Wonderbus Festival - My Review of the Festival's Inaugural Year
I think the first time that I heard of Wonderbus Festival was when I saw Walk The Moon post something about it on social media about their headlining spot. Needless to say, I was excited that they were playing in Columbus again. However, that wasn't the only thing that made me want to go to the festival. Andrew McMahon in the Wilderness was also on Saturday's bill, who I also enjoy listening to (even though I'm a new listener). Then there was the fact that I had never been to a music festival before. I don't know how well I would do at a huge music festival like Bonnaroo or Firefly, or even something smaller like Bunberry Music Festival in Cincinnati. I thought that since this is smaller than all of those festivals, that it would be a good first music festival for me to go to. Then it came down to whether I would rather pay for a ticket for that, or for Gabriel Iglesias at the Ohio State Fair. Both tickets were about the same price. The deciding factor was the fact that with Gabriel Iglesias, it would be a few hours of entertainment. With Wonderbus, it was an entire day of music for $55. Based on the title of this post, I think it's pretty obvious which one I went with.
Date/City: Columbus, Ohio - August 17th
Venue: The Lawn at CAS [Chemical Abstract Services]
With it being the first year of the festival, I think it's safe to say that there was definitely some uncertainty in how it was all going to go down. One area I think that there was potential for a lot of uncertainty is the location of the music festival. The location of a music festival is really important because it needs to be able to hold at least a few thousand people, there needs to be room for people to walk around, there needs to be room for vendors, bathrooms, and of course the stages. If the venue if too small, then there won't be enough room for all of those things. If it ends up being too big, then the festival is going to seem empty, which can have a negative effect on the overall feel of the festival. I think the people who planned Wonderbus really hit a homerun with their choice of venue. The Lawn at CAS was the perfect place to hold it. It was crowded for sure, but it wasn't overcrowded. It was compact, but it still felt open. It was exactly how I anticipated it feeling. The CAS Lawn has also proven itself as a viable concert venue in the past as well, having been home to Picnic With the Pops with the Columbus Symphony Orchestra. In addition to it having plenty of room for people to walk around, there was also plenty of onsite parking, with additional parking available within walking distance of the festival grounds once onsite parking was full. I also like that it was near civilization but still in an area where it felt private and secluded. The Lawn at CAS proved to be a great place for something like this, and I hope to see more music events take place there in the future.
The Festival Layout:
I checked about once every week starting about 2 months before the festival to see if the festival map had been posted. Since it was the first year of this thing, no one going knew what the layout was going to be like. Once the map finally got posted, I was kind of surprised by it. It had the two main stages (Music Elevates Stage and River Stage) side-by-side, with a third small stage (Crook and Marker Stage) off around the corner from it. I knew that they had relatively limited space, but I wasn't expecting that. At first I thought that it was going to be kind of a pain with both big stages right side-by-side to each other. However, it turned out to actually be quite strategic. There was never a point that there was an act on both big stages at the same time. So it proved to be a very efficient way to not only let crowds go from one stage to another with ease to see each act, but also save space by putting the soundboards for both stages in one places. The Bathrooms were off in one corner of the festival grounds, and out of the way so that the lines for them didn't interfere with any of the festivities. All of the food vendors were placed near the entrance of the grounds, as well as the various craft vendors. There were also water refill stations placed around the grounds as well to give easy access to people who needed it.
The Atmosphere:
This may sound like a strange thing to some, but the way I see it this is a vital part of any music festival. If the atmosphere is stiff at a music festival, then that could have a negative effect on the way that people enjoy it. Thankfully this wasn't the case. Wonderbus had such a perfect feel to it. It was extremely laid back, uncommonly friendly, and could put a smile on the face of a person even in the most bitter of moods. The people there were really easy to talk to, which is really saying something coming from a guy who finds it difficult to walk up to a random stranger and strike up a conversation. I wish I had more to say about this, but I can't think of anything else. The atmosphere of the festival was so positive, loving, and carefree. It provided a place for people to forget about all the negative crap in the world for a day or two, which is something we all need every once in a while.
The Acts:
I did not see all of the acts that performed on Saturday, so I'll just be writing about the ones that I did see. Each band/artist will have a paragraph about them. So, here we go:
Magic Giant - This is the band that was playing when I walked into the festival, so I didn't get to listen to them for very long. However, what I did hear of them I really enjoyed. They were fun, they got the crowd going, and other people seemed to really enjoy watching and listening to them.
