Photographer Jake Clifford and I went to Sasquatch! last year with no intention of seeing the shows. We packed light, bringing only the essentials—some blankets, his camera, my voice recorder, PB&J, and a tidy collection of booze and drugs. We didn’t have tickets and we didn’t have money to get tickets. I was hoping I might get to see Ween for free, but I always hope for that. For two days and two nights, we explored the sprawling campsite. We met rowdy drunks, mellowed beauties napping in the sunshine, men in headdresses—you name it. We made a toast over a cooler of Jell-O shots with a guy who said, “I’m getting too old for this, so this year I’m going bigger than ever and then I’m done.”
If you try to use bikini girls dancing on cars as landmarks at Sasquatch!, you will get lost. A riveting young woman from Vancouver Island jumped off an SUV and painted my face, then challenged us to a round of Scrabble in the overflow parking area. We searched, but we never found her again. A blue-haired dude and his brother sold us corn and hot dogs, but when security came and put the kibosh on their barbecue biz, we got it all for free. A girl who had cut the nub off a whiffle-ball bat to turn it into a really long cup dragged me away by the arm so we could go play a dizzy bat drinking game in private. There was music in the air—I could tell. 
All photos by Jake Clifford.
You drove all that way just to hang out with drunk people in a parking lot. awesome?
awesome! maybe thats what i’ll do next year:)
Super awesome!
Awesomeness.
If there’s an article topic that better sums up the Stranger’s online music coverage than going to Sasquatch and just hanging out and ignoring the music, I don’t know what it could be.
I’d party and play with the girls but I would avoid the knife guy. Don’t like knives.
Over the last two years, the campground has reached capacity WAY before the event starts, as the party outside the ampitheatre is drawing way more people than those with tickets.
They changed the policy this year. Every single person in your car has to show a valid Sasquatch ticket to get into the campgrounds. Just FYI for those looking to crash.
Not sure how good the security will be on this matter, but technically you can’t access the campgrounds without a ticket.
@5: Couldn’t have said it better myself.
“If there’s an article topic that better sums up the Stranger’s online music coverage than going to Sasquatch and just hanging out and ignoring the music, I don’t know what it could be.”
Shit was fun when I was 18. Now it sounds like my worst nightmare.
You forgot to take pictures of the 8-AM keg-standers at noon, by which time they are passed out sunburned, shirtless and pink. We called them “dead baby birds”.
Music coverage in the Stranger is clearly no longer a priority.
It’s no Kelly O vs. Detroit but I’m happy with the five minutes I spent on this. Short and to the point. Like it.
I see your from the welfare wonderland of the State of Michigan? thats how they go on honeymoons up there as well as vacations. great concept. like going down town to find a cheap greasy spoon and then crashing a Republican fund raiser to ask “all” of the ugly questions.
It’s all fantastic until the girl in the next tent starts having a bad drug and alcohol combination and proceeds to wander aimlessly and scream inconsolably from 2am to 7am at no one in particular to get their f***ing hands off her. Just as she passes out and you’re finally drifting off for that zenlike coma of sleep, the car on the other side starts blasting MIA and cooking hot dogs for breakfast.
More fun to look at in pictures than actually deal with it… nice photo essay. Really captures the joy and the irresponsible funmaking. Just wish there were fewer people who go and get out of control of themselves to a point where no one else can enjoy it.