I decided this year to attend Riot Fest. It was the 20th Anniversary. I felt the lineup was worth it, perhaps the first time I really felt that way enough to buy a ticket. Over the last several years, I had decided to go to Furnace Fest but just didn't feel I could justify the ticket and other costs associated with making the trip out. With Riot Fest, we live a few blocks away so I don't need to figure out overnight lodging or getting to/from the event. That part was nice...being able to go home at the end of the night and it not taking too long to do so, once escaping the park! I captured some subpar at best footage using my iPhone 14. No professional gear was permitted and often I wasn't able to get myself all that close to see much (and also didn't want to be "that guy" blocking the view of others with my phone if I could help it). I mostly captured clips though I did decide to get a full set from The Pogues. They were one of the main reasons that I wanted to go to Riot Fest.
I decided to not make an intro video but instead collected all the footage that wasn't live performance clips and made it all its own video. In that, I included some of the promotional graphics from the Riot Fest social media and there is a slight introduction piece to that as well as an ending utilizing the graphics again.
09.18.2025 On Thursday September 18th, 2025, Elphie and I attended one of the shows dubbed a "Riot Fest Late Night" show. It was regular time and more or less a pre-show before the fest began. The show was at Reggies and it featured Mac Sabbath with Descartes a Kant, and Mikey Classic. Elphie had really wanted to see Mac Sabbath and so this turned out to be the night to make it happen. It also worked out that I got to see Mac Sabbath because I didn't think I'd probably make it to Riot Fest in time to see them on Friday. The show was good. Reggies was pretty packed for it.
I captured some road footage on the way in to Riot Fest after leaving work quite early in hopes to get on site in time to see Mac Sabbath again as well as the Tossers. That didn't quite work out as I had hoped. The road footage included the city skyline as I drove southbound on Lake Shore Drive and the remnant of the Damen Silos as I turned north on Damen Avenue to get where I would park. I heard the Tossers as I walked toward the entrance but they finished up before I got in. I walked around a bit and captured some footage of the grounds. I also filled my water pack so I would be good for the day. The first act I caught was Puddles Pity Party on "Weird Al" Yankovic's Weird World Stage and I captured footage of "Estoy Sentrado Aquí." As I approached, Puddles was playing "Crazy Train" with Ronald Osbourne of Mac Sabbath accompanying on a guitar of sorts.
I ran into the Smith's as I headed toward the Rebel Stage. They were heading to see Harm's Way on the Roots Stage. I decided to join them and captured footage from "Other World." We all hoped to see the running man but assume that was later in the set.
As I waited to see Agnostic Front, I captured some footage of the news chopper flying overhead. I captured "Victim In Pain" at the start of the album play through by Agnostic Front. They played quite a bit of other tunes as well since they said the album was only 15 minutes long and they were given an hour to play.
I didn't have any real plan to see anyone play after the Agnostic Front set until Stiff Little Fingers. I ended up at the Roots Stage and saw Steve from the Ollie Mob and decided to stick around for ths Senses Fail set, capturing "Buried A Lie." They had a bit of a Ferris Bueller theme going with their clothing and ended with a marching band playing "Twist and Shout."
I headed back to the Rebel Stage to see the Stiff Little Fingers set. I captured "Wasted Life." Stiff Little Fingers were referenced in "High Fidelity" for their influence on Green Day and it was very apparent.
I headed over to "Weird Al" Yankovic's Weird World Stage to see "Weird Al" Yankovic's set but it was so crowded it was nearly impossible to get anywhere to see anything much at all. I ended up at the back of the field and found a slight gap to see through a little bit. I ended up capturing "Word Crimes" during what seemed like a medley of parodies. I stuck around for a couple more songs before trying to move on through the crowd.
Getting back out of the "Weird Al" crowd wasn't nearly as difficult as getting in! I went to the Roots Stage to watch a bit of the Knocked Loose set before heading to the Rebel Stage for The Pogues. I captured "Suffocate."
At the Rebel Stage, I was able to secure a spot along the fence near the sound tent for The Pogues. They were meant to be playing an album play through of "Rum, Sodomy, and the Lash" and had Spider Stacy leading the band for the most part. I was able to capture the entire set! Toward the end, the fireworks went off, assumedly at the end of the Blink 182 set and I captured that as well.
When The Pogues finished up, I followed the crowd to try to leave and it turned out everyone was going the wrong way. Security opened up some Emergency Exits to let us out. I was following a guy who checked on his buddy to see if he was "ok" while leaning heavily and stumbling along. Perhaps he was the one who needed checked on!
09.20.2025
As I made my way from parking to Riot Fest on Saturday September 20th, 2025, I captured some footage of flyers in the neighborhood protesting against Riot Fest. I also captured some footage of the line of folks waiting for an opportunity to purchase souvenirs from the artists. First band of the day for me was H2O on the Radical Stage. I captured "Nothing To Prove" during the set.
As I made my way over to watch Militarie Gun on the Riot Stage, I captured a clip of a statue set up on the grounds. I captured a clip of "Will Logic" by Militarie Gun.
While trying to find a spot I could stand and see Agent Orange playing on the Rebel Stage, I came across HackySack Matt doing his thing. I captured a clip of "Too Young To Die" by Agent Orange.
I captured some footage of folks in their GWAR shirts before GWAR played. I got a pulled pork sandwich while I waited and a Riot Slop called Purple Nurple. It seemed to be advertised as a soda but it was more like lightly flavored seltzer water. I do not recommend. I also went over to the Butter Stamos to capture some footage of the John Stamos look-a-like contest. I ran into Nik Simmons while there. I happened to miss the contest but captured some footage of the winner who really did look like John Stamos. Returning to the Rebel Stage for GWAR, the set had apparently just started and they had beheaded something. It turned out to be an Elon Musk likeness, apparently which offended some folks. I had lost a decent spot to watch from and had to navigate through the large crowd to the other side. I ended up finding Chris and Becky Smith while there. Throughout the set they mutiliated a Trump, a Putin, and a Taylor Swift likeness which also apparently had been impregnated by one of GWAR. I captured "Gor Gor" with a dinosaur battle on the stage.
After the GWAR set, I captured a quick clip of folks who had been in the splash/spray zone as I made my way to the Rise Stage for Citizen. I had assumed it was Citizens, which it was not. I captured the last song that they played which was "I Want To Kill You."
I returned to the Rebel Stage and waited for the Marky Ramone set to begin. I ended up seeing Shawn Browning while there and had a brief chat with him. I captured a clip of "Commando."
I made my way to the Riot Stage to try to see some of the The Beach Boys set. It was pretty packed but I ended up finding a spot to see a little bit and captured "Don't Worry Baby." I left before John Stamos had his moment to take a frontman role.
I went over to the Radical Stage to try to see Dropkick Murphys and it also was very packed. I ended up in the back of the crowd trying to find somewhere to be able to see something. I captured the final song of the set which is a new one called "Big Man" about a guy in Pennywise I guess.
I decided to capture some footage walking over toward the Rebel Stage after the Dropkick Murphy set. At the Rebel Stage, I watched the Buzzcocks and captured "Manchester Rain" which had some lyrics changed to "Chicago Rain" and seemed appropriate with the weather.
I returned to the Rebel Stage and thankfully was able to get a good spot to watch The Damned. I captured the last song of their set as well which was "Smash It Up."
I decided since they were still playing, that I would go over to the Riot Stage to watch some of the Weezer set. I maneuvered through the back and found a spot to see somewhat. I captured the final song of the set figuring it would have some cool ending with the fireworks. It did not. The fireworks went off as they were winding down after playing "Only In Dreams." I made my way out of the park at this point.
As I made my way in for the final day of Riot Fest on Sunday September 21st, 2025, I captured some footage of artists making a graffiti mural featuring The Flintstones and Captain Caveman. There were also some protests and preaching going on outside the gates of Riot Fest and I found another flyer that protested Riot Fest along California Avenue. I had hoped to get on site to see The Effigies but it didn't work out that way. While waiting for the Zero Boys set, The Paradox was playing on the Roots Stage so I captured the last song of the set called "Do Me Like That" from the Riot Stage side as I waited.
I got a far up as I was able during the entirety of Riot Fest for the Zero Boys set which was at a barrier near the sound stage. I ended up capturing a clip of "Livin' In The 80's" and HackySack Matt got a shout out on the next song for being Drug Free Youth.
I tried to get over to Riotland to captured some footage of the NWA Wrestling but when I got there, they had already begun tearing down the wrestling ring. I went to the Riot Stage to see The Linda Lindas andI captured a clip of "Nino" about their cat.
I decided I'd give it a shot to see some of the Hanson set over at the Rebel Stage but there was nothing going on 10 minutes after Hanson was meant to start. It was way too packed to get through the crowd so I went into the trees to make my way. Screeching Weasel began their set and I decided to try to make my way back over to the Riot Stage to watch that instead. Ben Weasel made some remarks that upset people I guess and got into it with someone in the crowd he didn't appreciate for giving him the finger. I ended up capturing a clip of "What We Hate." I forgot that they'd likely play "Cool Kids" at the end of their set.
