Summer Camp 2010: Early Photos, Links, Videos

fans at summer camp 2010 — © Ned Mulka / The Daily Illini

I was following along with a lot of the action yesterday at the Summer Camp Music Festival currently rocking it’s way through the Memorial Day weekend in Central Illinois. This festival has a special place in my heart given the few times I got to attend and how much fun I had with friends, and I love being able to watch a lot of the great music on Couch Tour thanks to iClips.net. Highlights for me included some seriously raging Umphrey’s McGee sets, including a light-show that keeps getting better and better thanks to Jefferson Waful, and a chilled-out sunshine STS9 set that looked like it got the crowd raging for a night of dancing. I also caught the “St. Stephen” jam in the Gov’t Mule set and it was nice. In fact, I was nicely pleased with everything I saw in the Gov’t Mule set, including the “The Shape I’m In” cover. Ross has been gushing over these guys for long enough that you’d think I’d be paying attention by now…

Don’t forget to watch the second day of the free Couch Tour webcast from iClips.net; I’ll be enjoying a bunch of the lineup today…

SATURDAY
1:00 – Backyard Tire Fire
2:15 – Rev. Peytons Big Damn Band
3:30 – Steel Pulse
5:00 – Slightly Stoopid
6:15 – ALO
7:00 – Umphrey’s McGee
8:15 – Keller Williams
9:00 – Umphrey’s McGee
10:15 – moe.

Here are some links around the internets from the first few days of Summer Camp:

The promoters are Summer Camp have someone blogging for them at their official site, so go here to read all the action so far.

Here’s some local news coverage:
Hello, Summer Campers [pjstar.com]

The teeming masses have descended once again on a little patch of land north of Peoria.

Over 10,000 rabid music fans from across the country are expected to attend the 10th anniversary of the Summer Camp Music Festival at Three Sisters Park in Chillicothe. The three-day music event runs through Sunday.

So check out the latest photos at pjstar.com’s new photo blog, The Eye. And stay tuned as the River City Roundup crew films from Summer Camp this afternoon.

The photos they have posted are an amazing view of the fans and sights around the camp grounds. I wonder how many of these fans are just tripping their nuts off and get to wander home at the end of it all to see that they’re in some Peoria newspaper coverage from the event. Good times.

More photos here: Summer Camp Music Festival 2010 Photos [Daily Illini.com]

I was surprised to finally see some positive coverage of the “crowds” that descend on these small, rural towns; normally all the newspapers cover after the festival are the reports of upset locals.

Nearby at the Super 8 motel, owner Kirit Patel said all of his 36 rooms are booked Wednesday through Monday.

He said the motel is at capacity for Memorial Day weekend 2011 and he’s taken several reservations for 2012. He enjoys the brisk business.

“A lot of people say (campers) come in from out of town and do drugs and cause trouble, but I don’t believe it,” he said. “We’ve had no problems.”

Videos:

River City Roundup – 57 – Summer Camp [YouTube]