It’s difficult to cover something like Shambhala and not get personal. Family is about as personal as it gets and, cheesy as it may sound, that is what this festival boils down to at its core. From the Bundschuh family, who owns the farm near Salmo, BC. where this gathering has called home since before it began in the late 1990s, to the assembled masses who make the trying but rewarding pilgrimage there each year, Shambhala is an annual “farmily” that comes together voluntarily in a myriad of creative and loving ways. I grew up alongside this festival, as have thousands like me who keep coming back, many who have transitioned from enthusiastic attendees to embedded contributors and volunteers with their own camp names, traditions, themes, and histories.

I have been to this festival six times over the past 10 years, and seemingly always at major intersections in my life. My first was back in 2004. It was a difficult year for me overall, capped off by my father passing away unexpectedly. Your life stops for a while after experiencing the death of a parent. But less than two weeks after my dad died, with my heart still in pieces, I practically forced myself to attend my first Shambhala Music Festival.

I’d heard about this mystical hippy gathering through my friends and a Kamloops-/Kelowna-centric web forum called Liquidbeat (now defunct), on which many future Shambhala regulars, such as Joseph Martin, JPOD, Longwalkshortdock, Excision, Stickybuds, Heidrogen, Briden, Lyssa, Manousos & J-Girl, Thistle, Toddy Rockwell, DJ Soulfire, Justin Hale, BreO, Amanda Rude, Refix (a.k.a. Trevor Mervyn of Texture & Light fame), and many other players kindled the lower mainland’s passion for electronic music culture so thoroughly it burns brighter than ever a decade after the fact. My buddy Brisko said it was great, and DJ Cassiel was willing to come with me, so off we went. It was one hell of an experience.

We camped directly outside the main stage (now ‘the Pagoda’), where Adam Freeland and Freq Nasty would headline. Drove my dad’s old truck right into the main camping area, a space that no longer allows car camping in favor of overflow vendors and banks of massive generators. I made new friends, plenty of mistakes, and walked away feeling like a new man. I felt a part of a surrogate family, supported without judgement. Having stalled out after my dad died, this was precisely what I needed to get my life moving again.

I went again the next year, and the next year, with more and more people. Then I took a few years off, tried other festivals, and came back to do three of the last four. Some years have been better than others, but it’s always an unforgettable, perception-altering time, a ray of hope in the otherwise cloudy reality of day-to-day life. It still has something I need, a decade after I first found it.

2014 or Bust

Shambhala always tests your resolve, coming and going. Some things are merely due to the universe keeping you humble, like how I was rudely awoken at 3:55AM on Thursday, five minutes before my alarm was to go off, by my cat clumsily walking across my face, or how I smashed a half-full bottle of Kahlua on the kitchen floor just after closing the cooler, which was the last thing I had to pack before my ride showed up. It wouldn’t be a road trip to Shambhala without a few stumbles along the way.

Others can be attributed to the limitations of the environment and/or infrastructure. This festival is run by extremely responsible ravers, but ravers nonetheless. Being mostly dependent on volunteer labor organized by ravers means there is always the odd snag in policy or failure in communication, but everyone tries and usually does their best. The lesson learned is to relax and go with it, not create family tension.

Photo credit: Leah Gair

Unfortunately, there is only one long, narrow, dusty road leading to the farm from the highway, which cannot be easily expanded. I have heard tales of unbelievable wait times on that road. Early arrivals Tuesday reportedly waited between 17-20 hours to get through the front gate and security, and paid handsomely for the privilege. Getting back out on Monday is almost as bad too, so many lines of cars vaguely pointed in the direction of that lonely road. Compounding matters, the dreaded “Shambhalung” follows many patrons and performers home. No matter who you are or how you do it, it takes a lot of stamina to do this thing right, but when the stars align, there is no comparable experience.

My friends and I hit the farm at 1:30PM Thursday, finally made it through security, hauled our gear from the parking lot, and settled in our camp at 9. The core of our camp were volunteers, so they arrived earlier in the week and landed a sweet space near the Grove stage (formerly the Portal, and then the Labyrinth). Unfortunately, I was so bagged by the time we set up that I passed out in my tent before midnight, and didn’t make it out to see Longwalkshortdock in the wee hours of the morning. I have seen him at least a half dozen times before, so I didn’t feel too bad, but the guy always does something different’, something more ambitious, and he’s such an enthusiastic personality. He’s one of the best live performers I know. Seeing him play at the now-dormant Soundwave in 2009 was one of that festival’s greatest moments, underlined when his spaceship metaphorically took off at the end. My musical journey at Shambhala 2014 wouldn’t begin until Friday.