Morgxn - I had never listened to Morgxn before Wonderbus, so I had absolutely no clue what to expect from him. I will say that I did get really into his performance. He had good stage presence, and from what I could hear of him he had a really good voice. This was hard to judge throughout at least half of his 45 minute set however, because the bass on his synths were turned up to the point were it was drowning everything else out. However, even that by itself was actually pretty cool because the bass shook your entire body, which is something that I had never experienced before. Morgxn gave a treat for the last song of his set, when he brought out Nick Petricca from Walk The Moon to perform his song "Home". Morgxn released a version of the song on his album, Vital, in May of 2018, however released another version of it featuring Walk The Moon in September of the same year.
Parachute - After the upbeat and bass-heavy Morgxn left the Music Elevates stage, Parachute provided a nice change of pace for the day. They described themselves as a soft-rock band on stage, which was a pretty fitting category for them. They sounded like a cross between the Goo Goo Dolls, Daughtry, and early Maroon 5. The Maroon 5 part became even more fitting when I realized that Will Anderson, the band's lead vocalist, sounded scarily like Adam Levine when he went into his falsetto. I never went up close to the River Stage for any of the acts that played on it, so I was looking at the video screen for most of their set. But from what I could tell, they had really good stage presence, and were also quite fun to watch.
Chelsea Cutler - Of the acts that I did see at Wonderbus, I'd be lying if I said that Chelsea was a very memorable one. Don't get me wrong - she wasn't bad by any means. However she didn't do anything to help her stand out in any sort of way. For the most part, she just stood at the mic and sang her songs with her face half-covered by her hands gripping the microphone. Her lack of an active stage-presence, coupled with a lot of her songs sounding about the same, made for my least favorite performance of the day/night. To be fair, her voice wasn't bad, and I could see people would like her music. It's catchy and easy to listen to. Based on what I saw however, I think she should work on making her stage shows more interesting to watch. Even though she was the one in the spotlight, I was more interested in watching her drummer, who was one of the best live drummers I've ever seen.
Andrew McMahon in the Wilderness - This was actually the second time that I have seen Andrew McMahon. The first time that I saw him was when he opened for Billy Joel at Progressive Field in Cleveland in 2017 (which I plan to write about in the future). He was one of the very few opening acts that I've seen that I actually enjoyed watching and listening to. Given my liking of him in Cleveland, I had high expectations for him at Wonderbus that he met with ease. The first thing that I think will catch anyone's eye with Andrew is the fact that he plays a full-sized piano on stage, which is something that you almost never see anymore, especially in today's music. In addition to his music being a lot of fun to listen to, he was also very interactive with the crowd, even when he was playing the piano. When he wasn't at his piano, he was dancing around the stage, going up to/into the crowd, and jumping off his piano, and at the end of his set he actually walked on his piano keys, which is something that probably would have given Billy Joel a heart attack. Oh yeah, he also crowd surfed on an inflatable unicorn. Because only crazy people don't love inflatable unicorns at a concert.
Bishop Briggs - Bishop Briggs definitely had the most memorable stage entrance of the day. Rather than walking out on stage and starting a song with her band or having her band start the first song and then she come on stage all fabulous and such, she just walked on the stage singing the first part of her first song a cappella. I'll be honest and admit that the first thing that I noticed about her was her resemblance to Sinead O'Connor. The first impression that I got of her was that she was going to have the kind of behaviors and mannerisms similar to someone like Billie Eilish. However, she was quite different than what I was expecting. Her stage presence was electrifying, as she was jumping and running across the stage, kicking the beach balls that landed on stage, and having an all around great time. However her personality between songs was completely different than during her songs. She was very friendly, laid back, and really almost timid. When it comes to her music, her songs sounded more or less the same as one another. There wasn't any kind of slowdown to her music, as it was all upbeat and in-your-face. That's okay though, because not everyone does slower songs, especially at music festivals where artists probably want to keep things more upbeat given the time limits they usually have. All in all, I enjoyed Bishop Briggs.
The Revivalists - This was the other band that I didn't actually see very much of, even though they were the second-to-last act of the night. For the first part of their set, I was off eating and checking out the rest of the festival grounds. When I did get back to my spot (thank you, Sam and Megan - both of whom I met at the festival - for keeping my spot for me), I didn't really pay all that much attention since I was talking with some people around me, including my Digital Marketing professor from my last semester of college that I ran into. However, from what I did watch of them, I really liked them. I couldn't see them very well given that I was keeping my spot for Walk The Moon. They did a fantastic job of keeping the crowd's attention, and they seemed to have a lot of crowd participation. One of the things that stood out to me about them was the fact that they had two drummers on stage with them. I couldn't tell if they were both drumming or if one of them was just a rhythm drummer while the other played the main drum line, but either way it was something cool to see since you don't always see that at concerts. Their music was fun to listen to, and the musicianship of all the people on stage was impeccable. From what I did pay attention of the Revivalists, I really liked them.
