The weekend was in full swing, already experiencing a full day of music and misbehaving on the opening day of the 2009 ROTHBURY Festival. Friday was probably the busiest day for me, running from stage to stage to catch bits and pieces of my favorite acts. Among those who performed on Friday, I witnessed sets from King Sunny Ade & His African Beats, Man Man, G. Love & Special Sauce, Broken Social Scene, Damian 'Jr. Gong' Marley & Nas, Flogging Molly, The String Cheese Incident, Chromeo and Girl Tak.

Read all about Friday's events after the jump

The day started off somewhat earlier than my usual festival mornings, namely due to a noon media meeting that I didn't want to miss. The meeting started off bad, with them informing us that only six photographers (out of about 70!) were getting the chance to photograph Willie Nelson, and that nobody would be able to shoot Bob Dylan. While I knew about Dylan going into it, no Willie was heartbreaking. He was the one I was most excited to shoot, and I knew having to jump into the crowd to take some shots would be a pain in the ass (I did it anyway...). They did end the meeting on a positive note, that quickly made up for the bad news – since they merged the media tent with the artist lounge, the bar was free all weekend! I'm not talking PBR and some random off-brand liquor, I'm talking Magic Hat and Shocktop, and top shelf liquor all day. What a great discovery. Karesa and I soon started our day with a few breakfast cocktails (a regular occurrence all weekend...), and got our equipment ready for the first act.

My first show of the day belonged to legendary vocalist King Sunny Ade & His African Beats, the opening act at ROTHBURY's main stage, The Odeum. He had just started his performance as I made my way into the pit to snap a few shots. His world-beat rhythms were quite infectious, and the perfect concoction to remedy the slight hangover I was nursing from the night before. His backing band was massive, but it didn't take away from the amazing vocals and song crafting that King Sunny Ade can stake claim to. I only stayed for a few songs, but it was enough to warrant another show if they ever come back to perform in the States.

King Sunny Ade

I couldn't wait until Man Man took the stage so they could incite the riot that they are accustomed to starting. The white-clad freaksters from Philly had no problem gaining some new fans upon the beginning of their shenanigans at the start of the set. Frontman Honus Honus has undeniably remarkable energy as he galavants about the stage in his short shorts. His impromptu "costume changes," feather explosions, instrument tossing, rafter climbing, rough vocals and overall craziness had the audience staring in awe at the spectacle in front of them from start to finish. Their sound is heavy on the percussion, and even heavier on whistles and kazoos. It's circus music if that circus were to take place in hell – great family fun for all ages! Probably my favorite set of the day.

Man Man

Next up on my schedule, after a stop off at the media tent for a beer (where Broken Social Scene was having an impromptu jam session with the Ice Cream Man), was another group from Philadelphia, G. Love & Special Sauce. I have seen GLaSS on several occasions, even having a brief conversation with G. Love before his show in New Orleans a few years back. His unbridled energy matched with the noticeable love of being on stage makes for the perfect recipe for a great live performance. Their set at Wakarusa last month was one of the best of the weekend, so I was determined to catch at least a bit of their set. They started out with a few acoustic numbers, including one of my favorites,"Rainbow," which was originally recorded by G. Love with the help of Jack Johnson. Knowing that It might have been my only opportunity to get back to camp before the evenings events, I headed on through the grounds and out the front gate.

G. Love

After a quick dinner break back at camp, I found myself swiftly making my way back towards the Ranch Arena. Running from show to show seemed to be par for the course on ROTHBURY's Friday, so it was no surprise that I was in a hurry again. Broken Social Scene started a bit earlier than planned, getting things going with an unidentified Allman Brothers Band cover. They introduced special guest singer Amy Millan, from like-minded Montreal group Stars, to come on stage for a spirited take on the BSS classic "7/4 Shorline." Milan stayed on stage for a nice duet with Kevin Drew on another favorite "Fire Eyed Boy," before leaving the stage to the guys for a few tunes. Set highlights included Millan on "Anthems Of A Seventeen Year Old Girl" and a ripping "KC Accidental" to finish out the all-to-short set. I can't get enough of Broken Social Scene ever since first seeing the Feist-boosted group at Voodoo in 2006, and even though I've already seen them a few times already this year, I'm still excited for their return to Houston in a few weeks.

Broken Social Scene

Once again, Karesa and I were off and running, this time to The Odeum for a much-needed hip-hop fix. The new collaboration of Damian 'Jr. Gong' Marley & Nas sounds good on paper, but was even better in the live format. Nas started the set with a few tracks, including a on-point rendition of Illmatic's "New York State Of Mind." After about four songs, Nas was joined by the heavily dreaded Marley, who instantly added a reggae feel to the show. While Marley focuses more on hip-hop, especially with this new collaboration, he is undeniably his fathers son, and his flows reflected that. This was only the third time that these two shared a stage together, and if it was any indication as to what they could do together, watch out. They should compliment Rock The Bells nicely throughout the rest of the summer.

