rothbury festival

I found this great video of Widespread Panic performing "Love Tractor" at the 2008 Rothbury Festival while browsing. It's a high quality, multi-angle clip from the bands official YouTube page. It surely brought back a ton of great memories for me, so I figured a few of you might enjoy it as well. Big ups to our friends over at Coventry Phish and Music Blog for originally posting the video.

Music television actually worth watching - who'd have thunk it? The MTV Network recently revealed that their Music High-Definition (MHD) channel will present a fresh face beginning September 1. The changes start with a new name - Palladia - and continue with expanded music programming. As part of the planned renovations, the channel will premiere a different concert every Saturday at 9pm EST/8pm CST. Palladia also aims to curate "the finest collection of seminal rock movies ever in one place," offering movies every Thursday at 9pm EST/8pm CST.

Palladia will kick off its first revamped week by celebrating "Outdoor Music Week," an event that will feature an impressive roster of outdoor music concerts. Footage from this year's Glastonbury and Isle of Wight festivals will be aired during the first week of September, as will open-air sets from Dave Matthews Band and Duran Duran. But the programming scheduled for Friday, September 5 is what really caught our eye: on that day, Palladia will premiere a special featuring BOT's favorite festival, ROTHBURY. If you weren't able to make it to the inaugural edition of this Michigan musical extravaganza, this will be a great opportunity to see some of the greatness you missed. You might also find yourself compelled to attend the 2009 event - if they include any footage from the Sherwood Forest, this is almost guaranteed.

Read the Palladia press release and view the upcoming show schedule 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

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

Check out images from Thursday, July 3, 2008 at the inaugural Rothbury Festival after the jump