I had predicted that CounterPoint 2014 was going to be an amazing life experience with some of the hottest music right now; however, CounterPoint blew all of my expectations well out of the water and turned out to be one of the best festivals I have been to. CounterPoint was my first camping festival of the year, and I showed up Friday night to a family of hometown friends, friends I have met at many other festivals who reside in Alabama, Florida, Michigan and all over, and some of the most free-spirited, energy-filled shows on beautiful, calm hills with pastel sunsets. The roaming hills of Kingston Downs, Ga., home to TomorrowWorld 2013 as well, brought together everyone on a level I did not think possible.
CounterPoint was a large festival, but it still seemed small enough to navigate easily; the four stages—Blue Freedom, Steeple, Hillside and The Underground—were set up in a square formation circling a huge, shade-providing tree with glowing, hanging lights in the branches. Even with all the people, the shows were not crammed and it was easy enough to find friends with the many original, hand-crafted totem poles everywhere. Wick-It the Instigator and Break Science both played surprise sets Friday evening; however, the first show I walked into that kicked off the festival was Pretty Lights at the Blue Freedom Stage. He blew everyone away with his laser light show and regular hits “I Can See It in Your Face,” “Still Night” and others. Pretty Lights, STS9 and Outkast all ended with fireworks behind the Blue Freedom Stage which had everyone jumping and dancing wildly in euphoria.
Everyone was decked out the entire weekend in crazy costumes and light-up toys with the daily themes CounterPoint Colorful!, Superheroes/Villains and Party Animals! The weather was extremely hot during the day and cold during the nights, but the hours between 6 p.m.-midnight were perfect. There was a pour house for draft beer as well as other booths for canned beers, etc. A multi-hammock spot posted up between the Steeple Stage and the Underground Stage where you could see both stages, and there always seemed to be plenty of room to lay out a tapestry and relax. At the main entrance to the festival was also a gong area where one could sit inside and meditate while feeling the vibrations alongside others. Some of the cool art vendors, like Turnip the Beets, followed at the entrance.
The general admission camping was packed pretty tightly; however, walking through the campsites was a constant party. Everyone was always up, excited, making new friends and wearing crazy, colorful attire. During the day everyone was lounging out in their canopies and painting their faces, and at night cars had DJ tables set up with interactive light shows and self-made music playing throughout the campsite. By the VIP and media section, RVs had laser light shows with music and people dancing on top of the RVs. Everyone seemed to come to CounterPoint to relax and have the time of their lives with one-of-a-kind people and music for the soul.
Saturday was my favorite day. The Underground Stage hosted The Floozies, and Griz came out and performed with the group. I asked The Floozies previously what kind of atmosphere they were hoping for at CounterPoint 2014. “A fun atmosphere of course. [We] just want people to listen, dance, have a good time and take care of each other. Our goal is always just to keep pushing our musical abilities and playing all over the world,” they said. I believe they succeeded.
The Floozies
At the Shpongle set
Thriftworks followed with his hypnotic, mesmerizing beats like popular song, “The Touch,” and had robotic dancers onstage. STS9 headlined the Hillside Stage with a great show featuring new bassist Alana Rocklin and hit encore song “World Go Round.” Ott unfortunately cancelled due to illness, so Polish Ambassador was pushed back and given more time; he killed it with more tribal, trance-like electronic music that was hard not to dance to and of course the track “No Diggity (The Polish Ambassador Remix)”; it was one of my favorite shows. Afterwards, everyone seemed to get “Shpongled” in “Shpongle-Land” while Shpongle played for nearly four hours and was truly a sight to see. His visuals were amazing, his energy brought the crowd to an entirely new level of ecstasy and it seemed to be a big non-stop party while Above and Beyond played next door at the Steeple Stage.
It did rain for a few hours on Sunday, but it did not seem to last too long, and all of the shows were pushed back an hour. I heard Flosstradamus got the crowd more than “hype,” and Outkast was by far the best show of the festival in my opinion. Every song they played seemed to be a hit song that everyone knew and could “get down to,” like “Ms. Jackson,” “Roses,” older tracks like “Player’s Ball,” and more, and being that they are from Atlanta, there were a lot of die-hard, life-long fans who came purely for Outkast. Tycho was good afterwards as they played tracks from my favorite album “Awake” and mellowed everyone out while Flux Pavilion brought the life of the party at the stage next door.
Tycho and Flux wrapped up the festival with the nightly Silent Disco still raging until 3 a.m. The Silent Disco was great on Friday night, because there was no line and there were two DJs on stage performing. Exmag was great Friday among the others and I heard that Griz and Minnesota played a surprise back-to-back set Sunday night with Michal Menert closing out the Silent Disco. There were lots of “surprise shows” at CounterPoint which I really liked. Everyone at CounterPoint seemed to have as much energy as they did at the beginning of the festival to the very end, and the campsite never died down.
Overall the festival was great. There were plenty of delicious food vendors like Pie for the People! with more-than-friendly staff. The art booths were cool with Chuck U Art, Grassroots California, pins and more. We also ended up buying the CounterPoint SUN S.P.E.C.K. charger which was convenient and worked well. CounterPoint reminded me of a smaller Bonnaroo, which was nice because there was a lot of room at shows, not too much walking and it was easy to meet people. My favorite part about the festival was that I met people who were extremely friendly, and I even made friends whom I have kept in contact with and hope to see again at Summer Camp, Wakarusa and Gratifly. I have full faith that CounterPoint 2015 will be a blast, and I cannot wait to go. For more information, visit counterpointfestival.com.
