Campout Flashback: Techno Day

Dirtybird Campout is an annual camping music festival that is put together by the San Francisco-based house record label Dirtybird and the infamous Los Angeles-based production/event company, the Do Lab — the company responsible for producing festivals such as Lighting in a Bottle and Woogie Weekend. This year’s Campout took place the weekend of October 7-9 in Silverado, California and the Dirtybird family once again demonstrated to their fans that they can throw a mean weekend-long desert party, full of fun, surprises, activities, and good music.

One peculiar thing that stood out to me about the music at this event is that it was loosely divided by genres while still maintaining the house root of the label as a whole. First day was House day with these artists taking the stage: Sacha Robotti, Walker & Royce, Ardalan, Shiba San, Claude Vonstroke, Billy Kenny, Worthy, and more. The second day was Live Music day, with the performance of Justin Jay and Friends, Paranoid London, Reggie Watts, Machinedrum, Mr. Carmack, and Claude Vonstroke’s real-name hip-hop alias Barclay Crenshaw.

My focus, however, was on the third and last day: Techno day. The Nu Disco/House/Techno artist Doorly took over the stage early in the afternoon to set the right techno mood for the rest of the day. The Spanish producer German Brigante continued to feed in with the light, and chill techno vibe, preparing the crowd to go ham for Will Clarke’s sunset set. Both known to effectively walk the fine line between House and Techno, Will Clarke and later, Kill Frenzy, decided to perform more to the vibe of the day and played mostly Techno in their sets. When Marc Houle took over the stage with his live set up, Techno mode was fully activated. His sounds and the way he manipulated the sound system of the Birdhouse gave the crowd a dark and underground feel. Techno pioneer Green Velvet was the last to take the stage and to no surprise, Claude Vonstroke appeared on stage after two tracks from GV to start playing as Get Real, the techno/tech house duo formed between the two. I was expecting about half an hour of Get Real but almost an hour and a half of Get Real was more than anything I could have asked for. Every Dirtybirders was on stage for a family set to wrap up the event and Justin Martin showed the crowd a perfect way to close out a magical weekend with an unreleased track with lyrics “this is my home, this is where I’m staying”.

Dirtybird Campout was one of the best festivals I have been to and I’m already hyped to be there again next year. Thanks the Dirtybird family for making me a happy Camper.

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