I went back through the Hanson crowd to go to the Reggies food booth. At the time, I wasn't sure if they had even played yet or not. I stopped by the port-o-potties and heard a couple songs played from the Rebel Stage that I guess were Hanson songs...perhaps even MmmBop which had a guest appearance from John Stamos. After utilizing the port-o-potties, they had finished up so I continued on my way to the Reggie's food booth to get a large Mac and Pulled Pork combo bowl. It was good. I did not get any more seltzer water. Some folks were handing out Garrett's Popcorn bags flavored like Home Run Inn Chicago Pizza. I was given two bags so I figured I'd bring them home to share with Elphie. After getting back through the Rebel Stage crowd, I went to the Roots Stage where Bad Religion was playing a Suffer album play through. I captured "When?"
I decided to walk toward the Roots Stage while IDLES was playing and captured some footage from the area where the sound tent barrier stuck out into the crowd. I captured "Mother" from there before retreating back to the auxiliary speaker stacks barrier where I had set up a couple times throughout the day. I listened to the rest of IDLES from there as I waited for the Jawbreaker set to begin.
Jawbreaker started off their set on the Roots Stage. I ended up capturing a clip of "Sluttering (May 4th)" which was a decent song. I couldn't recall what I knew that they played until they were about halfway through "Boxcar." Oh well.
When it was time for Green Day on the Riot Stage, I waited around where I had been at the Roots Stage waiting to see if there might be space near the front like I did during IDLES. There was not space. I eventually managed to get to the very back and captured clips of "Jesus Of Suburbia" and "Good Riddance" which closed the night. I put them together. I mainly captured "Good Riddance" for the fireworks.
I decided to capture some footage while leaving Riot Fest of the crowd and such. I included some footage of the pedicabs lined up hoping to score riders.
Riot Fest is cool...there are a lot of people. For a lot of the sets, it was hard to get in a good spot to see well without being jam packed in a crowd. I think I could easily listen to music from outside the fences without paying the price and get as much out of it, musically at least, as I did paying to be inside. With this being the only time I have gone to Riot Fest, I don't necessarily have the community that I found at Cornerstone and through that in some ways at Audiofeed...and also at the new editions of Furnace Fest the last few years. That could change, of course, with attending it regularly I suppose, but my initial feeling in the aftermath is I do really enjoy the community of Audiofeed as well as Furnace Fest. I guess we will see what things look like in the future...perhaps I will go back again. I am glad to have had the experience at least. There was another event the weekend before in the Portland, Oregon area called Thunder Fest which would have required more air travel right after getting back from our vacation trip to complete our 50 State goal. I do wish I had made a plan to go to that one...pretty good lineup. I think I found out a bit late though and had already committed to Riot Fest. Again, I am glad to have had a Riot Fest experience and being the 20th year probably made for one of the best lineups I could ask for!
07.08.2025 - 07.17.2025 On Thursday July 10th, 2025, while making art out of some 45s for Bob's 45th birthday, I captured the lightning bugs in the backyard. Elphie and I made a quick video to send to Bob since it was his birthday that day and we were just then getting around to making the art.
On Saturday July 12th, 2025, the idea had been to drive to Grand Rapids for a benefit show for the Hampton's cancer battle. The show got canceled, again. While preparing ahead of time to make the trip, I had told Sally Grayson we'd be passing through and it turned out she had a party going on for her birthday. We decided to go ahead with driving out to Michigan City where Sally's party would be at her dad's house. We got there toward the end of the party and then ate some ribs and cake. Sally decided to drive some of us around on a golf cart to see the property as well as "Grayson Springs" which you have to see (no spoilers here). From there, we decided to stop by to give Bob the 45 arts and hung with him for a bit before heading out to get our groceries.
07.18.2025
On FridayJuly 18th, 2025, Flatfoot 56 got to open for The Adicts with The Casualties at Metro. I got some Gigio's Pizza as I left work then waited on the northside until closer to the doors opening. It didn't seem to make a lot of sense to drive home then turn around and drive back. Anyway, it was a pretty packed show but I got a decent viewing spot in the back on the main floor. There were ASL interpreters on stage for each of the bands and it was interesting to watch them. I ended up capturing the first song from each set. For Flatfoot 56 it was "Live Or Die Trying" and they seemed to pack a good amount into the half hour or so that they were given. I captured "Chaos Sound" by The Casualties and "Let's Go" by The Adicts. It was my first time seeing both The Casualties and The Adicts and both put on great shows!
On Thursday July 24th, 2025, I caught a punk show at Reggies in the comedy shack part of the building. It was a small and fun show featuring The Crombies, Antagonizers ATL, Squared Off, and Fighting For Scraps. Becky Smith was there. Chris was grounded and stayed home with the kids. She had come to the show with Mike Fravel. It was a good show.
On Friday July 25th, 2025, I went to Cobra Lounge for the Fuerza Bruta EP release show. I was wrong on the start time so I went right from work and had to wait around a bit for the start. The start was also a bit delayed. I hung out with Daniel Feldstein before and during the show which was cool. Brick Assassin played their annual reunion show as well and I captured "Ruled By You" from the set. I decided I didn't want to bring the Canon Rebel T6s so I just captured the one song with my iPhone. The Slads, Splatter Pattern, and Criminal Kids also played the show. I saw Tobin Bawinkel also...he had apparently had to deal with some flooding at his place this afternoon before coming out to the show. Overall, it was a good time! Due the storms that had passed through earlier in the evening, as I pulled in, there were some low clouds around the city skyline.
On Saturday July 26th, 2025, we went to the Flex house for their Christmas in July party. As part of that, we ended up with "White Elephant" gifts which turned out to be ok ha! Anastasia played some Christmas tunes as The Uh Ohs. Josh and the kid didn't make it due to having felt slightly under the weather. I captured a tune called "Oh, Santa" which resembles "Beauty School Drop-out" from Grease a bit.
07.27.2025 - 07.31.2025 On Sunday July 27th, 2025, Elphie and I joined Daniel Feldstein at the Whiting, Indiana Pierogi Fest. It ended up being a pretty hot day and Elphie eventually retreated into an ice cream shop to escape the heat. After checking all the booths, I picked one that seemed to be one of the better deals and got us 6 pierogis. I got a pair of them to be strawberry but they were a bit bland, unfortunately. As we left, we walked through a neighborhood with an interesting art installation then down by the train tracks. We encountered a pretty heavy rainstorm after we got to the car as well so we probably left at just the right time.
On Thursday July 31st, 2025 I endured the first of two Lollapalooza commutes back home. During this one, I captured some footage of a helicopter that appeared to possibly have military personnel on board looking to land near Navy Pier. There were also folks being carted around near Lake Shore Drive on golf carts...perhaps VIPs.
August
08.01.2025 - 08.04.2025 On Friday August 1st, 2025, I made my other Lollapalooza affected commute home. On this one I also captured some footage of the Nicholas J. Melas Centennial Fountain shooting into the Chicago River again.
08.05.2025 On Tuesday, August 5th, 2025 Christian Welch worked out a show with the Drunken Donut for himself with John Gold and The Castros. Brennon Waaso and The Painter also played the show. We decided to go, but we got there as Marco Castro finished up playing a solo set. Sara wasn't up to doing the show apparently. Brennon Waaso played after Marco and I captured a reggae tune. John Gold was next. We met John at Audiofeed. Christian Welch played and I captured him talking about meeting John and then went into one of his poems. The Painter closed the night and the clip I captured was a tune than invoked a mosh pit.
After the show, we hung out and chatted with Marco and Christian a bit as well as with the promoter of the Drunken Donut.
08.06.2025 - 08.08.2025 On Friday August 8th, 2025, Sally Grayson had a show at Liar's Club. Being that it was at Liar's Club I knew it would be a later show so I was able to go home, grill some venison, and have dinner with Elphie before we headed up to Liar's Club. Natalie Lynch opened the night and I captured a song called "North of Pilsen." She played a folk style of music. Sally Grayson played next and I captured "Life Heist" from her set. It was one she used in promotion for the show and seemed to have a bit of a punk feel which would be appropriate for the venue. After Sally finished up, there was going to be another band but I wasn't sure I felt up to waiting for them to play. They had just arrived with their gear and were taking their time to set up. We met Sally's friend Nelson, talked to her a bit longer, then we left. It was good to see Sally one last time before she heads back to Germany in a few weeks.
