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Visions of Catskill Chill (Gallery and Review)

Saturday

I woke up on Saturday morning and heard about “The Big Storm.” Everyone was talking about it, and since no one at Camp Minglewood had any cell service, I was out of the loop. Later on, I learned that there were tornado watches, there was no live music on the stages, and all the campers should seek shelter from the covered stages. In the end it rained, it was windy, and it lasted less than an hour. Shortly after the rain ended, there were friendly Catskill Chill Staff members walking around with updated schedules. The hospitality rocked for us all, and the staff was able to still fit in all the scheduled artists.

We went to see the Alan Evans Trio, who offered an extended set of raw beats and deep grooved funk, then caught Rubblebucket. Rubblebucket’s singer sounds like a mix between Bjork and Sinead O’Connor. When I got to there I saw these women on the stage dancing in sheets, doing hippie twirls. Then came out the Rubblebucket Robots who traversed through the crowd. I saw lots of happy, dancing faces all around me as I made my way out to go to Stage B.

This set happened to be to be my favorite jam of the weekend. This iteration of Headtronics was a mash up of some of today’s most talented musicians on the scene: Steve Molitz (Particle), Adam Deitch (Lettuce), Freekbass, DJ Logic, Tim Palmeri (Kung Fu) and Jules Jenssen (Indoboxx) . They played no more than 5 songs in their 90 minute set, and it was powerful, it was tough, and it felt like sweet thick jam all over the Chill.

Stumbling out of Stage B, I went back down to the Main Stage to see Yonder Mountain String Band. They were gracious to our hosts at the Catskill Chill, and they were gracious to the crowds with their great string lineup. All 5,000 or more Chill Fam campers packed into the stage area, and did a few fun jigs with the Yonder Mountain String Band until it all exploded into a wild dance party during the encore.

Saturday night’s headliners raised the roof once again to a slamming Soulive show with The Shady Horns playing amped up renditions of “Eleanor Rigby,” “Everybody Wants To Rule The World,” “El Ron” and “Too Much” with Nigel Hall wailing on the vocals.

Stage B was reverberating with Break Science: Adam Deitch (Drums) and Borahm Lee. The livetronica set had Lee spinning incredible tunes while Deitch hit the beats perfectly in union to create great dance tunes. Deitch is a monster on the drums, he played technically perfect and moved with Lee’s programmed beats to enhance the music and amp the energy.