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Only a few days left before Elements Music and Arts Festival in Long Pond PA at the Poconos Raceway. Be aware – if you didn’t get your ticket yet and you want to go (you should want to go it’s the BEST!) the box office is offsite at the Northhampton Community College in Tannersville (NOT AT THE VENUE). For any purchases day of – you must go to the box office off site you will not be able to get in unless you sneak in or someone slips you a wrist band. Now down to business. Elements Music and Arts Festival (“Elements”) is my favorite local(ish) to Philly, PA-based festival. Which also makes it my favorite festival period. I used to say “one of” when Peach Festival used to happen at Montage Mountain in the mountains of Scranton PA – a beautiful area (but Live Nation killed it). While there are many great festivals in PA (the Fourth on the Farm is the first to come to mind), Elements is the biggest by far. And the organizers (while sometimes disorganized with communication) do an excellent job of putting on a large festival and making it feel small – if that makes sense.  You don’t get the usual sense of Hunger Gamesy-ness at most Elements experiences. At least not recently. Other than local cops sometimes harassing, and making arrests even at years prior (beware – if asked questions, do not answer them, no you do not have drugs, yes you are a citizen) the experience at the Poconos Raceway so far has been pretty encouraging. It’s possible that the organizers worked out the kinks in 2022 – at the prior venue. I wasn’t there but it was epic in terms of cars getting stuck, busses not running, apparently it was a total mess. The organizers seemed to manage to get everyone’s cars unstuck, and were able to “Supersize” to the current large venue of Pocono Race Way.  Last year there was excessive rain fall. The organizers even shut the gates on Friday.  Apparently they trucked in tons of woodchips, starting letting cars in at noon, and Saturday went off without a hitch, despite my having seen some of the worst flooding in the Poconos I’d ever witnessed.  Point is, the organizers have figured out a way to deal with some of the worst possible weather circumstances yet still manage to keep the music coming, the people safe, water stations full, and porto’s clean.

-Air Stage, 2023-

In 2023 – right around 11:00 PM during this sick set by Tokimonsta at the Air Stage, replete with side platforms, where fire dancers often perform, or other cool people are allowed to get in and dance, in what looks like a trilevel Japanese Temple in the woods – thunder stopped the set. “Tokimonsta” says “oh sorry to tell you guys we have to take a break things were just getting good. We don’t want to.”  The festival sheltered in place for like an hour while storms passed. Sure enough – right around midnight – quarter after – the shows get going again. At that point, security had to just let everyone back in b/c one night wrist bands supposedly allowed no re-entry (guess what, in 2024 – when the floods hit – that all changed too – re entry all weekend long even for the single days). At the time, myself and my compadres, had taken up in the last days of Covid culinary arts, including bakery skills, so we happened to have some empty whipped cream chargers that we were able to just bring into the venue by hiding them under our shirts. Certainly many of the kind festival goers were also enthused by whipped cream toppings without the cream.  We received some pins and other stickers to boot for our kindness. The Lane 8 set in the rain, with giant balls of fire exploding from fire stage, in a whipped cream haze, was an incredible musical and social experience. Never having been to burning man myself, this must be what it feels like when you feel oneness with a huge temporary community of people, and the sense of optimism that it should be replicable. Well, I would only assume that is the same feeling here (or at least what I felt) that many also experience at Black Rock. I have seen some really amazing sets at Elements. I saw Twiddle rip a hole in the universe (in my brain) in 2022, about a year before their hiatus.

(Twiddle – 2022)