08.09.2025 On Saturday August 9th, 2025, we went to Forest Park to a venue called Bobby's Eastside to see The Castros play a matinee show. They basically played two sets and then had Christian Welch do a poem before their intermission. I captured an extended version of "Forgive Me" which featured Christian doing a poem as The Castros played some experimental/ambient tunes behind him. Christian did another poem that I captured as well then I captured The Castros playing "This World" during their second set. Partially, I captured it because as I waited for them to determine what they were going to play next, Elphie yelled to them to play something that they wanted recorded because I was going to record...making it a bit awkward.
Afterwards, a bunch of us had a "Winchester" at Denny's on Harlem in Oak Park. Marco had an old friend from Costa Rica show up for the show and he also came to Denny's. I believe his name was Michael. We ended up giving him a ride home. During the Winchester, Stasia won the "Battle For Beans" and came away with some Starbucks Espresso roast. It was a good time of conversation and whatnot.
08.10.2025 - 08.14.2025 On Monday night August 11th, 2025, I captured some footage of the rain storm as it hit the neighborhood. I had missed the lightning. During my commute home on another rainy day, Tuesday August 12th, 2025, I captured a couple rainbows while on Lake Shore Drive. On Thursday August 14th, 2025, I captured a rainbow in the Buckingham Fountain mist.
08.15.2025 On Friday August 15th, 2025 I took a short work break to catch some footage of the flybys of the Thunderbirds as they prepared for the Chicago Air and Water Show. One flew really low really fast and loudly over the shelter building! Elphie was ready to return home so I picked her up after work was done and went home. I ate a quick dinner then headed to Reggies.
ZAO was playing at Reggies along with Balmora, Girl Of Glass, and Godseyes. Godseyes had played Audiofeed. They opened the show and I only caught the last few songs. I captured the last song of the set. Girl Of Glass played next. Some didn't seem to care for their banter and such. I ended up capturing a song where they started the set with the flood lights on just as was the case with Godseyes. Balmora played a quick set and asked for the flood lights to be on during the song I captured. ZAO ended the night and when I saw a setlist from one of the earlier shows of the tour, I knew what I wanted to capture from the set. That was "If These Scars Could Speak" from Liberate Te Ex Inferis. I believe it is the first song I ever heard by ZAO many years ago and one I still really like a lot. I was glad to capture some footage of it. ZAO continues to really put on a great show.
On Saturday August 16th, 2025, I tried to wake up early but didn't get moving quite as early as I would have liked. I drove north and found somewhere to part to watch the Chicago Air and Water Show from North Avenue Beach. I didn't save the footage but intended to utilize some footage captured on my CrossTour CR-900 as I drove of some of the flights before I could get parked. I was able to watch about half of the show. I had some inconsiderate folks set up way too close to me, including setting their chair on my foot. Otherwise, it was a pretty good time. I walked back to my car and then drove to Navy Pier for The Great American Lobster Fest. I found that the garages at Navy Pier were full so I found another garage to use just down the street. I got to Navy Pier and got my lobster meal just before the rain began. I chose to eat inside to stay dry. When the rain ended, I came back out waiting for the firework show in a few hours. I walked around to try to determine where I was going to sit and then it began to rain again. I went back inside and this time it REALLY stormed. After a while I noticed an orange glow to the north and the rain mostly had ended. I went back out and captured some sunset colors, the apparent rave in the ballroom, and a couple decent lightning strikes. I was trying to conserve the battery of my phone for the fireworks. There were quite a few epic lightning bolts that I missed. I captured the Navy Pier Fireworks then left to go to my car. It seems there's a chance I might have been able to get out quickly if I had parked in the Navy Pier garages. I retrieved my car and headed home.
I decided to catch the Pittsburgh Pirates game at Wrigley Field against the Chicago Cubs. I drove on Lake Shore Drive to get to the came, and used some footage from my CrossTour CR-900 as I drove through the area of the Chicago Air and Water Show. I also captured some footage of the flights while at Wrigley Field as the flew by including the Thunderbirds. I missed the first inning. The Pirates lost the game 4-3.
08.18.2025 - 08.28.2025 On Tuesday August 19th, 2025, after attending a community meeting regarding the building our men's shelter program plans to move into, I decided to drive by the building and see what it looked like currently. It is currently mostly gutted while construction is meant to be happening to prepare it for our arrival in 2026.
As I left work on Thursday August 21st, 2025, I encountered a large group of folks dressed in white as though they were part of a wedding party. Or perhaps they were part of a cult. Either way, they appeared to be heading toward the lake from the CTA Red Line station at Wilson Avenue.
On Saturday August 23rd, 2025, we tried the new Mountain Dew Baja Midnight at Taco Bell. It's a Passionfruit flavored Dew. This one seemed a bit strong on the syrup possibly. It was quite tart, but it was ok.
On Sunday August 24th, 2025, Elphie needed a check up on her piercings so we drove to Romeoville to Wasted Youth to get it done.
On Tuesday August 26th, 2025, I captured some footage of bad driving in Chicago on my morning commute then a bunch of emergency vehicles around the Wilson CTA Red Line station as I returned home. During the first instance on my morning commute, a semi truck kept cutting off a pick up truck on I-55 and the driver of the pick up truck seemed to have had enough as it finally sped by the semi truck, cut in front of it, then slammed the brakes and drove slowly. A bit later a driver ignored the red light on Lake Shore Drive heading north by the parks.
We set off on Thursday night June 26th, 2025 for our extended trip to Audiofeed 2025. We added in a short Pennsylvania trip that had been intended to happen around Easter but had to be delayed after an audit at work was scheduled with short notice to occur the day after Easter. Yay work/government! The drive was quite stormy heading to Pennsylvania but pleasant heading back west through Ohio and Indiana.
Audiofeed was a hot one this year. Elphie spent a good amount of her time in the air conditioned guest hospitality and Novelty Collective area rather than at Bare Bones. We had set it up to be more flat this year but still had some issues with the wind and the "walls' of the canopy. On the last day, the wind won and we had some of the support pieces in the canopy snap. I will see what we can do about replacing and repairing it for next year. I also had my camera's microphone break at its base due to a wind gust knocking it over while trying to restrain the walls of the canopy. I ended up having to take a dinner break run to the Circle K to get some super glue. Thankfully, it did the trick and I didn't miss much. I also had another drop of the camera while getting ready to leave one set for another but the damage seems to have been minimal. Perhaps there is residual dirt on the lens for a couple of the clips. I am hoping that there are no audio issues or glitches from the microphone. I think the old battery was close to dead and even putting in a new one, it gave the red light occasionally and I wasn't sure if it happened during recording or not. As I work through the footage, I will be finding that out. We also had a couple of mishaps with a citronella candle. It melted while in the car spilling its citronella and wax in the bag where it had been contained. It happened again while leaving and this time it tipped and spilled out into the car which was a mess to clean up. We ended up discarding that candle.
Overall, I think Audiofeed was a good time once again. I captured a lot of footage throughout the week and felt that, in general, it was a bit better than previous work I've done.
I captured one full set each day: Chin Up!, Bloodlined Calligraphy, Blaster The Rocketman, and The Peter Claver Porch Band. The Peter Claver Porch Band features the twins who have been part of the community forever and their mom couldn't make it this year due to hiking the Appalachian Trail so I captured it partly for her.
We arrived a bit earlier this year, using most of that time to set up the Bare Bones. Elphie was the lead on the bathroom volunteers so she did some set up for that ahead of the fest. We also stuck around afterwards for teardown and clean up. I mostly helped gather chairs and tables and put them away and assisted some on the staging tear down as well. Elphie worked on cleaning up the bathrooms. On Monday morning, I helped in various ways after looking for canopy parts in the dumpster to see if anything was salvageable to replace our broken pieces (I gave up...not sure I had the tools or if the pieces would be compatible). Mostly, I tried to collect any trash laying around the various areas mostly populated during Audiofeed such as around the stage areas.
We stuck around Champaign Urbana on Monday for a bit, hanging out with The Castros at Cafe Parasido and then the Allens at their hotel. This led to an opportunity to visit the Polyvinyl Record Company office and warehouse in town which was a cool experience.
Audiofeed had an app this year where the artist list could be found along with the schedules and a map of the grounds. Clicking on the artist would open up a page with information about the artist as well as the promotional photo with this year's Audiofeed theme. The theme had a national parks feel to it.
As with last year's video projects for both Audiofeed and Furnace Fest, I wanted to use the themed promotional photos of the bands for the footage I shared through TigerRAWk. Sometimes, the photo on the app is overlapped with the "back button" so I tried to find if the artist had shared their photo to social media. I was able to get quite a few of those images downloaded from social media but a few I had to pull from the app with or without the back button overlapping it. I assume since the way I overlay the promotional photos, it will be small enough that perhaps the overlapping back button may not really be too noticeable this year. Also, the back button is white and the background of the promotional photos is pretty close to white (though I think it's a cream color of white) that it won't stick out as much.
I downloaded the images that Audiofeed used as both the profile and cover of Facebook. I utilized the cover image for the acts captured who played the Front Porch or were otherwise not included in the app (late additions or emergency fill ins).