Walk The Moon - I had really high expectations of Walk The Moon given that I had seen them twice before in concert, and they definitely did not disappoint. Their energy was incredible as always, they were very interactive with the crowd, and were in great sound. This was the first time that I had every been in a pit before, so the energy that I felt was even greater than it was was like watching them from the lawn at Express Live! just a year earlier than this in 2018. This proved especially true during "Tightrope" and "I Can Lift A Car". They also gave their first live performance of "Eat Your Heart Out" during their set, so that was really cool to be a part of even though I'm not a big fan of the song itself. Really, my only complaint about their performance was that they didn't perform "Aquaman" or a Talking Heads cover. However, that didn't put a damper on anything. I may have been drenched in sweat the entire performance, but I honestly don't think I would've had it any other way. It was part of the experience, and it was so much fun. I will be making a blog post specifically about the WTM concerts I have been to, including this one.
Overall, my experience at Wonderbus Festival was definitely one to remember. I met some great people there, got introduced to some new music, and was finally able to experience what a music festival is like. I think that Wonderbus was a really great thing, and it was put on to benefit a great cause, with some of the proceeds of the festival benefiting mental health programming at Ohio State University's Wexner Medical Center. The festival couldn't have run more smoothly, and went off without a hitch. That's not really a surprise given that the producers of the festival, Elevation Group, is also the producer of LaureLive in Cleveland for the past few years. It was a lot of fun, and I'm excited to see what comes of it in the future.
Date/City: Columbus, Ohio - August 17th
Venue: The Lawn at CAS [Chemical Abstract Services]
With it being the first year of the festival, I think it's safe to say that there was definitely some uncertainty in how it was all going to go down. One area I think that there was potential for a lot of uncertainty is the location of the music festival. The location of a music festival is really important because it needs to be able to hold at least a few thousand people, there needs to be room for people to walk around, there needs to be room for vendors, bathrooms, and of course the stages. If the venue if too small, then there won't be enough room for all of those things. If it ends up being too big, then the festival is going to seem empty, which can have a negative effect on the overall feel of the festival. I think the people who planned Wonderbus really hit a homerun with their choice of venue. The Lawn at CAS was the perfect place to hold it. It was crowded for sure, but it wasn't overcrowded. It was compact, but it still felt open. It was exactly how I anticipated it feeling. The CAS Lawn has also proven itself as a viable concert venue in the past as well, having been home to Picnic With the Pops with the Columbus Symphony Orchestra. In addition to it having plenty of room for people to walk around, there was also plenty of onsite parking, with additional parking available within walking distance of the festival grounds once onsite parking was full. I also like that it was near civilization but still in an area where it felt private and secluded. The Lawn at CAS proved to be a great place for something like this, and I hope to see more music events take place there in the future.
The Festival Layout:
I checked about once every week starting about 2 months before the festival to see if the festival map had been posted. Since it was the first year of this thing, no one going knew what the layout was going to be like. Once the map finally got posted, I was kind of surprised by it. It had the two main stages (Music Elevates Stage and River Stage) side-by-side, with a third small stage (Crook and Marker Stage) off around the corner from it. I knew that they had relatively limited space, but I wasn't expecting that. At first I thought that it was going to be kind of a pain with both big stages right side-by-side to each other. However, it turned out to actually be quite strategic. There was never a point that there was an act on both big stages at the same time. So it proved to be a very efficient way to not only let crowds go from one stage to another with ease to see each act, but also save space by putting the soundboards for both stages in one places. The Bathrooms were off in one corner of the festival grounds, and out of the way so that the lines for them didn't interfere with any of the festivities. All of the food vendors were placed near the entrance of the grounds, as well as the various craft vendors. There were also water refill stations placed around the grounds as well to give easy access to people who needed it.
The Atmosphere:
This may sound like a strange thing to some, but the way I see it this is a vital part of any music festival. If the atmosphere is stiff at a music festival, then that could have a negative effect on the way that people enjoy it. Thankfully this wasn't the case. Wonderbus had such a perfect feel to it. It was extremely laid back, uncommonly friendly, and could put a smile on the face of a person even in the most bitter of moods. The people there were really easy to talk to, which is really saying something coming from a guy who finds it difficult to walk up to a random stranger and strike up a conversation. I wish I had more to say about this, but I can't think of anything else. The atmosphere of the festival was so positive, loving, and carefree. It provided a place for people to forget about all the negative crap in the world for a day or two, which is something we all need every once in a while.
