Wednesday night we rolled into town and grabbed some dinner at McNelis. The local magazines, like The Current, featured D-Fest on the cover and the waitress briefly asked if we were in town for the event, but other than that, things seemed pretty low key. Thursday morning was no different. As I walked through the vacant streets of Tulsa, I couldn’t get Oklahoma-based Shiny Toy Gun’s “Ghost Town” out of my head, there was just no one around and the tune seemed all to fitting. There were traces of D-Fest setting up, a few stages up here and there, but no other sign of a normal urban civilization. Extremely tired and jet lagged from traveling, we had trouble even finding a coffee shop open past 6:00 and after wandering around, aimlessly following a tip that we might find caffeine inside of an office building that still might serve us, we gave up. We called the cab, which I’m pretty sure was one of the only cabs in Tulsa, which wasn’t an exaggeration because I couldn’t count past one hand the number that I saw the whole week, and headed back to the room. I began to wonder where on earth these 60,000 anticipated festival partakers would come from.
Thursday evening we dialed our trusty cabdriver, who now had both of our cell phone numbers programmed into his phone. He picked up, graciously thanking us for using him, and headed to the Colourmusic show at the kickoff party. There was finally a crowd, all contained within the venue, but still, a crowd! When I woke up on Friday, things continued to pick up a little bit. Vendor tents began popping up and I noticed an array of signs all over town promoting a “Green” and eco-friendly Tulsa. The shows eventually started and as I had assumed, the stages brought out the people. Friday’s evening line-up of bands like Citizen Cope, Delta Spirit, and Ozomatli brought people in and EVERYONE ended up at the Black Crowes. THERE was the crowd that I had been looking for. Citizen Cope had the crowd singing along and dancing and the Crowes dished out their usual nostalgic rock ‘n roll.
Saturday, the festival continued and it was a much more crowded day. It was a stereotypical weekend of music, with the multiple stages and overlapping shows, beach balls flying through the air, funnel cakes, and giant corn dogs on a stick. The crowd was much younger today, partially due to the line-up, as bands like the Black Crowes dragged the older devotees out of the house to rock the evening prior. Plus, it wasn’t a work night, making it easier to head downtown. Blue October and Cake definitely had a more youthful and trendier draw, with the Cake crowd being the largest one that I saw all weekend.
It was easy to conclude that the people of Tulsa LOVE their music. They were so supportive of local artists. Even every underground performer that I went to see had a completely packed and very attentive audience. “Okies” were more than willing to point me in the direction of artists that “I should check out” and could not say enough about their hometown heroes such as the Flaming Lips and Leon Russell. The people of Tulsa had been talking about D-Fest for weeks and were bursting with anticipation for it to arrive. I am sure that countless hours were spent planning their weekend schedules and mapping out which artists they wanted to see. I overheard one group of fans huddled on the curb say, “OK, we’ll run and catch one song of this, then we have to be at the stage for the Cool kids and if we time it right and Joe, you run fast enough, we can then catch the end of Blue October…”
This was not your typical festival crowd. They were all so dedicated. It was hot. It was humid. They were drenched in sweat and then it even rained on Saturday. Still, every band had some sort of crowd assembled, and well before they took the stage. I didn’t experience the usual rude, drunk, and obnoxious festival feel. Even the exceptionally intoxicated found ways to be considerate and apologized profusely as they stumbled into me, and I pretty much had one guy offer to buy me a new foot after ashing on it on the patio of the Dilly Deli. In addition, I haven’t been to many shows where security actually encouraged the crowd to hit beach balls around in the audience, instead of confiscating them. The sponsors even gave them away at vendor tents. Every single person there rocked their ass off and enjoyed every living moment of the festival. I don’t think one person passed by that didn’t have a giant grin on their face, regardless of if they had the help of a ‘mood booster’ in their hand or not.
A few interesting observations: When did tie-dye become cool again? Man I don’t think I’ve worn that since 5th grade. It was everywhere – t-shirts, for sale at vendor stands, there were even I heart Tulsa tie-dyed tank tops at the airport. The hula-hoops were out in full force, but I expected that. I saw a tent trying to sell “Okie Hoops” for a steep $25, but hey, if it’s made in Oklahoma…. Many of the concert attendees were exceptionally fashion forward. Girls wore sundresses and guys clearly spent time planning out their ‘rocker’ attire. There were, of course, the usual festival ‘strange.’ Those desperately seeking attention eagerly chucked themselves in front of our cameras BEGGING for their picture to be taken, which I found amusing because 99% of them did that without even inquiring about where these photos might be displayed. There was a girl that walked by with stretched earlobes and q-tip bouquets coming out of both ears, a guy painted head to toe in a glowing neon green, people dressed as robots, hipsters, rockers of the baby boomer era…definitely the entire array of the spectrum. One drunk kid told me that, “He was here for great music” and then paused and continued with, “There are lotsa ladies here too.” One girl at the Cool Kids flirted her way into the press pit by eventually wearing down a blushing security guard who gave in and let her stand there. I could have watched the crowd for hours, in fact, I’m pretty sure if I added up the time, I did.
Tulsa’s D-Fest may be a much smaller scale than something like a Coachella or Bonnaroo, but I really feel that the attendees probably appreciated the music more than those at the larger festivals, and without that arrogant Coachella or Lollapalooza attitude. D-Fest simply had this raw and organic feel to it. It is definitely an event of the community and locals are extremely proud to support it. The fans knew the words to EVERY song, from the Black Crowes, who are notorious for omitting singles and radio friendly material from their set, to the rapid-fire rhymes of the Cool Kids. People were really here for just the music, OK maybe a few to get laid, but mostly…for the music.
Words by Nicole Jones, photos by Sidney McMullen