The promo and intro project ended up taking quite a bit of time to create. I utilized the Tuned Up Festival Gide and its mascot Hazel the Red Squirrel. I opened the magazine up to the Audiofeed 2025 page then zoomed in on Hazel and switched to a more clear photo I captured. I then took the Audiofeed 2025 themed cover from Facebook and stretched it over the lower portion of the screen trying to make it fit like it was a speech bubble from Hazel. I put the artist promo images and three second clips into this area for each artist I captured. I also took screenshots on my iPhone of the app and used that in the promo to highlight that we had an app this year. I actually intended to include both into the project itself but forgot until after I finished building it all out. I chose the song "Stormchaser" by Terminus Victor for the soundtrack to the promo/intro project.
The first clip I had captured for this project was also in the Spring 2025 project. It was gathering up deer bones I had in the compost to scatter around our Bare Bones site. I captured that footage on Tuesday June 24th, 2025. I also spent a little time cleaning up the bones of the dirt and anything else remaining on the bones.
We left Chicago in the evening on Thursday June 26th, 2025. I reused a clip from the Spring 2025 project of leaving work to get home. It was footage from the Crosstour CR-900 of the Chicago skyline as I drove south on Lake Shore Drive. I also utilized the rear view camera to capture the skyline from the south as I exited I-90/94 to get home and pack the remaining items. I had spent Wednesday evening packing up as much as I could...mostly the heavier items such as the canopy and any items I needed to fit around that. I loaded the tarp first to make everything slide in more smoothly and then the table before bringing in the canopy on top of that. The grill was placed on the back passenger floor. The remaining items were the coolers and personal luggage. I worked all that into the car and managed to wrap the remaining part of the tarp over and around everything. We had no rear view by the mirror. I tried pulling the footage off of the Crosstour CR-900 before leaving. It was the last thing I hoped to get done and figured it should only take a few minutes. Of course, it seems when it comes to technology, something that shouldn't take long always ends up being problematic when trying to get it done and leave or do something else. I finally figured out the problem was the card adapter...I had another one and it worked fine after wasting 20 minutes trying to get the first one to work. No idea why it wasn't functioning (and now I'm not sure what happened to it).
After all that, we got on the road at about 7:30pm. I was hoping to be leaving by 7pm so I guess a half hour late isn't that bad. Elphie captured a couple "leaving clips" as we got in the car and backed out of the driveway. Thankfully, we have a good functioning rear view camera for backing out! We stopped to get some Burger King and ordered Whoppers to eat as we drove. We headed south out of the city and I utilized the Crosstour CR-900 to capture another clip of the skyline from the south as we passed the White Sox Rate Field and a front facing clip as we passed by the CTA Red line. In that clip, one can see the towering clouds that were producing the storms we would be encountering as we drove through Indiana on I-90 and the tollway.
As we approached the Indiana state line, it was obvious in the skies that we'd be in a storm. The mapping system through my iPhone wanted to redirect us south then back north adding hours to the trip only to put us back on the same road a few miles east in Valparaiso. I opted to keep going. The video made the sky appear strangely colored, perhaps a bit green as one is told will occur during tornadic activity. I didn't notice that color with my eyes while driving. As we drove further, everything just got darker. We started experiencing lightning before we got on the tollway and I captured one decent lightning bolt with the Crosstour CR-900 while neared the ticket booth for the tollway. I ended up keeping a few different clips of the lightning as we drove through Indiana.
When we stopped to charge near Elkhart, Indiana, I told Elphie that with having to drive slower through the rain and being behind schedule leaving that we'd not get to our planned stopping area until closer to 3am and offered some alternatives. The plan was to get to the east side of the Toledo and stay in a hotel. I found a Rodeway Inn about halfway to Toledo from the Indiana state line in Wauseon, Ohio and determined we'd stop there, however, I didn't reserve the room so I had to quickly pull off at another rest area to make the reservation before midnight. We crossed into Ohio and stopped to charge at another rest stop about 10 minutes from the Rodeway Inn. I went ahead and charged to 80% before leaving this charger to lessen the time of the next charge stop the next morning. We arrived at the Rodeway Inn around 1am, unloaded that which we needed, and got some rest. We were able to keep our planned departure pretty much the same the next morning.
06.27.2025 We woke and got ready to leave Wauseon, Ohio at 10:00am. As we drove, we encountered a traffic delay as we approached the Toledo area which turned out to be due to a transfer truck apparently overturning. The ETA looked like it might cause some problems for the evening plans to get tattooed in Pittsburgh but thankfully things weren't as bad as it first appeared. We got through the area then stopped at another rest stop to charge. From there, we headed to Sheffield Village near Cleveland, Ohio to charge. We let the car charge for an hour while there and ate at Arby's while we waited. This would make it possible to get to Cranberry, PA to check in at the Super 8 and unload the cooler and some other items before heading into Pittsburgh and then to the South Side. I seem to have lost the footage on the CrossTour CR-900 of the storm we encountered approaching Pennsylvania along with crossing the state line. We always try to capture that.
After checking in and unloading at the hotel, we arrived pretty much right on time at Rock and Forever Roll Tattoo and met with Justun. Elphie captured some Pittsburgh skyline that I used along with the Crosstour CR-900 video capture as we arrived in Pittsburgh and made our way over to the South Side. I had Justun work out a design of a Viking ship for the back of my left calf and it turned out looking great. We discussed the coloring and worked out a plan I wanted the sail to represent the colors of both Denmark and Sweden from their flags and I think it ended up looking pretty good. It was a good time hanging with Justun and catching up. It was another full session getting everything done in one sitting and it turned out great!
After the tattoo, we headed over to the Strip District to get some dinner at Roland's Seafood Grill and see Joe for a bit. Elphie captured some more Pittsburgh skyline footage as we crossed the Liberty Bridge toward downtown and over to the Strip District. We got our usual Lobster Roll and Lobster Ravioli and had a decent chance to hang with Joe while he worked. We stayed until after midnight which was closing time before heading back to Cranberry to the hotel.
06.28.2025 We woke up and checked out at the 11am check out time. We got Primanti Brothers for lunch compliments of Joe as he had free sandwich tickets. I got a pastrami and Elphie got a cheese sandwich. I left a decent tip to cover any loses for the server. While we ate, I had the car charging nearby at Sheetz. We had some good sandwiches then as we got ready to leave, it began to rain. It stopped when I got to the car and I went into Sheetz to get some sodas then to use the restroom. I told Elphie it had quit raining and then it started again while she made her way over to the car. Womp Womp.
We made the drive to Warren, PA and had enough charge to get there without any real danger of running low. I decided to check out the fast charger at Jones Chevrolet on our way into Warren as I read reviews that it was a free charger. It stood to be true! I charged the car to 80% so that I could leave for Erie with a full charge on Monday. We arrived at my parent's house in the mid afternoon. We watched some baseball and ordered a pizza for dinner.
06.29.2025 On Sunday June 29th, 2025, we got up in the morning to go to church with my parents. After church we got a lunch from the new-ish BBQ joint in the area called Hog Wild BBQ Company. We ordered some brisket and pulled pork with a few different sauces. I got pulled pork with a Carolina style sauce. It was pretty good. In the afternoon, Elphie and I went to Wal*Mart with my dad to get hunting licenses as well as the reinforcement stickers for the Bare Bones sign. I also got a pack of adhesive to be able to put the Crosstour CR-900 back on the windshield after the replacement on Monday. Later that evening, Elphie and I went to get some ice cream and Dairy Delite. There were a bunch of geese there. My brother Mike ended up there as well after his ultimate Fris-bee game. I drove Elphie out to Devil's Elbow and a little beyond in the Kinzua Reservoir. Upon returning to my parent's house, as I backed into the driveway, a cat appeared dragging its hind legs. It wasn't bleeding or anything and I am pretty sure we didn't cause it but nonetheless we tried to figure out how to help out. In the meantime, a skunk passed through the neighborhood. I captured a clip of the lightning bugs while my mom tried to find a way to help the injured cat.
06.30.2025 I got up early on Monday June 30th, 2025 to drive to Erie, PA to take the car to Hallman Chevrolet. I had to get the windshield replaced so that I could pass the inspection. Unfortunately this meant I couldn't get the Auto Butler done, again. I was at the dealership all day. There was a third party who came to do the windshield replacement and after that, the car sat for a good amount of time before the inspection took place. Apparently this was the first time that the service department has had to deal with the warranty I had from the purchase of the vehicle but in the end, the windshield was covered by the warranty. After I was able to finally leave, I got the Crosstour CR-900 stuck back on the windshield, however, ended up sticking it a bit closer to the rearview mount and built in camera and sensors than I intended. I can still get to the button to save a clip if needed while driving but it seems to go to the menu automatically upon turning on now which wasn't happening before. I also had to change a few settings back to what I had because it reset a few things, apparently.