The best thing about Elements is the crowd is really tuned in and gracious. EDM musical fans tend to be really positive (at least most of what I’ve experience at Elements), locked in to the music, and excited to feel free for a few days in an otherwise repressed society. The AV set up is one of the best I’ve ever seen. Plus while Elements is an EDM fest, because of it’s location on the Northeast, close to NYC, the organizers invite some jam-type bands, often those with an EDM flair – jam fans love live music so there is some cross-over into EDM with the jam fans – because EDM is also a live centric medium. When these jam outfits get a chance to play at Elements, they do their best to drop from the first beat because (1) they may be getting some new exposure and (2) these groups don’t frequently – if ever – get the big stadium set up that the 2 primary Elements stages (Fire and Earth) offer, so it’s an experience for the bands too. Kudos to the organizers for putting the jam groups on the Earth stage typically, giving these local – ish / northeast bands a really nice set up to expand their base.  Twiddle ripped it; with incredible visuals; and a set that struck hard from the beginning to end. In 2023, Elements featured Pigeons Playing Ping Pong, Lotus, STS9, as well as Yam Yam.  Spacebacon has been featured in early sets over the years. Solar Circuit has played some early sets as well as Splintered Sunlight. All of the bands listed have roots in the northeast / Midatlantic region, and it’s nice of a huge EDM festival featuring some of the most well known EDM musicians in the world to include some local flair and jam ventures to keep a diversified musical experience. 2024 I had the pleasure of DiscoBiscuits throwing down the most incredible single set of music I’d ever seen from that venture.

Disco Biscuits circa Elements Aug. 11 2024 – Earth Stage. Photo by Courtney Scout. Bisco opened with Pink Floyd’s Run Like Hell and closed with Pink Floyd’s Run Like Hell, for a circular time loop. There wasn’t much singing during the set, it many ways it tracked similar to a TractorBeam in that there were many samples and it felt like you took a trip through an electronic music blender and came through the other side somehow changed. They just went nuts, the lights were nuts, the floating TDB logo circling on the video throughout the show, meaning that the lighting director for the show had band specific effects ready to go, and it was perfectly executed.  For an hour and 15 minutes, you were lost in sound, which catered to both an EDM crowd as well as the TDB faithful which heavily overlap. Please check out the set if you have Nugs.  Look at these show notes they are insane.

At the end of the set, Brownie dedicated the show to their long time lighting director, Johnny R Goode, who had recently passed away. After the Run Like Hell closer, images of a right hand with a missing forefinger was ubiquitous. These are representative of Johnny’s right hand, and were shown in his honor.

Acts for 2025 I am looking forward to – Papadosio on Friday at the Earth Stage at 6 PM. This may be my last chance seeing Papadosio as they are going on an indefinite hiatus and based on the language on their socials it seems like it will be a long time before the same band tours again – if ever. It doesn’t seem like there are hard feelings among the band members, just the many years of touring has done it toll and these people would seem to rather focus on their families (losers!!!).  I Kid I Kid… This will be an emotional experience for those Papadosio fans out there. Sofi Tucker on Saturday, as well as an appearance by Shaq Diesel. Sunday very much looking forward to two sets of Pretty Lights – one sunset and one to close out the weekend, as well as appearances by Sunsquabi, Moon Hooch, and the heavily anticipated sets by Tipper, Deadmaus and Claude Von Stroke.  Some other names familiar from Elements past that I will definitely be checking out on Sunday is Golden Pony – an early evening / late afternoon set at the Air Stage that will get it bumping but nevertheless should be way less of a sardine can than the headlining sets, hence a great time to socialize and people watch before the big guns come out. If you go – make sure to download the Elements App. It’s easy to use, allows you to schedule your events in real time helping you to do your best to keep up. Once the time starts ticking that schedule seems to move really fast. The organizers have invested heavily in the app, with an interactive GPS, and hopefully (fingers crossed) multiple maps that shows not only the venues, but campsites, as well as a heavily expanded “vibe village” experience (with its own map to boot!). One of the most mystifyingly awesome experiences at Elements – while there are 4 “main stages” of Air, Earth, Fire and Water – there are other prominent stages in the main venue. While the “Fun Box” and the “Fun Factory” don’t count as “main stages” (and unfortunately the artists featured there are not listed in the line up schedule, requiring real leg work to follow on social media, etc., but with effort comes great reward), these areas also feature highly skilled club djs, artists and other novelty acts. In the “wub hub” I first saw Hila the Earth perform.  At the fun box / fun factory stage – a locale best described as a glowing life-sized Barbi Dream house but only if Barbi was a raver.  I’m definitely looking forward to making my way up and around the fun box and fun factory to live my greatest day glo life. Last year featured – and hopefully will see the return of – what can only be described as a port potty speak easy.  Yes, amidst one of the main porto potty area was a hidden bar only accessed through a certain twin set of portos.  Only can you access the bar by way of the magic porto potty, taking you through the looking porto.  If all of this plus chemical enhancements (not promoting them nor knocking them) becomes too overwhelming there are wooded areas with art installations, shaded hammocks, an LED mushroom forrest, basically plenty of places to wonder and get metaphysically lost – but only slightly lost physically – or at least in a somewhat controlled environment. The deep woods beyond the venue are barricaded off so even if you’re temporarily overwhelmed synesthetically, you aren’t going to get “lost in the woods” – it’s easy to take some time and find a place to relax at a massive, high energy, music festival.  One of the best places to relax, which is returning for another year, is the Olga Klimtova UV experience feature large scale work by Olga Klimtova. I’ve definitely found myself puddled here needing a welcome break, and getting one, before it was time to go experience more music.

