May Contain Peanuts

All Good

This past weekend, I had the pleasure of attending the All Good music festival and campout in Masontown, West Virginia. All Good is similar to other music festivals like Bonnaroo or Coachella, but a bit more on the smaller side, with headliners being those like Ben Harper and former members of the Greatful Dead. It had a very hippie vibe, but I must say, it was some of the most fun I have ever had.

What amazed me the most is the entirety of the societal functions of the festival. As you drive up the mountain road to the festival site, there is a meager 'checkpoint' where volunteers search cars for glass bottles and fireworks and any other illegal materials they can find. The trouble is A) there are thousands of cars to go through and B) the cars are so filled with camping equipment, coolers and bags that it is impossible to properly search or scour anything. This means that as long as the contraband is properly stowed away, anything can make it within the gates. Once we parked and set up our campsite, I was immediately immersed in what I was to expect the rest of the weekend. Beers were cracked, and the recognizable smell of cannibis was already wafting our way. We walked from our site a ways to where the music stages were so we could catch the last act of the first night. Along the way we were offered a variety of things that you normally would not be offered anywhere else while walking around (read: drugs). Fireworks were being let off in the background. Some people had dogs (which were also forbidden) with them, which I think were allowed if they were there as 'guide dogs' or helped in some fashion (which they really didn't). People had little tents set up selling everything from grilled cheeses to to glass pieces. We even stopped at a tent that was selling bloody marys and quickly grabbed a few to help the mornings hangover.

So, with all these goings-on that would normally be illegal in a public setting, things moved along without any noticeable problems. I don't think I saw any fights, no issues of property theft, no OD'd junkies in the corner. Sure, there were some pretty fucked up people all around, but most everyone had their shit together (I did see one guy passed out with some security around, but it was 2 am on Saturday, the peak time of the festival). Things went fine and everyone survived.

This experience only deepens my feelings on the laws our society has about personal freedoms. 15,000 people got along just fine in a small area that is saturated with drugs and alcohol. There was security around, but it was not a firm presence. We listened to great music with plenty of people around us under the influence, but there were none of the problems that you would expect to see if you listened to proponents of strict drug and alcohol laws. There were no riots or assaults, no obscene debauchery. It just worked fine.

Sure, there were a lot of 'hippies' present, with dreds and tie-dye shirts, but the vibe overall was of fun and freedom where everyone is equal and accepted. People came and went as they pleased, ate and drank what they wanted and bought and sold everything you could imagine without incident. I think the overall idea of the music festival keeps the good vibes together and is why this ideal may not be applicable to the real world, but it makes it seem like it still could. There's always going to be some bad eggs that ruin the fun for everyone, but limiting freedoms for everyone because of a few seems inherently wrong.

I know that the laws are in place for a reason and act as protection of the greater good. But this music festival made me take a step back and look at our personal freedoms and the lack of them in our public environment. I just found it sad that this utopia of music and living has to be reserved for a few days at a time in remote campgrounds across the country.


PS - Man, that last entry was a bummer and was totally not what I expected to be writing for my 69th entry. Giggity.