We left Warren, PA on Tuesday July 1st, 2025 enroute to Audiofeed. We worked out a route to go through central Ohio and in turn, hopefully see a few friends. We were able to leave with a full charge once again and the weather was decent for most of the drive. We made a very quick stop in Erie, PA...this was mostly for a restroom stop but utilized the charger at a Wal*Mart while using the restroom.
We crossed into Ohio and headed towad Cuyahoga Falls where we would be meeting up with Jon Sonnenberg. We arrived around 1:30pm and got lunch at a restaurant next to a dealership with a charger called Moe's. We each got burgers and had a great opportunity to catch up after a lot of years. Hopefully we can work out visiting again with Jon and his family but not wait quite so many years in between. It was good to see him. We stayed longer than planned and ended up with a nearly full battery again.
Our next stop was planned to be in Mansfield, Ohio. We went to the Ohio State Reformatory again (and I counted our visit as part of the Shawshank Trail) and documented our visit from outside. We arrived right as the tours were closing down at 4pm. I decided to just drive through the city to get to the charger on the south side near the highway. As we did, Elphie wanted to see where I had worked while I lived there. I showed her the old Volunteers of America location where I worked. I had to sort of detour to make it happen. The route I took into the city was not quite where I thought it was. At any rate we did pass by it and it is an empty abandoned building at this point. The program has apparently moved up to the active part of the prison property. We charged at the Wal*Mart south of Mansfield. We didn't need to charge as long as originally planned due to staying longer in Cuyahoga Falls but no one I knew from the area indicated for certain that they could visit with us anyway.
We headed south from here toward Columbus. I had mistakenly put our ETA into the wrong chat...one of the various ones Marco Castro put me in which was an easy mistake since Marco was part of the Columbus area friends chat as well. I corrected my mistake at some point, perhaps when we had arrived at Cornhenge but I can't quite remember now. As we drove we noticed there was a town called Waldo so I documented that. We encountered a transfer truck which had wrecked as well. We arrived in the Columbus area and took the loop over to Dublin to visit Cornhenge. Elphie hadn't ever seen Cornhenge so that had to be remedied. She had feelings about Cornhenge, ha! From here, we went to a charger on the west side of Columbus. It turned out to be at a Wal*Mart across the street from a Culver's so I informed the Columbus folks in case any wanted to make the trip over. Nate and Penelope Rising (Coxey's Army and Toilets of Tour) came out and visited with us. I left for a few minutes to move the car as I had assumed we surpassed the 80% mark, however the app wasn't showing any change. I returned and we hung out for a bit longer. It was cool to hang with Nate and Penelope again!
We decided to get a hotel in the Dayton area that was somewhat close to a charger at another Wal*Mart. We had a few choices that were about the same cost and made a choice of the Red Roof Inn after checking a few reviews. We forgot about a few people who lived in Dayton that we could have reached out to (sorry, Amanda Nowman!). As we drove, we saw signs about a Uranus Fudge Shop location along the way. Elphie researched this some more and it became part of the trip. After arriving at the hotel and unloading some of our stuff, including the coolers, I left to get a little charge to ensure we could get to the Indianapolis area before charging again. I ran into a bit of a problem as the app continued to believe it was charging in Columbus, though the status remained the same. After calling customer support, I was able to get the charger I was at to activate and while sitting and waiting for it to charge, I received notifications that the Columbus charge had ended and only got charged for a small fraction of the energy I received! I went back to the hotel and we rested for the drive the next day to Urbana, IL.
07.02.2025 We woke and began our drive westward on Wednesday July 2nd, 2025. We stopped at Sonic across from the hotel to get some food then headed west with Uranus being our next destination just across the Indiana line in Richmond. We arrived and noticed a large cross next to the building which made me wonder which was built first. We ended up spending an hour in Uranus. We both even ended up having to poop while there. Elphie got a shirt, some magnets to give as gifts and some chocolates.
We left Uranus and continued westward to the Indianapolis area where we scheduled a charge stop at a Pilot station. I had some credits available with the EVGo network chargers and used some of it there. It happened to be across the street from Donaldson's Chocolates. I had intended to take Elphie there during our honeymoon but it wasn't open on Sundays. It was open on this day but we didn't stop or go in.
The route to leave the Pilot station and connect with I-74 to get to Urbana was through some country roads among the corn. We got back on the highway and crossed into Illinois. We stopped at a rest stop which was quite a ways into Illinois which had a "Salt Kettle" on display as apparently some natural salt was harvested in the area.
We arrived in Urbana at the Rodeway Inn around 4pm. We got checked in and unloaded into the hotel what we didn't need to bring to the festival grounds then headed over to Meijer to get some food and supplies for Audiofeed. We also got some Chick-Fil-A for dinner before returning to the hotel to put the food supplies into the refrigerator.
I decided that I would place a second intro video at this point and make it something of a separation from our short road trip and Audiofeed Festival.
We headed over to the Champaign County Fairgrounds where Audiofeed is held, checked in and got our wristbands, then proceeded to set up the Bare Bones area. Elphie also made sure the rest rooms were stocked and ready to go for the next day. Amy Young was apparently going to sleep in the Bare Bones overnight so I had to make sure some things were ready for her. It seemed we had gotten it decently set up and ready that we'd not have much to worry about the next day as far as set up goes. We drove some of the supplies for the restrooms over to the barn location so that folks camping there were set with supplies as well. We headed back to the hotel much earlier this year than last after setting up (we had also arrived in Urbana much later last year). We sadly missed The Castros pre-fest show at the local venue called "The Space" and a apparently some Meijer or Meijer parking lot hangs.
Day 1 (07.03.2025)
We got. up and took our time getting ready for the first day of Audiofeed on Thursday July 3rd, 2025. The first day is technically a half day of programming and had previously been a bonus day or early access day. We packed up the cooler and headed over to Champaign County Fairgrounds. I began to do some of the finishing touches of the Bare Bones then headed to the Novelty Collective and guest hospitality area to give a bag of Pneuma Coffee Guatemala Bella Vista medium dark roast (which is more or less the house blend from when I worked with The 86) for the communal coffee set up. While in there, I ran into a bunch of friends and ended up sticking around for a while. It was an air conditioned space so a lot of people ended up sticking around in there much of the week.
I did eventually come out and remembered that we needed to bring out the citronella candle as well as battery operated lanterns for after dark. The citronella candle had melted and spilled the wax and citronella into the bag it had been stored in. There were a few of the lanterns in there as well as some other items that got saturated in the citronella and wax so I tried my best to clean as much of it off as I could. I went into the guest hospitality to get a spoon to try to scoop as much of the remaining citronella and wax from the bag back into the candle mug. It eventually began to dry again and when we lit it at night, it melted back into its regular form. I then had to try to clean the residual citronella and wax off of my hands which I'm not sure I ever did, ha! After this, the Shaws showed up and we walked down the grandstand area, saw the Hamptons with their ORCS Leather, then hit Road Dog to see Mama Linda and bring some cleaning wipes to her.
Back at the Bare Bones, I ate some fruit and a peanut butter and jelly sandwich for lunch. The Shaws hung around some and Jim visited with us and it was cool to talk to him for a bit. Elphie eventually came out of the air conditioning as well. I then went to the car to get my butcher kit so I could prepare the venison for dinner. I realized we hadn't brought any plates to eat off of so I went to guest hospitality yet again to get a couple of plates. I also prepared the grill for cooking and realized that it was about time for The Other White Meat to play the opening set of Bloodline Stage. I covered the meat the best I could so I could watch a bit of their set before beginning to cook the meat.
The Other White Meat was the second band I saw in 2024 and ends up being the first band I saw in 2025. They are a young metal band and are pretty good. Folks seem to like them. I didn't stick around for the entire set but caught the first few songs before headed back to start cooking the red meat of venison for dinner!
We had our dinner and Karen and Gary Buchanan arrived! The Shaws were also around and hanging out in the Bare Bones.
I decided to go over to Burningtown after I cleaned up from eating to capture some footage of Sam's The Hero. Apparently it was a pop punk night on the Burningtown Stage and something of a label showcase for Small Step Records. They had covered an MxPx song while I was washing my hands after eating. I went to get my camera and captured some footage of their set before it came to an end. The full song I captured had a bit of a ska feel to it.
I had to miss when Chin Up! played at Bloodline Fest in South Bend last fall, unfortunately. I didn't feel I could take another day off from work and so I missed the entirety of the Friday programming. I was glad to see Chin Up! added to Audiofeed and determined it was the set I wanted to capture for Thursday (I wanted to get a full set each day). It did work out and I captured the set as best as I could. Nat Fitzgerald filled in on bass and if you watch closely, you may see Nat licking the bass while performing as well. Even though I have bought considerably less t-shirts in recent years...I did get one from Chin Up! along with another patch to go on something and a vinyl split with Analecta (Sarah and Patrick's other band).
