breakfast on tour's blog

It has been an incredibly amazing and diverse first half of the year musically for Breakfast On Tour, and - primarily for our reference, we admit - we decided to round up our favorites so far. Our lists will undoubtedly be filled with many of the face-melting festival sets we've seen at both Wakarusa and Rothbury, as well as the great shows that have come through Texas, Nebraska, Kansas, Missouri, Iowa and beyond. 2008 is shaping up to be the greatest year of our collective live show experiences...and it's only July!

Check out our picks after the jump

After three days at Rothbury, we awoke on Sunday, July 6th with serious cases of festival head. The intense, all-out, party-til-the-break-of-dawn lifestyle we'd been leading had finally caught up with us. Oh, to be effervescent 19-year-olds again! It was at that point that we realized it would be in our best interest to depart that night (rather than Monday morning) to make the six hour trip to our next destination, Akron, OH. Still, everyone was in good spirits and we soon made our way toward the music. A bittersweet atmosphere takes hold on the last day of any great festival. On one hand, it's disheartening to realize that your four-day adventure in a magical place will soon draw to a close, and you'll be rudely deposited back into reality. But on the other, you've reached a point where your feet are painful and disgusting, you miss your pets/loved ones, you miss sleeping in a real bed, and you can't wait to take a real shower (well, some of us, at least). Though we must admit, we'd consider forgoing beds and showers if they'd let us stay in Sherwood Forest forever. At any rate, Sunday held some of the most coveted acts of the weekend, like Rodrigo y Gabriela, Phil Lesh & Friends and Trey Anastasio, so we geared up and walked to the festival grounds for one more day of fun in Michigan.

Continue reading 'Rothbury Festival 2008 - Sunday Review' after the jump

Check out images from Sunday, July 6, 2008 at the inaugural Rothbury Festival after the jump

Enjoy our selection of videos from Sunday, July 6th's Rothbury festivities. (Note: the videos look best if you click through to the YouTube page and select the 'watch in high quality' option below the views count.)

The morning of Saturday, July 5 started a little later than the past two days had due to a very late Friday night/Saturday morning. We awoke feeling fine, but a little funky, so we all dispersed in different directions to determine which showers had the shortest line. We were camped a short distance from one bank of showers, but these were the busiest of the bunch. After cleansing ourselves of the toxins we'd taken in over the past couple of days and enjoying a chompdown of our own, we decided to make the short trek past the monkeys (although not running during the day time, they were still rather psychedelic) into the main grounds for our third day of excitement. Unfortunately, our grand plans to wake up early and catch Dead Confederate and Trampled By Turtles didn't pan out, but we guess that's to be expected when you hit the pillow at 5am the night before. Nevertheless, the day had plenty in store for us.

Continue reading 'Rothbury Festival 2008 - Saturday Review' after the jump

Enjoy our selection of videos from Saturday, July 5th's Rothbury festivities. (Note: the videos look best if you click through to the YouTube page and select the 'watch in high quality' option below the views count.)

Friday, July 4, 2008 at the Rothbury Festival found us well-rested, thanks in no small part to not being rudely awakened at 7am by soul-shriveling heat. We wondered aloud why no one had thought of throwing a music festival in Michigan before. You just can't beat that kind of weather in July. But as pleasant as it was waking up from a good night's sleep, that certainly would not be the highlight of our day. Friday was the day the BOT crew was most anticipating musically, and it would prove worthy of our expectations.

Continue reading 'Rothbury Festival 2008 - Friday' after the jump

Check out images from Friday, July 4, 2008 at the inaugural Rothbury Festival after the jump

Enjoy our selection of videos from Friday, July 4th's festivities. (Note: the videos look best if you click through to the YouTube page and select the 'watch in high quality' option below the views count.)

More videos after the jump

The inaugural Rothbury Festival took place July 3-6 at the gorgeous Double JJ Ranch near tiny Rothbury, Michigan. We feel incredibly lucky to have been among those who experienced this event, and we're bursting with so many things to say about it that we're not even going to attempt to shove all of our text into one post. That simply wouldn't do it any justice. In the interest of being as comprehensive as possible, we're going to post a separate review of each day. There's no way that our words could even begin to approximate the experience of attending, but we'll try our damnedest. So let's start at the beginning, shall we?

Continue reading 'Rothbury Festival 2008 - Thursday' after the jump