-Olga Klimtova UV Experience, Elements 2024 Other venue installations that sound interesting this year that I definitely want to check out: Twirlpool, Gods Antenna, Rocket, Wook Catcher, Oda Pagoda, True Mirror and Obelisk.  Not sure what a lot of that means but I’m going to find out!

The venue –  while expansive – is contained. The campsites however do create the potential to get lost for hours and I’ve definitely been unable to find my camp site until well after sunrise.  It’s not fun getting lost, and in the past this particular venue created challenges due to lack of access from the north side camp site (think – raceway infield) to the southside camp site (raceway exerior and car parking). It appears the organizers have tried to make the camping maps more clear, and therefore easier to navigate, by naming certain sites in the infield / Northside Camping (such as a Cowboy Camping, Monkey Camping, Party Camping and Clown Camping – all well marked on the map in the infield area).  The Southside Camping area seems mostly populated by newly developed and well marked “Vibe Villages” (more on that below), replete with camp names to boot.  The majority of non Vibe campers will likely be directed to the Northside upon arrival by car, but hopefully there will be mingling between the North and South camps if the organizers figured out how to keep the path open.

In the past, you couldn’t navigate from northside camping to the southside camping (at least I couldn’t figure it out in the middle of the night) because the path cut between the venue, and the venue closes at 3 AM. Hopefully the organizers figured this out. If not, make sure you don’t get cockblocked on the short cut because walking around the raceway to get back south from the north or vice versa is an absolute nightmare and easy to fuck up when there are sick renegade camps going on all night. The Organizers really built out this “Vibe Village” concept in the Southside Camping site – which if you were on top of your shit – you could apply with a bunch of your friends to name a campsite and have a large area reserved for you and your crew.

The Vibe Village appears to be stricly on the Southside, close to the Commuter Parking Lot which is the main paved parking lot from the main entrance (Hulman Drive). It’s also where I’ll be parking before trying to make nice and eminent domain my tent onto a less populated Vibe Villages — due to the likelihood of staying late and crashing one or more nights.  Hulman drive / Gate 7 is also where you get ride shares at the end of the night. Again – these are all things I’ve discovered the hard way over the years and I’m impressed to see the organizers marking all of these areas clearly on the maps, including the named and numbered Villages, all of which are available on the free Elements Music and Arts App.

Some of these “Vibe Village” names are amazing btw — Camp Cunty, Bubble Blowing Babies, Camp Icy Hot, Music Questing Party, Girls Girls and Dirty Theys, Bass Boofers & Goofy Goobers, The Sprouting Buffalo Boofing Wooks, Bilbo, I Dropped the Baggins. Most of these villages will likely have their own DJs, stages, lights and blinkies, and if you’re lucky and inclined, free shots. I would like to think that I will definitely make it to Camp Icy Hot, but there’s a better chance I just end up wandering around, doing cool stuff, and forgetting where I was. No matter what, it’s impossible to have a bad time at this event. It’s one of these experiences that makes you feel grateful to be experiencing humanity at this particular moment in time – for Elements is one of those kooky ideas that makes it elementally good to be a human. Side note: “Wooks” in EDM culture does not have the same negative connotation as a “Wook” in the jam community. A Wook in EDM culture is just like a fan but one who takes it really seriously, for example, dressing up, and sometimes experiencing the music with chemical enhancement. “Wook” in jam culture is someone who hasn’t slept, showered, or combed their hair since tour started. They are stinky, don’t have socks, and certainly no clean clothes. I like that EDM culture has reappropriated the term wook. Jam culture can learn some things from EDM culture.