Elphie was out wandering after I caught some of the Audiophile set and while I headed over to see Brave Days at Bloodline, she captured some footage along the Grandstand of the various vendors and people who were out and about. After capturing a full song, I captured a short clip of Eric, the vocalist, crowd surfing in a trash can.
Real Face was playing over on the Burningtown Stage and I went over for the end of the set. I captured the song "Saint Basil, The Great" about their daughter.
I somehow forgot to catch Isaiah Bridgewater when he played the Front Porch at 8:45pm. I lost track of time, I guess, and realized about an hour later that I missed his set.
Terminus Victor is a band I first saw last year at Audiofeed and really enjoyed them. I had captured their entire set last fall during Bloodline Fest in South Bend. I made a point to not miss them this year on the Bloodline Stage and they played another great set. They are locals and it's cool that they connected with Audiofeed and are able to come out to play. I think the photo I captured turned out pretty cool as well (this, despite a photographer claiming he couldn't get any usable shots due to the poor lighting at the Bloodline Stage. In fact I got a few cool shots...maybe I just got lucky. I am no professional ha!). I captured a short clip that had quite the high kick by the guitarist at the end.
Elphie visited the Zambian food truck and found the joy of their Ginger Juice drink. She would end up going back so often that they gave her free drinks and also some food! I got a sip of the Ginger Juice while I stopped in briefly at Bare Bones before heading back to Burningtown Stage for Homeplate. I captured a song that started with the "Do Your Ears Hang Low" tune at the beginning.
I decided to stop in at Tuned Up for the end of the hip hop showcase featuring V8 Vast Change. I captured one of the last songs of the set then V8 Vast Change said it would be some free styling after that. I captured a short clip of a few artists on the stage as well as a kid who came by the Bare Bones earlier who got to do some hip hop dancing with the artists.
ADJY has become an act I try not to miss each year as their sets are a lot of fun. I captured a song as they performed at Bloodline and it happened to be a song after one of the members apparently had a bee in her shirt and made it through the song prior.
Light The Way was the last act I caught and the last act going on this night. They closed out the Burningtown Stage and the Small Step Records showcase. I felt they had a bit of a similarity to Dogwood in style and I enjoyed them.
At the end of the night, we had a few visitors to the Bare Bones tent. Jimmy Riot and his wife, Stephanie, Ryan Getz, Ramona Lillie, Amy Young, and The Castros. It was good talking with them. It had been a while since I last saw Jimmy and we did our best to try to get Triple Stitch to come back to Audiofeed. Elphie wanted to have the restrooms checked one more time before we headed back to the hotel. Some of her team had not arrived causing for extra duty for a couple people. We headed back to the hotel after Elphie was done with the restrooms.
We got up and drove into Audiofeed around noon again on Friday July 4th, 2025. Elphie spent a good amount of time in the Novelty Collective trying to stay cool and captured some footage while she was there. As I made my way to the Bloodline Stage, the guy who set up a ministry for "nerd culture" was dressed as Waldo...and I found him.
I can't say I was a big fan of Slow Coming Day necessarily but I've enjoyed the sets that Orion Walsh plays at Audiofeed. I captured his performance of "Home To You" during his set at Burningtown and a quick clip of "When The Hangman Calls" for use in the video project.
The boss Stewart was at Bare Bones as so was Cynthia. Elphie documented their visits. I had stopped by as well.
I saw that Joel David Weir was scheduled to play on the Front Porch so I made my way over there to catch what was left of his set. Sarah from Chin Up! noticed my Jawbone shirt and explained the shirt I bought from Chin Up! was inspired by the design of the Jawbone shirt. I captured "The Last War" by Joel David Weir.
One of Elphie's Audiofeed restroom volunteers, Aaron Reynolds was playing on the Front Porch so I made my way over to catch what was left of his time. When I got there, he was doing an acoustic cover of Underoath. I captured an original song called "State We're In."
Elphie had captured more footage while hanging around the Novelty Collective as I was venturing around capturing live music footage.
Back at Bloodline, I was expecting to see Godseyes but instead, there was Dead Birds. Apparently Godeyes got confused on the day they were scheduled so the slot ended up going to Dead Birds and Godseyes would play on Sunday at some point. The song I captured was about her grandfather passing on the Fourth of July.
Kevin Schereth, the fearless leader of Audiofeed was playing on the Burningtown Stage. I captured a tune about feet (which was perhaps the title of the song but I wasn't sure).
I prepared our venison burgers for dinner. While I did that, Elphie was capturing footage at Bare Bones, the Food Trucks, and in the Novelty Collective. Elphie ultimately remained in the Novelty Collective to eat the burger once I finished cooking it. I went to the restroom to clean up after dinner and before catching the Rusty Vining And His Friends set, I captured a couple of skating kids rolling by.
After the dinner break, Rusty Vining And His Friends kicked off the night for Burningtown with some good folksy tunes. I captured a song and Rusty used a photo I captured on his Facebook cover.
On the Front Porch, there was a surprise set of Flatfoot 56 songs played by Josh and Tobin of Flatfoot 56 and some of the Deathbreaker guys filling in for the rest of the band. I decided to title it Deathfoot 56 thought Tobin calls it Foot Breaker 56, I guess, ha! I captured a clip of "Stutter."
I left the Front Porch early to catch The Bricks at the Tuned Up stage. I captured a song called "The Red, White, and True" which seemed fitting for the Fourth of July. It's unfortunate that the Flatfoot 56 set happened at basically the same time as The Bricks.
Elphie captured a few pics with friends that I decided to include at this point of the project. They will also be included in the photo slideshow when I process everything for the purpose of saving on DVD for us to watch in the future as senile old farts.
Over at the Burningtown Stage, the Glenn Kaiser Band was playing. Glenn Kaiser also had a speaking session and a solo set the following day. I captured the song "The Day Love Died" and a short clip of "Carolina Moon"
I stopped at the Front Porch for the Toilet Rats set. I captured "Walk The Earth." It was a fun set of synth heavy tunes and the folks seemed to enjoy it. I got in some hang time with Josh Robieson and Jimmy So of The Bricks and Not Ben Shin. Also talked a bit with Tobin and found that Vanessa was good friends with Toilet Rats. She also has a synth based project called Il Neige and so that makes sense. The Officer Negative crew had come through as well.
As I made my way to the Bloodline Stage for Bloodlines, I captured some fireworks going off around the grounds. From the set, I captured a song called "Come and Die." It was one of two newer songs that they played back to back.
After Bloodlines finished up, I captured a song performed by Oyarsa on the Front Porch. They were also scheduled to play on Sunday evening but I guess there was a free space for them to play the Front Porch as well.
I went to Tuned Up to see some of the set by King's X. I think I got in almost half the set. It was a big deal booking for this year and I didn't really know a lot about their music but had heard quite a bit about them over the years and how they had quite an impact on the music scene. I thought what I heard was pretty good. I captured "Alright" and a quick clip of "Black Like Sunday' before moving on.
Bloodlined Calligraphy closed out the Bloodline Stage and I captured the entire set. It had been quite a long time since I saw Bloodlined Calligraphy. I think it was college when I saw them...if not them, it was Ally's previous band (I can't recall what they were called). I thought the set was great and it seemed they were enjoying themselves for the most part. I hope that they can come back again.
Leper was still playing at the Subculture Stage for their acoustic set. They had been scheduled to play earlier in the evening or possibly during the King's X set but they worked it out to play after King's X was over. I captured "Perseguita (Haunt)." Elphie had come down from Bare Bones to hear it as well. I figured since we just had our 10th Anniversary that I would go ahead and captured "Haunt" again. There wasn't much in the form of lighting for the Subculture Stage and I captured the footage from the back of the tent behind the people so as to not block anyone. At any rate it is pretty dark and the volume is a bit lower than almost all of the other footage.
We hung out at Bare Bones after Leper finished up. Elphie would eventually go to take care of the restrooms. I ran over to the Road Dog to get some leftover pulled pork to snack on. Our mullet wearing buddy Lee had made it to the fest so we had some chats. Ryan Getz stopped by as well. Amy Young was there and falling asleep.
When Elphie was done with the restrooms, she was ready to go. She was REALLY ready to go. I tried to get things ready to load up as quickly as possible to appease her. We headed back to the hotel.
I arrived a bit earlier to the third day of Audiofeed on Saturday July 5th, 2025. I arrived to catch Nate Allen's speaking session at the Urbana Theological Seminary on burnout. He wanted the entirety of the session captured which I was able to do for him. I included a portion toward the beginning of his session in this project as well as a performance of his song "So I Run."