Damian 'Jr. Gong' Marley & Nas

Irish-American Celtic punk group Flogging Molly were holding up their own party on the other side of the grounds at the Ranch Arena. Switching on and off from Irish love ballads to in-your-face raw punk, FM were definitely one of the loudest groups of the weekend (they met strong competition from The Hold Steady for that honor). With an odd photo policy that only allowed six photographers in, I stood backstage for the first few songs awaiting my turn to shoot. What I didn't actually see, and only heard, was quite nice, but when we finally made it into the pit, they had moved on to their harder, quicker material. It was raucous, but fun – not too over the top. I stuck around only for a few more minutes before taking off towards the media tent/bar to await the days headliner.

Flogging Molly

It was an honor and a treat to be in the presence of The String Cheese Incident during their first public performance in almost two years, and their only scheduled gig of the year. A mighty "Rollover" served as their opener, eventually leading into a clean version of "Can't Stop Now" that found us leaving the pit. One of my favorites, "Miss Brown's Teahouse," guided me through the woods all the way back to camp. After changing into my cool weather gear, and partaking in a few party favors, I headed back into the mix just in time for set two.

The String Cheese Incident

While their first set focused on more bluegrass-influenced music, they brought out mass psychedelia for the second. I walked up during the end of "Desert Dawn," and was amazed at the scene they had created. Their light show was the best of the weekend, but it was all the creative extras that really stood out. Four platforms were placed in the middle of the crowd, and randomly featured illuminated hoopers and dancers. They released a massive set of inflatable balls over the crowd, one being the size of a single story house. Fire spinners, ariel dancers, and even more hoopers took the stage throughout the second set, adding almost a circus feel to the show. An impromptu drums segment found Michael Travis and Jason Hann (also known as EOTO) ripping up the entire set of percussive instruments on stage around them, highlighted with Hann's amazing hand drum work. "Texas" is the song I'd most been hoping to hear, mainly because it is the place I call home, so I was a happy person when Billy Nershi ran through the first notes of the song. The lyric "Get me out of this small town, Texas town..." served as somewhat of my personal theme for the weekend.

The String Cheese Incident

The encore was on point. First, Keller Williams joined the fold for what has been dubbed over the years as The Keller Williams Incident. They performed Williams' "Best Feeling," a number they've done together on numerous occasion in the past. Keller parted after a spirited take on the song, and SCI were soon into a hot version of Stevie Wonder's "Higher Ground" which could have closed the set, but instead segued into "Restless Wind" to finish the show out. I'm not sure what their future plans are, but those six guys should be regularly playing together. Their side projects are all pretty damn good, but none of them compare to the music they collectively make together as The String Cheese Incident. 2010 maybe?

The String Cheese Incident

Right next door at the Sherwood Court, Montreal-based electro-duo Dave 1 and P-Thugg, better known as Chromeo, were starting their own form of 80's-based electro-rock. Giving a shout-out to Michael Jackson early, calling "PYT" one of the best songs ever written, soon Chromeo were off into their own MJ-influenced "Tenderoni," which had no problems getting the crowd moving. While humorously serious, their style is a definite throwback to the vocoder-enhanced dance beats of the 80's. Dave 1 is responsible for vocals and the random guitar here and there, but it's P-Thugg that truly works all of the musical magic. Best friends since high school, Dave 1 dedicated the track "You're So Gangsta" to P-Thugg, pointing out all the numerous reasons why he was so "ga ga ga ga ga ga gangsta." This was the most fun I had during one single set at ROTHBURY. They were so good live.

Chromeo

Keeping the art of electronic music on our minds, we chose Girl Talk as our final performance of the evening. Security was more intense during this set than any other set all weekend. With fifty or so kids onstage dancing along, they had to take every precaution available to limit the chance of a lawsuit. We were almost not even allowed into the photo pit for the first three songs (though somehow we ended up backstage, but left because it was all cops and security and no party...). Greg Gillis, AKA Girl Talk, made his way to the stage, jumping around to the music that he had already started. After making his way up and down the length of the stage a few times and down into the photo pit to get closer to the crowd, Girl Talk finally arrived at his decks (or iPod?), and started mashing like he does best. The Grateful Dead mixed with Lil Wayne, Radiohead mixed with Beyonce, Michael Jackson mixed with about everybody in the world – Girl Talk brought his brand of hipster mash-up anthems to the Sherwood Court for a turn at a different sort of audience. Hippies are known for their love of all music, which works well for Gillis' type of mixing, and it proved to be well accepted with this show pulling in one of the largest crowds of the weekend at that stage. I was much more impressed with Girl Talk than the last couple times I've seen him, and left this set still dancing along as I skipped through The Sherwood Forest on my way back to camp.

Girl Talk

Day two was much more intense than day one. I was running from stage to stage throughout the night, up until Chromeo, where I had the chance to drop my bag and get into the show. That might be the reason both Chromeo and Girl Talk were two of my favorite sets of the day. I made it back to camp around 4:00 am and unloaded the hundreds and hundreds of pictures I took during the day. I finally laid down to bed around 5:00 am with the sound of Fireworks, drunk kids and some DJ (who I later found out to be LYNX) serenading me to sleep. Without even realizing it, ROTHBURY was half-way over. Thankfully, we still did have two full days of music featuring the likes of The Dead, Bob Dylan, Willie Nelson and plenty of other enticing acts to look forward to. Fortunately, Saturday's schedule didn't involve nearly as much stage jumping, so we found ourselves in the bar, a lot.

Stay tuned for Saturday in Review...

-Eggs