybe it also had something to do with recreational drug use, I'm not positive.) The second show was in Portland at the State Theater. My third show in Bangor was no disappointment. He keeps it funky fresh and your eyes are glued to the stage with the amazing visuals and lights. I loved hanging back to the side, watching the crowd go nuts and spinning my LED hoop with the other kids jammin out with their poi and glow sticks. It was a massive, beautiful experience.

I managed to score free tickets from my job, but I believe it was around $40 for a day pass and $80 for the whole weekend. At $6 dollars a beer, $5 bucks for a slice of pie and $3 for bottled water, it did get a little costly. I'd like to see next year have a water filling station, so that people would be allowed to bring in empty water bottles and fill up throughout the night. I know at $3 bucks a pop nobody was drinking much water, and that is the most important thing to do at any festival. Hydration is key when partying all day, your body gets exhausted and needs that h20 to keep you going strong through the night.




The only other complain I had about the festival was that they split the crowd into two divisions. On one side you have the 21+ with the beer tent and on the other side is all ages. I think this is totally reasonable and probably the easiest way to monitor that type of thing. However, there were no porta potties on the beer tent side. This meant that we had to exit the beer garden and go to the bathrooms and then stand in line while the bouncers check everyone's IDs, bracelets and backpacks to get back in. This got a little overwhelming when things started to really pick up right before Bassnectar was set to perform. The security guards were overwhelmed and concert goers were getting annoyed.




 I'm sure everyone else has their own critiques, but I'm all about giving credit where credit is due and I gotta say: Hats off to the organizers of this festival for continuing to do a phenomenal job at helping this idea grow more and more each year. I know that being from a rural area in Maine like Bangor, it is great to bring something like this to town every now and then. I'm excited to see what next year will bring. Peace!

Some of my amazing friends that I got to share this experience with.


1 comment:

  1. Great write up Christina! I totally agree with the water suggestions, having to completely dump my camel back out before entering was bogus. My girlfriend suffered the most from it, having dehydration sickness almost the entire next day. As i poured it out, all I old could think was, if I drop dead because of this, Kahbang is really gonna kick themselves in the ass over it. I understand the desire to make money but, that's no reason to compromise safety.

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