I took the session break after Nate Allen and before Glenn Kaiser to visit the communal coffee stand. I wanted to try the Audiofeed exclusive blend from the local shop Elm City Roastery. It turned out I had to buy a bag in order to try it. So I did. I missed the first part of Glenn Kaiser's talk on creativity and thus I missed his handouts. There was a kid sitting in the chair where I had left my camera so I grabbed the camera and stood to the side while capturing some footage. I included a portion of the talk in this project.
I went back to the hotel to get Elphie and hoped to get back on the grounds in time to see some of Visitor Pass. I missed the set last year and hoped to catch it this year. When we got in and unloaded at the Bare Bones, I had to apply the sunscreen and bug spray and then make some adjustments with the legs and curtains of the Bare Bones. Once done with all that, I went to the Bloodline Stage and captured the last thirty seconds or so of the Visitor Pass set. I missed it again! I included that thirty seconds in the daily highlight projects but didn't make a Visitor Pass video. Maybe next year.
I went over to Tuned Up to catch the rest of Loyd Harp's talk about division in culture and the church and shared a portion here. The portion I shared includes a good point about the turning of tables that we're all looking to happen but maybe not realizing the table that needs turned might be our own. Thanks, Loyd!
After Loyd's talk, I caught a bit of Glenn Kaiser's solo set on the Burningtown Stage. I captured some footage of him playing the Diddly Bo and "I Have Decided To Follow Jesus" on a cigar box guitar.
I went back to the Bare Bones for a few minutes then headed over to Bloodline to see some of the set by Valley of Doves. They played a good set and I liked their sound.
I sat at Bare Bones for a bit then went into the Novelty Collective where Elphie was seeking refuge from the heat. We got a picture with Lee. He busted out the old Mullet t-shirt and even let the mullet fly free for the picture! The Audiofeed Pony Club Hobby Horse event was happening in a few minutes which I wondered how that might go with the heat. It seeemed to go ok! Amy Young was the announcer of the shenanigans and "horsing around." Elphie made it down with her horse too! At the end Jonathan Magee jumped over Kevin Schlereth after Kevin Schlereth and Amanda Bernstorf had a spirited race!
As things began to wind down with the hobby horses, I went over to Bloodline to catch some of the Irae set. I captured a song called 7 Horns, 7 Eyes, 7 Seals from their latest release with a guest vocal from the No Treaty vocalist. No Treaty was set to begin over at Tuned Up shortly after the set and Irae encouraged everyone to head over to catch the No Treaty set.
I went to Burningtown to catch some of Taylor Leonhardt's set. I believe through Tuned Up and elsewhere, Ryan Getz had spoken pretty highly of her so I wanted to check it out. I think the volume level at Burningtown was overall lower on this day and I struggled to pump it back up in the editing process so it still remains quite low. I enjoyed her set.
When I got to Tuned Up, No Treaty was still getting set up. Once they got playing, I saw Honz rolling through! There seemed to be some technical issues. The sound would dip out then come back from time to time...I am assuming it might have been a power issue. The band played through though and put on a good show. Some members had experienced travel delays due to a breakdown so it was nice to see that they made it.
Once No Treaty finished, I had intended to get some dinner from one of the trucks. I decided first to go to the Bare Bones. The Buchanan's, Shaws, and some others were hanging out. I set my camera down for a moment to try to secure the flapping end walls but a gust of wind took the fabric from my hand and wacked the camera, knocking it over and consequently, breaking the base of the microphone. I was a bit upset by this. I checked with a few folks to see if they might have any glue but it didn't seem anyone did. I decided to try the Circle K and drove over. Thankfully they did indeed have a super glue and it worked! When I got back I successfully applied the glue and was able to hold it together tightly enough without getting too much if any on my fingers.
While I did this, Elphie captured some footage in Novelty Collective of some Porchlight sets as well as general footage around the grounds including the Grandstand merch area.
After the glue adventure, and ensuring or at least hoping the glue settled enough, I went to the Bloodline Stage to capture some footage of Destroy Nate Allen. I captured in full a song that I think is titled "The Laundry Is The Devil" where the little Allen's played laundry monsters. I also captured a short clip from "There's Death In The Soup" where Jimmy So danced about the stage wearing flowers and carrying flour.
After the Destroy Nate Allen set, I finally got some dinner! I went to the La Paloma Mexican truck originally but no one came to the window to take my order so I gave up and went to Stango Bites for some Zambian meat pies. I got one each of chicken and beef as well as some ginger juice. It was good but sure was potent! I ate my dinner over at the Bare Bones while visiting with Honz.
I went back into the Bloodline Stage to see the rest of the Meadows set, capturing the final song "Barabbas."
I went over to Burningtown to see some of the Turtledoves set. While I was capturing footage, the battery packs ran out! I went over to get some fresh packs at Bare Bones and when I began recording again, the Burningtown staff unbeknownst to them, ended up getting right in my sightline to probably discuss the next act so I stopped recording. I figured I'd then capture the next song...only to find it was the end of their set. Womp Womp. I got a partial clip to share.
Back over at Bloodline I captured 6'10 playing "Cannonball" with a friend taking on guitar duties to make up for skipping a Social Distortion show, apparently. I also captured a quick clip of the end of "Someday, Hun."
Back at Burningtown, I ended up capturing John J. Thompson, or JJT, reading a passage from his book "The Lost Dogs of East Nashville" and performing a song from the book as well. The songs are either inspired by the book or intended to be written by the characters in the story who had formed a band.
This is another one where the audio is pretty low despite my best efforts to pump it up a bit.
I had stopped in briefly at Tuned Up while Lo Cloud was playing but the song they were about to perform was a Sanctus Real tune. I wasn't ever a big fan of that band...and I wanted to catch a bit of The Castros before going to the Officer Negative set so I bowed out without capturing any footage.
The Castros were on the Subculture Stage for an acoustic session. I captured their performance of "Born' and a quick clip of "Tin Cans." They added a bit of their own lighting which helped some for the video capture. I probably could have taken the time to make some adjustments during editing to brighten it up a bit but I decided not to do so.
As I started to head over to Bloodline for the Officer Negative set which had already begun, I was watching the firework show I could see to the north. I apparently bumped my camera or hadn't steadied it well and it toppled over. Thankfully it didn't seem to do much of any damage. It didn't break the microphone off this time. I would notice later that it seemed to have jammed the lens a bit making it more difficult to maneuver while trying to manually focus it. The next day I would notice some mud caked onto it.
I captured "J.C.H.C." at the end of the Officer Negative set. Lots of friends got on stage during the song and made for a fun capture I think. It was the second time I got to see Officer Negative. They had done a reunion at Cornerstone during one of the last years.
I hurried down to Tuned Up so I could catch a bit of the Gileah Taylor set before returning to Bloodline. I was able to catch a few songs, including some of the new ones released a month or so before Audiofeed. I also captured a clip of the Tuned Up Lounge while watching the set. I enjoyed her set quite a bit. It was cool to see some Velvet Blue Music at Audiofeed and I hope there will be more to come!
I captured some footage of the Kid Rave happening in the Park. Elphie captured some as well as a group Novelty Collective photo and Kid Rave footage from the other end of the Park.
Back at Bloodline, I set up to capture the entire set by Blaster, The Rocketman! This was the band I was most anticipating seeing at Audiofeed this year once it got announced. I had never had the opportunity before to see Blaster and wanted to capture it all! I was able to get in a decent spot to capture and felt fairly good with what I got. I used a quick clip of the end of the set during the "Destroy" part where Nate Allen and a few other friends took to the stage in the daily summary video. I also captured Aaron from Cincinnati apparently taking a Blaster nap behind me while I was filming, ha!
I was able to make it over to the Tuned Up Stage for the final couple songs by The Myriad. I caught a show quite a few years ago just after my college years in Akron at the Lime Spider I believe. I recall them being a pretty cool band so I was glad that it worked out to catch a bit of their set. I captured "A Clean Shot" and a short clip of "You Waste Time Like a Grandfather Clock." starting right after Marco Castro tried to start a pit ha!
We didn't get any footage of late night Bare Bones hangs on this night for some reason. I did capture a quick clip of the movie screening going on in The Park as I made my way back over to Bloodline to hang with my friends who remained in there. I had a short conversation with someone who was friends with Skip Brooks because of wearing the tribute shirt.
We arrived for the final day of Audiofeed on Sunday July 6th, 2025. This was the first day to have forecasted rain. When I got to Bare Bones it seemed to have been pushed significantly by the wind and I tried to reposition the legs better. I wasn't having much luck and I think it would turn out that the structure may have gotten bent and perhaps weakened. Elphie went into the Novelty Collective and captured more footage while in there as I worked to try to stabilize the Bare Bones.
I eventually gave up the efforts and went to watch Joshua Crozier's set at Burningtown. I captured a story of a significant injury he endured playing ultimate frisbee and the song that followed. It is again a bit on the quiet side as I couldn't do much to pump up the volume during the editing.
