Rothbury 2009 Acid Trip

It was a warm summer day at the 2009 Rothbury Music Festival. Me and my friend came up for the whole four days to hear all of the music, good music I will ad. Either way one of my main goals for the weekend was to get some legit acid for all three headliners, the String Cheese Incident, the Dead, and Bob Dylan. The first day was mostly a warm up day where there were not any huge acts playing (though I must say the lotus show was in my top 5 of Rothbury, they played the first night). My friend and I headed over to my friends coworker tent where there were some other hanging around. A few minutes after we arrived a guy with long hair approached and asked if we wanted and rolls or doses. At the time I didn't know a dose was acid (and still don't know for sure), but I asked if he had any LSD/Acid. He said "I said I had doses, didn't I"? So then he pulled out a 5 strip of what looked to be little frankensteins on it. I was so happy. It looked and seemed so real. I couldn't wait to test it the next day.

Next day came, it was early in the afternoon and I figured I would take the 2 hits i bought off of the guy. I put them on my tongue, frankenstein side down, and waited..... and waited..... and waited and waited. Nothing. Not one different feeling. I was a little upset. Sure I understood that this probably happened all over the place but I was upset about my own stupidity. Whatever. After I regained my normalness, my friend and I headed to our tent probably around 1:30ish to eat some food. As we were eating another guy approached us. This guy was the shit. He just sat down and smoke us down with some white widdow (he says) out of his chillum that said Bonaroo. He seemed like legit shit. I finally asked him if he had any acid and he said yes. He promised that it was legit and was willing to sit with us until I started tripping. This made me have full confidence in him. I said it was ok and he continued on. I put the acid in my mouth right away. Then guess what? I waited.... and waited.... and waited. NOTHING AGAIN. OK now I'm mad. It's ok though. It's Rothbury so I'm quickly back to normal. We sit at the tent for a while then our neighbors come back and we started talking. They asked what we had been up to and I said I had bought fake acid 2x in two days. Then something awesome happened. As it would turn out our neighbors bought some very legit acid in a large quantity earlier in the day. SCORE. I initially bought three hits (three awesome glorious hits) and took them later before the String Cheese Incident. After about an hour into the show, my friend got hungry and tired and said he was going to go take a little nap. I said ok and told him to call me when hes up. He left. Then the fun started (sorry JH). The acid kicked  in full gear and the show was getting crazy. A bit later HUGE and I repeat HUGE beach balls were released into the crowd of 30,000+ people. Then lit up hula hoop dancers appeared throughout the crowd. Then the mother load hit. A red ball the size of a small house. WOAH! I thought I was tripping but others I found out were also there confirmed the ball size. I was in heaven... literaly. As the show progresed, I saw a very weird thing. It looked like a miniature version of my cousin (who is awesome) but looked like a half wold half human (but not a werewolf). He was dancing around and screaming. I still don't know to this day if he was real. I left the show a little early, just before keller WIlliams came on with the Cheese to do their encores, and went next door to the other big stage. I don't really remember who was playing, but it was still cool. At the end of the music, approximatly 3 a.m., I went back to the tent. Suprisingly the trip was already wearing off (I heard it lasted about 12 hours) but I didn't care. My friend woke and said "Is it over?" and i said "Yes, you missed the defining moment of my existance".

Now it's time for day number 3, or the day of the Dead, or the fourth of July. In the morning I bought another three hits from our neighbors. This time my friend had bought one from himself. He only wanted one because he's a small dude and figured it would suit him (which it did.... kind of). The day went on. We dropped the acid sometime around G. Love and Les Claypool, or the Counting Crowes, i'm not sure. Either way we headed to Les Claypool after we dropped. My friend loved this. He's a big Les Claypool guy so it treated him well. Me on the other hand didn't like it. THe music was freaking me out (and it didn't help that a guy had a seizure behind us and had his eyes roll into his head, we still don't know 100% if it really happened. oh well). I finally said we have to go to my friend, which he understood. We went back to the Odeum (biggest stage) to plant our seats (fairly close) for the Dead. By planting our seats close for the Dead we also saw Damian Marley and Nas at the same distance (seeing how they were on right before the dead). That was cool. Damian broke out into One Love at one point. I guess it is true, like father like son. He is awesome just like his dad. After the Damian/Nas show we sat around for about 45 minutes while the roadies set up the Deads set. Excitment was growing constantly. Then it happend. THe dead was on. The first set was good, although i don't remember much of it. I think they played Sugar Magnolias and Friend of the Devil in the first set, but yet again I"m not 100% on the issue. During set break something weird happened. My friend was getting freaked out because everyone was moving and there was no music (understandable) and I wasn't much help because he said i just sounded like a twirl of words. He asked if  I could take him back to the tent. I remember me saying no, but then again he said i wasn't making sense. He ended up leaving on his own, kind of pissy as well, his story is a whole other story though, which can be found on this same website. My expirience during the Dead was insane. I can't go into detail (mainly because i don't remember) but it was insane.

After the Dead i went next door to Sherwood Court (little smaller then Odeum). MSTRKRFT was playing so I was jamming out. My friend ended up seeing me and we had a heated argument (hard to think about) we were both yelling. My friend left again and I was returning to my tripping state of mind. I decided during MSTRKRFT to smoke a bowl out of my recently purchased Rothbury chillum. While i was smoking i noticed two beams of light. I was like "yeah dude shine that shit" until I saw the upper body of the person. They were two state police. Fuck. My heart dropped. I was scared. Want to know what happened? They said "put it out". Thats it "put it out". i did what they said and shoved it in my pocket and would forever be paranoid that night. Until STS9 came on of course. I jammed out until I was done for. I went back to the tent and crashed. I slept like a rock.

I am honestly tired of typing now so i'll add the Bob Dylan part of the story at another time. It ends with me driving my Blazer home at around 2 in the morning after smoking endless bowls, coming off an acid trip, and eating some mushrooms. Stupid.

In the end it was awesome. I would describe what I was feeling during my trip more but honestly i don't recall completely and I don't think i can describe it even if I could recall. It's complicated. When it comes down to it i suggest everyone trip on at least 2 hits of acid at Rothbury or the closest music festival to your location.