I knew I wanted to hit one more festival or event in 2021, and I just wasn’t exactly sure what it was going to be. I wanted it to be around my birthday at the end of September, which would give me plenty of time to recover from the Tipper Red Rocks trip. Infrasound had been talked up by several of the homies as a top notch festival and some peoples favorite festival period. Prior lineups all looked fire and there was lots of good things being said. Unfortunately the lineup had not yet dropped and tickets were about to go up to final price tier. I ended up snagging tickets right before they dropped the lineup and prices went up. Out of all the headliners Charles was the only one I was hyped for, but that didn’t matter because the rest of the card was stacked with many of my top picks.
Me and my brother headed out for the fest Wed evening and drove north through the night to get to Minnesota from Missouri. We got into a Walmart parking lot in the wee hours of the morning where we would be meeting up with some of the homies before heading into the festival grounds. I tried to grab a few hours of sleep but wasn’t very successful as the sun began to rise. Once everyone had arrived and gotten a chance to grab last minutes supplies we headed off to drive the last 15 minutes or so to get to Harmony Park. The line to gain entry wasn’t too horrible, and I think we got through it in an hour maybe 2 by the time we were parked and unloading.
We had to haul all our gear into the park to set up camp from the lot where vehicles were parked. I brought a collapsible wagon to help, but those things aren’t really meant for heavy duty lifting, and plenty of them met their demise that day. We got separated from our friends when walking in with gear, and didn’t want to waste any time, so we decided on a campsite that was suitable for just the 2 of us. We ended up being right around the corner from main stage along the back path by the lake so it worked out well. After getting camp set up we walked around to get acquainted with the area and were able to locate where our friends had camped before too long.
There were 3 stages total, main stage on one end of the park, the pyramid stage on the other end, and the portal stage on the side towards where car camping and parking was inside of a hanger, then walk in camping was all in the middle of the stages. The portal stage design was familiar immediately to me as the same stage used in the Coalesce New Years Eve event, and they would be projection mapping not only that but the entire inside roof of the hanger. Both main stage and portal had Funktion One sound and the pyramid was powered by Void, we were definitely in for an audio and visual treat. The walk from one side of the park to the other was about 10 min maybe less if you hurried so it was pretty easy to navigate between stages for different artists.
Thursday nights lineup was probably the worst conflict for me. Ivy Lab, Lusid, and Mystic Grizzly all overlapped each other for the last set of the night, before silent disco took over for late night in the portal. I caught Chief Kaya, Vibe Emissions, and Dalek One on Pyramid, before heading to catch some Bricksquash on portal, then ultimately chose to catch some of The Widdler and Ivy Lab at main stage. The first night they were allowing us to roam a little bit with the headphones for silent disco, just asking us to stay right around the hanger and not to leave the area. Unfortunately following nights would be much more strict requiring users to be inside the gated off hanger with the headphones.
Music at the campsite unfortunately was not allowed after hours, and I was forced to even turn off a small bluetooth speaker I had with me. We also had an issue with security asking us to put out a fire we had built, after we just purchased wood from the main stage area. We had a fire ring and clear over head, but security told us fires were not allowed except for car camping and RV area. After pouring water on the fire to put it out and going back and forth with security they did finally allow us to have the fire, and we of course agreed to keep it small and safe.
Friday I was really looking forward to seeing Navigatorz and Ultrasloth for the first time live, both of which played at portal stage that evening, neither one of them disappointed. I also caught Duffrey and Black Carl! on portal. Some other highlights of the night on pyramid stage were DRTY HBTZ and Zen Selekta playing early, then EazyBaked and Veil B2B Notlo Later in the evening.
Saturdays lineup was a killer and one of the best parts was a surprise set that one of my favorite artists, Yheti, was playing main stage replacing an artist that couldn’t make it due to visa issues. We caught some Grill Smith to start the day off then headed to portal and caught a killer Deerskin set. After that headed over to the pyramid stage for Merkury > Lost > DMVU > Pushloop which was a killer ride. We then headed to main stage where we got treated with Ternion Sound into KllBill, which was the second time I’ve had the pleasure to catch Kll Smth and Mr Bill’s collab project. After that we got blessed with the secret Yheti set into Opiuo, then Charlesthefirst into Gjones closing out for main stage. After hours went and chilled outside portal and watched the fire spinners and breathers put on a great show.
Overall I enjoyed my Infrasound experience, the lineup was stellar and the vibes from attendees were on point. I will say the venue is not my favorite with the sound curfew, especially with how hard they enforced it, chasing down anyone playing a speaker anywhere after hours. The people running this festival definitely know how to throw a party, and I will say the projections on the hanger roof at portal stage was some of the craziest dopest visuals set up I have seen. Until next time!