I went over to Bloodline to see some of the Qajaq set, capturing one of the last songs. While there, Elphie texted that the canopy had broken. When I returned Josh Robieson was standing there trying to hold the broken pieces together. Another guy brought some gaffing tape which held for a short time but the pieces continued to move and managed to come lose again. At this point the tent began to lean quite a bit and we weren't sure if it might completely collapse.
After trying to repair the canopy, I gave up and went to watch Zippy Josh & The Rag Tag Band at Bloodline. It was a fun set. I captured "Bad End Of The Bottle" and a short clip of "Salvation Train" from the set.
I spent a bit of time talking with Bryan Hampton before heading to Burningtown for The Peter Claver Porch Band. This was the Hanly twins - Royce and Roirdan. I decided I wanted to capture the entire set because their mom, Christie Patterson, was missing Audiofeed this year to hike the Appalachian Trail. I hoped to send the clip to her while she was hiking in hopes it might lift her spirits if they were down at all during the time. This was a good set of traditional Celtic and folk tunes.
As I left the Burningtown Stage, intending to get some dinner and rest, I heard a loud shout from the Front Porch and remembered the Kevin Schlereth tribute - Sevin Kchlereth that was going on. I got over there and captured the performance of "Tables" and another quick clip. Jonathan Magee proudly flew a pair of red shorts on a stick.
As I went to get my dinner from La Paloma Mexican food truck as all the others had left already, the skies were darkening and rain was visible to the west. I also grabbed a cherry ice cream from the Sidney Dairy Barn Moo Mobile truck before it left. I went to Bare Bones to eat and then the rain and wind began. I think due in part to the damage that had already occurred, the canopy began leaning and bending to the point I was concerned it might either fly away or collapse. I brought the legs down with a little help from Stewart and some other Good Samaritan folks and finished eating in the lowered canopy as it rained. After the rain ended and I had finished eating, I told Elphie that it would probably be best to close it down and load it up in the car. Before this, I ended up entertaining the little Allens as they liked the lowered canopy better, ha! I began to work on tearing down the canopy after a quick restroom break and had it mostly down and taken apart.
We took a break for the Jimmy Riot Front Porch set. This might have been the last Front Porch set due to the weather as another storm was rolling in. Jimmy played some Triple Stitch songs. I captured the hit "Stop, Drop, and RocknRoll" but felt it best to cut out before he was able to finish up his set so that we could get everything packed up and in the car.
Unfortunately, we didn't get it all packed up and in the car before the storm hit We got quite a bit packed up and moved what we could under the roof of the grandstand. As the rain hit harder and the wind got stronger, we at least had everything for the most part able to be held down as we waited for the storm to pass. A kid started talking about tornadoes and that spooked Elphie who ran for the guest hospitality and rest room buildings. I remained and watched the storm blow through. I can't imagine in the event of an actual tornado that a parent would have their kid riding around in it on a bike! Eventually I was able to get the canopy bag loaded and then brought the car around to load everything up. I ended up having mud from the track stick to my boots so now I got nice muddy prints in the car. Womp Womp.
Once I brought the car around, the the barrier was knocked down so it was easy, ha! I caught some of the set from The Uh Ohs at Burningtown. I captured a short clip of the "Under The Sealab" tune and the song "Good Dog Jack" based on a writing by Laura Ingalls Wilder that I think was relatively new. Their set had been rain delayed.
I left to go see Oyarsa at Bloodline, capturing the final song of the set. It was the only part of the set I saw, actually. It was their oldest song which I can't recall its title. Christian Welch did a stage dive during the song that I captured as well and Joe McElroy ended up in the crowd as well.
After getting the fabric into the canopy bag with the frame and forcing it all to zip shut, I loaded everything that I could into the car as best as I could, trying to ensure we'd fit everything for the drive home.
I went back to Bloodline to see the Godseyes set. I also only caught the end of their set but it was fun. One guitarist ended up on the speaker stack. I captured that last song.
I remained at Bloodline to watch Symphony In Peril and captured "The Whore's Trophy" and a pretty good picture I think. I continued running the camera as Shawn Jonas shared at the end of the set for a bit.
After Symphony In Peril ended, I talked briefly with Loyd Harp about how it would have been nice if Sally Grayson could have made it to Audiofeed and played. I think she would have been a really good fit.
I changed into my more intact black shorts and then helped with teardown. I was on the chair and table collection team! We went to each staging area and gathered all the chairs and tables and put them where it was easiest to load up on a trailer to take them where then needed to go...chairs in the grandstand and tables in the building where Tuned Up resided.
At the end of the night, I helped a bit with the tear down of the Bloodline Stage as well.
We found a chest under the Grandstand which appeared to be possibly belonging to a rodeo clown or something. That was interesting. We ended the night about 2am.
07.07.2025 After we checked out of the Rodeway Inn on Monday July 7th, 2025, we headed back to Champaign County Fairgrounds to help with the Audiofeed cleanup. I mostly picked up garbage around the areas most populated during the fest such as around the stages and merch areas. It was pretty clean overall. There were a few other odd things I did to help Kevin before leaving. Elphie spent time cleaning up the restrooms one last time. I also took a look in the dumpster at the other canopies which had been damaged and essentially destroyed during the storm to see if anything was salvageable to replace the broken parts of our canopy but it didn't seem to be the case. At least nothing I could do very easily and I wasn't sure if the pieces would be compatible either.
After we finished helping with the clean up, we headed to Cafe Paradiso near the University of Illinois to meet up with The Castros and some others. We got lunch while we were there and had a good time hanging with friends.
From there, we went to visit with the Allen's at the hotel where they were staying. It was a Hilton but there were three different Hilton associated hotels in that area and we picked the wrong ones, ha! When we got to the right one, we went up to the room and hung out with Tessa and the kids. Nate was doing some work helping the Flatfoot guys remotely. When Nate came up and ate some of the food we picked up for him, he brought up the idea of visiting the Polyvinyl Record Company in Champaign. Someone named Matt he had a connection to worked there and had stopped by Audiofeed for the Blaster The Rocket Man set. It was cool to visit Polyvinyl and I mentioned that I was aware of them due to distributing the Hum re-releases. We had a good time learning about the company and just chatting about a number of other things. Nate and I were given a couple items while we were there that I am excited to listen to at some point here soon. Unfortunately, when we got back to the car and I opened the back door to put the vinyl I received in a box, another box moved that had the citronella candle which had melted and leaked into a bag had again melted and when that box moved, it also spilled out the citronella. It spilled on the tarp, my tripod, and the backseat and door of the car and on me. I did my best to clean up as much as I could quickly and tried to put the vinyl away without getting it messy as well.
After the Polyvinyl visit, I drove Nate to get his van back from a nearby shop where they had to have a tire replaced and I guess some other repairs. While he was inside, I tried to clean up a bit more of the citronella off my hands using baby wipes. I also used it to wipe the steering wheel down and some of the mess on the door. By the time we got back to the hotel, it was getting late and I felt it best that we start heading back to Chicago rather than trying to swim in the pool. We said our goodbyes and headed north.
We stopped to charge at an EVGo at a Pilot station and ate dinner at Burger King next door while charging. Elphie bought a stuff Eeyore to add to the collection of "blue" characters.
We got back to Chicago around 10:30pm and unloaded. I left the canopy and tarp outside as well as a few other things that had been saturated by the citronella spill. I unloaded my clothes and toiletries and we put what needed to go in the refrigerator back as well as some of the cooler packs into the freezer. I was still unpacking as Elphie was ready to go to bed so I finished off what I needed to do then went to bed as well. We were pretty tired out and the next week or so, I continued to be exhausted.
Even though it was a very hot year at Audiofeed...even though we sustained damage from the wind and the storms to the canopy as well as my camera microphone (but fixed using super glue), I think we still enjoyed Audiofeed. Back home I put up the canopy a couple weeks later to air out the fabric. I did it the best I could on my own but the broken pieces of the frame certainly make it unstable. I'm not sure if there are other parts bent or cracking to make it worth any efforts to salvage the frame. In discussion with Elphie, we'd like to continue to do the Bare Bones so I am going to research getting either two 10x10 frames or another 10x20 that seems sturdier. The thinking behind two 10x10s is that it might be more sturdy. We can use zip ties to hold the two canopies together. We will see but expect the Bare Bones to return.
I included a couple pics of the Audiofeed coffee I purchased and the small merch haul. It's also got the items that came by mail while we were gone and the two vinyl albums given to me during the Polyvinyl Record Company tour (thanks again!) included with the merch hall.
I decided to go with a fairly simple credits project. I used the 2025 theme Audiofeed cover picture from Facebook which I used in the promo and intro projects and added text with soundtrack and equipment information as well as a few thank yous to those we got to see on the trip, and a sincere thank you to all who put in the hard work of making Audiofeed happen. This includes those who did so in the past, those doing it now, and anyone who joins up to do so in the future. THANK YOU!