The Weekend Has Landed

Wandering into Rich-e-Rich’s lauded Fractal Forest around 5:30PM Friday, I caught the majority of JGirl & Manousos’s deep-house set from backstage, standing next to Joseph Martin and Dan Solo. Their tag-team mixing was smooth and to the point, their selections laced with funky samples, upbeat vocals, and relentless 4/4 beats that command your butt to groove. It was hilarious to see partygoers jumping onto a ledge in front of the booth, built in the burnt-out stump of an old growth tree, their heads popping up enthusiastically in front of the decks to encourage or ask favors of their selectors. The set was a good waking-up point for the modestly assembled crowd, just getting their sea legs back for the first big night of the festival, when all six stages would finally be open: the Pagoda, Fractal Forest, the newly christened Grove (formerly the Labyrinth/the Portal/Inner Sanctum), Living Room, the Village, and the AMPhitheatre (formerly Rock/Jungle Pit).

Later, at the Pagoda, which always displays my favorite visuals by dint of its clever use of lighting, lasers, and projection mapping, J.Phlip dropped science with a mix of Chicago house and disco expressed through the woozy, emotional, minimal progressive sound heard on so many Border Community releases. Although she did seem to lose a little momentum in her transitions, her equally smart and fun sound left no wonder why she has become Dirtybird boss Claude VonStroke’s favorite touring companion as of late. She betrays complex influences.

Photo credit: Shawn Fillion

Celebrating his 10th time playing the festival, JPOD seemed to temper his typical, absurdly joytastic vibes in favor of edits of emotionally complex pop hits from the 1980s and 90s, like Annie Lennox, Michael Jackson, and Blondie. But, with a few added verses from Dash of the Root Sellers, he still tickled womp glands like nobody’s business. He’s a vibrant performer, so in and of the moment that it’s hard not to get swept up in whatever he’s doing, and he’s a genuinely nice guy to boot. I recall that, at one of Liquidbeat’s legendary Rusty Buckle parties back in the day, he sheepishly gave me an early album he made, a record he vowed never to sell because of the guilt he felt at having relied on pirated software to make it. That’s a wicked testament to the quality of his character. He’s on the level, and his spirit is generous and creative. Gotta love him.

For the day, I was the most stoked to see Benji Vaughan (a.k.a. Prometheus) at the Grove. It was to be the Simon Posford collaborator’s first time in Canada, touring on the back of his best solo album yet, Even Tundra, and it was even billed as a Younger Brother set, just to get my expectations higher. Instead, I was confused to hear someone spinning trap and other thuggish beats in his timeslot, rather than the intricately produced, progressive psytrance and genre-bending electronica with which Vaughan is associated. It turned out it wasn’t him spinning, and I haven’t been able to determine what happened to him.

Opiuo saved the day, though, following up the disappointment of missing Vaughan with a set of mind-melting, melodic glitch-hop. This Kiwi producer has always been great on record, having created his best work yet on his 2014 full-length Meraki, from which he drew heavily for this set. His flow was propulsive, and to hear his quirky psychedelic beats unfurl in stunning detail on that massive Funktion One system, a new acquisition for the recently rebranded stage, was a thing of beauty.

Oh My God, It’s Full of Stars

One of Shambhala’s many great traditions is to see East Van Digital boss Joseph Martin play the Fractal Forest on Saturday morning. He has played that stage at 8AM or so every year since 2004 (yup, I was there at the beginning), and he always delivers a consistent quality of disco house. However, in 2013, he took a cue from his feline-inclined fan base and morphed his set into Caturday Morning Disco, as if he needed to be any more endearing. Stage boss Rich-e-Rich liked it so much he insisted Martin do it again, and so, on this morning, the kitten crew was in full effect, his girlfriend handed out cat ears to anyone who didn’t have them already, and Mr. Disco did his usual thing, punctuated by the odd meow. It’s always a great way to either cap off the night or wake up and face the day, and now it’s that much more playful and creative.

