This past weekend a friend and me made the 12+ hour drive from Louisville, KY to Live Oak, FL for the 3rd annual Bear Creek Music Festival. The festival was held in the amazing Spirit of Suwanee Music Park, which is actually designed to host music events with several permanent stages including one of the most enchanting amphitheaters around! The festival is still very young and because of that it offered a very intimate atmosphere with what I heard to be only around 5 thousands people in attendance. We had an absolutely stunning time to say the least.
.
We ended up leaving Louisville at about 3am on Thursday morning, after taking all night to get our camping supplies ready and packed in the car. We finally arrived in Live Oaks at about 4pm that same day and found a prime camping spot right next to a beautiful lake located in the heart of the party. Needless to say we did not end up sleeping much the entire weekend . The festival was being primarily pushed as a funk festival, but what become quite undeniable from the first night was that Electronic Dance Music continues to re-invent itself and expand it’s reach far beyond the traditional club circuit outlets. This was apparent through various “Livetronica” bands/artist like: Alex B, The Pnuma Trio, Break Science, Telepath, and Lotus who all played a substantial role in keeping the party peeps moving over the weekend. Also late at night many tents kept the energy moving by throwing private dance parties in various areas of the campgrounds!
.
The first night we caught a good deal of the The Pnuma Trio PA set which included DJ Alex B spinning his glitchy hip-hop tracks while Lane Shaw threw down on drums. Alex B truly has a lot of love for his fans and kept the energy up all night to the point of refusing to get off stage even one second early! The performance was jam packed with people getting down on the dance floor, yet it was not until Friday night that the party really got going!
.
The first performance that blew me away was RV’s friends Telepath. I had seen these guys before at the Brown Theatre but their performance at Bear Creek was on a whole new level. First and foremost they played in the Purple Hat Tent which quickly became my favorite stage of the festival. Lets just say the budget for that tent must have been outrageous because they had some of the sickest lights that I have ever seen with a sound system that rumbled your chest and rattled your brain! The bass player in Telepath, Curt, was obviously having an absolute blast on stage and seemed to really appreciate the phenomenal lighting design work which was elevating their performance to new heights! The band truly killed it and the crowd gave the love right back to them for their multi-cultural downtempo & dub tunes!
.

.
The other performance that truly stood out was The Pnuma Trio in the Purple Hat Tent on Saturday night. I had only heard The Pnuma Trio on CD and thought it was pretty good, but when I saw them live it was stunning. Without question I really believe they have the best light show I have ever seen from any performer. I know that is a bold statement but they were just incredibly well thought out, creating a perfect landscape for the music. Their playing was fantastic too with hard driving synth melodies backed by booming bass and ridiculous machine like drum beats. The fans turned the tent into an epic rave for an intense 1.5 hours. Some other highlights for me include Perpetual Groove and especially The New Mastersounds, who are the funkiest chaps from Leeds UK that God has ever given us! It impossible to describe how much soul and energy these guys exude on stage. Simply put, they are as pure as funk gets. Plus they are funny as hell and make everyone feel like a family by blurring the gap between performer and fan. As you might imagine, it was a down and dirty groove fest in that crowd!
.
One other thing that I loved about this festival was the humbleness of all the artist, as well as their eagerness to collaborate with each other. There was not a real headliner at the festival to me. I mean there were bigger names than others, but it seemed like everyone was just there to freakin tear it up on stage and not worry about who played where, at what time, and for how long. All of the artist were just genuinely happy to be playing music to the fans. The festival also came up with such a brilliant idea which more festivals should think about. The concept was called “Artist at Large” and basically what it meant was that there would be a few musicians who were simply there to sit in with other bands. My favorite was Skerik. This guy is not only one of the most ridiculous saxophone players you will find, but has a stage personality to match . He makes the saxophone into a mythical beast by creating noises that are out of this world, and he can wail on that thing too. Needless to say I enjoyed every time Skerik walked on stage and he did for almost every performance I saw!
.
There were only two issues, if you can really call them issues, that I had with the festival. These are by no means geared in anger or disrespect towards Paul Levine, Suwanee Park or anyone else involved in putting on the event. Honestly I can not thank you all enough for taking the time and effort to put together such a wonderful festival. One issue is that there was an abrasive undercover police presence at the event. I really feel police are to serve one purpose at events like this, which is to keep peace and protect people, not abuse their power and disrupt a perfectly pleasant event. It is a real shame when authority over-reaches its grasp like this. I personally never ran into any type of issue at all with them, and had an absolute blast the entire weekend. I will also say Paul Levine was incredible at making sure people were safe by telling them there were undercovers around (like they are at all festivals), and organized a crew that went around educating people on their rights while giving them tips on how to avoid getting into any trouble. It is absolutely beautiful to have a promoter who cares so deeply about protecting his fans and making sure everyone has a amazing time.  It was not by any means the festivals fault, but more of an over zealous police department issue.
.

The second issue is really not a big deal at all, almost more of a blessing in my view. The Purple Hat Tent had several technical issues that caused a lot of the shows to start close to 30-40 minutes late, but this was only because Bear Creek over-stretched the sound guys by giving the fans as much music as possible via Zach Deputy (Keller Williams meets Michael Jackson) who  played on a little side stage between set changes. I am actually really glad they did this because I probably would have never seen Zach and he blew my mind. They were also extremely more accommodating than any festival I have ever been to. They allowed the artist to play past their given time slot if they had started late. To be frank if these are the only issues Bear Creek had, I truly believe it might be one of the best run festivals around!
.
Overall the festival was one of the best experiences I have ever had period and I really hope that I can make it back to Bear Creek Music Festival next year. Once again thanks so much to Paul Levine, Spirit of the Suwanee Music Park and everyone else who made this event possible. I learned that Electronic Dance Music continues to be re-invented by bridging itself with a wide spectrum of musical realms. It is growing faster than ever before making it literally impossible to escape, even when your in the middle of nowhere camping out! This festival is one not to pass up for any dance music fans!
.
John “The Grizz” Grisanti

Tags: Alex B, Bear Creek Music Festival, DJs, Livetronica, Lotus, Paul Levine, Telepath, The Pnuma Trio