Camp Bisco X kicked off with a bang yesterday with a day of sun, sweat, and noise, punctuated by screaming girls, and streaming laser pointers.
The NewsHouse was there to bring you the highlights of opening day [13] at the Indian Lookout Country Club near Mariaville, including the five sets that made the night.
The New Deal are about to break up [14] and noted that as they began to close their main-stage set. Their first send-off turned into a wicked synth, drum, and bass-driven jam that ignited the crowd into cheers no less than four times before they mellowed out, only to light it up again. "I want you to pull all the energy out of the inner soul of your bodies," drummer Dan Shearer told the crowd before they tore it up one last time at Bisco.
Cut Copy, Bisco newcomers [15], pulled their hour-long set of nicely, visually mimicking a dancier Radiohead as Dan Whitford gyrated onstage and multi-instrumentalist Tim Hoey waved a mop of long hair, took a bow to his guitar, and wailed through their smoky lighting setup. Along the way they played notable cuts "Hearts on Fire," "Out There on the Ice" and "Need You Now" from new album Zonoscope.
The inimitable Disco Biscuits [16] closed the night on the main stage amid brilliant laser pointers, an eight-feet-in-diameter beach ball that mounted the stage, and extended 10-minute jams that colored the norm, not the exception. We can't wait for more from them this weekend.
Meanwhile, Skrillex drove his crowd to near madness on the Grooveshark Stage in his late-night set. Someone needs to let the electro producer once known as Sonny Moore [17] know that smoke, plus epilepsy-inducing strobing lights tends to yield terrible photos. But nothing matched the wild nature of his pounding, screaming throng we might call a crowd (read: mob). Placing him second-to-last was a smart idea — if he had closed it off, we probably wouldn't be breathing this morning.
Lotus put us to sleep post-Skrillex, but only because they went on last, at 12:30 a.m. Their set was colored by innovative guitar-driven jamming and enough smoke to blind someone in the pit by the stage. From Bisco's Grooveshark Stage, Lotus [18] hazily disoriented their crowd already burnt out by Skrillex.
We still haven't seen half of what this mystical field 20 miles from Schenectady has to offer. The next few days should be interesting as we grapple with sweatily dancing bros and ladies and (gasp!) fuzzy WiFi in the media tent.
Nonetheless, The NewsHouse is connected, and you will be, too!