Ninja Tune legend Mr. Scruff threw down a four-hour John Peel-esque vinyl set on the beach at the Living Room, coaxing the afternoon into twilight with his distinctive mix of funk, afrobeat, and all that trouser jazz. He gave a little history as he introduced certain tracks, like James Brown and Alice Russell, selectively toying with the sound. A well-spoken Englishman in his mid-40s, he seemed like the cool uncle you always wished you had. He expressed so much gratitude for the crowd making him feel welcome in his first time at Shambhala, and gave the crowd playful tasks they enthusiastically obliged, at one point making the whole dance floor hop on one leg while waving their elbows like flying birds.

Mat the Alien is practically an institution at BC electronic music festivals, so I made an obligatory visit to his 8PM set at the Pagoda, having missed his set at the Living Room the afternoon before. He’s an immensely talented turntablist, one of the biggest wheels from Whistler, who I have seen many times before. Usually, he’s my right up my alley, but, this time, his selection was a little aggressive for my mood. Gotta give the guy the benefit of the doubt, though. He’s unfuckwitable.

After dark, I attempted to see Ableton Live professor ill.Gates at the Village, but was pleasantly surprised by Jeremy Bridge (a.k.a. Subvert) instead. Granted, his tracks leaned a little heavily on the old build/drop formula, but the Calgary producer makes no apologies for his bass-worship. This is the guy who wrote the book on (or, at least, the track titled) “Speaker Humpin’”, after all. There’s always something primal about the Village, something that makes you want to get a little nastier, a feeling enhanced this year by its newly beefed-up PK Sound rig, and Subvert is the director of the stage and lead designer at PK, so if anyone should know how to tap into that, it’s him. During his set, people tossed around giant beach balls, one of which landed square on the decks, but Bridge playfully shoved it back into the crowd without incident.

Photo credit: Jeff Cruz

To cap Subvert’s set off, ill.Gates came out and played a new tune he wrote with either A-Plus or Mr. Bill. He didn’t say which track won his impromptu audience poll, but, either way, it was up to his usual rib-rattling standards. Apparently, some shmuck had smashed Subvert’s laptop and poured liquid on it right before he was to perform at his original set time the night before, so ill.Gates graciously switched with him. These things do happen, and that switch demonstrates the kinship these guys feel for each other.

Dominating the AMPhitheatre at 11PM, DJ Dan bumped funky techno and chugging house dotted with old school hip-hop and disco samples. “Come on get up everybody,” one of his tracks repeatedly commanded, and there was little case for anyone to argue. The influential veteran’s upbeat pulse borrowed into your chest, and made you move or get out of the way.

I caught a bit of Jurassic 5 beatsmith DJ Nu-Mark at the Village later on. It wasn’t the most impressive of turntablist sets, considering the things I’d seen DMC champion DJ Dopey and VJ wizard Mike Relm do at this festival in previous years, but his track selection was excellent, throwing down good-time oldies and block-rocking beats in equal measure. Everyone sang along boisterously to classics from the likes of Michael Jackson, Journey, and The Beatles. Unfortunately, he went over his set time by a fair margin, and then said goodbye to the crowd by being kind of a dick about it, which rendered the mood momentarily awkward.

Smoothing things over, Kyrian Gineerian of Fungineers quickly emerged and dropped a taste of his distinctive womp beatboxing to ease the transition into one of the zaniest shows of the weekend. The zany antics of neon road warriors Bubble Gutter blew my shit up that night. They went hard for a half-hour of knee-slapping, high energy choreography and puppetry set to the wonkiest of beats, set to womp-tastic remixes of Ween and the Muppet Show theme by the beat chef himself, JPOD. It was possible to imagine that even the most sober Shambhala patron might have had to stop by the Sanctuary to decompress after seeing that.

Although no longer counting two-time Canadian DMC champion DJ Shub among their numbers, A Tribe Called Red tore it up proper in the Fractal Forrest at 2:30AM, their first of two sets this weekend. It doesn’t matter your color or creed, for when you hear their Polaris Prize-approved brand of pow wow-step on such a precise, explosive soundsystem, it speaks to the beating hearts of all our tribal grandfathers, something ancient and primal that struggles to find expression in our technologically advanced yet spiritually stifled modern age. Their politics may get as many headlines as their music these days, but the latter is their sharpest weapon.