I did not see all of the acts that performed on Saturday, so I'll just be writing about the ones that I did see. Each band/artist will have a paragraph about them. So, here we go:
Magic Giant - This is the band that was playing when I walked into the festival, so I didn't get to listen to them for very long. However, what I did hear of them I really enjoyed. They were fun, they got the crowd going, and other people seemed to really enjoy watching and listening to them.
Morgxn - I had never listened to Morgxn before Wonderbus, so I had absolutely no clue what to expect from him. I will say that I did get really into his performance. He had good stage presence, and from what I could hear of him he had a really good voice. This was hard to judge throughout at least half of his 45 minute set however, because the bass on his synths were turned up to the point were it was drowning everything else out. However, even that by itself was actually pretty cool because the bass shook your entire body, which is something that I had never experienced before. Morgxn gave a treat for the last song of his set, when he brought out Nick Petricca from Walk The Moon to perform his song "Home". Morgxn released a version of the song on his album, Vital, in May of 2018, however released another version of it featuring Walk The Moon in September of the same year.
Chelsea Cutler - Of the acts that I did see at Wonderbus, I'd be lying if I said that Chelsea was a very memorable one. Don't get me wrong - she wasn't bad by any means. However she didn't do anything to help her stand out in any sort of way. For the most part, she just stood at the mic and sang her songs with her face half-covered by her hands gripping the microphone. Her lack of an active stage-presence, coupled with a lot of her songs sounding about the same, made for my least favorite performance of the day/night. To be fair, her voice wasn't bad, and I could see people would like her music. It's catchy and easy to listen to. Based on what I saw however, I think she should work on making her stage shows more interesting to watch. Even though she was the one in the spotlight, I was more interested in watching her drummer, who was one of the best live drummers I've ever seen.
Andrew McMahon in the Wilderness - This was actually the second time that I have seen Andrew McMahon. The first time that I saw him was when he opened for Billy Joel at Progressive Field in Cleveland in 2017 (which I plan to write about in the future). He was one of the very few opening acts that I've seen that I actually enjoyed watching and listening to. Given my liking of him in Cleveland, I had high expectations for him at Wonderbus that he met with ease. The first thing that I think will catch anyone's eye with Andrew is the fact that he plays a full-sized piano on stage, which is something that you almost never see anymore, especially in today's music. In addition to his music being a lot of fun to listen to, he was also very interactive with the crowd, even when he was playing the piano. When he wasn't at his piano, he was dancing around the stage, going up to/into the crowd, and jumping off his piano, and at the end of his set he actually walked on his piano keys, which is something that probably would have given Billy Joel a heart attack. Oh yeah, he also crowd surfed on an inflatable unicorn. Because only crazy people don't love inflatable unicorns at a concert.
The Revivalists - This was the other band that I didn't actually see very much of, even though they were the second-to-last act of the night. For the first part of their set, I was off eating and checking out the rest of the festival grounds. When I did get back to my spot (thank you, Sam and Megan - both of whom I met at the festival - for keeping my spot for me), I didn't really pay all that much attention since I was talking with some people around me, including my Digital Marketing professor from my last semester of college that I ran into. However, from what I did watch of them, I really liked them. I couldn't see them very well given that I was keeping my spot for Walk The Moon. They did a fantastic job of keeping the crowd's attention, and they seemed to have a lot of crowd participation. One of the things that stood out to me about them was the fact that they had two drummers on stage with them. I couldn't tell if they were both drumming or if one of them was just a rhythm drummer while the other played the main drum line, but either way it was something cool to see since you don't always see that at concerts. Their music was fun to listen to, and the musicianship of all the people on stage was impeccable. From what I did pay attention of the Revivalists, I really liked them.
Overall, my experience at Wonderbus Festival was definitely one to remember. I met some great people there, got introduced to some new music, and was finally able to experience what a music festival is like. I think that Wonderbus was a really great thing, and it was put on to benefit a great cause, with some of the proceeds of the festival benefiting mental health programming at Ohio State University's Wexner Medical Center. The festival couldn't have run more smoothly, and went off without a hitch. That's not really a surprise given that the producers of the festival, Elevation Group, is also the producer of LaureLive in Cleveland for the past few years. It was a lot of fun, and I'm excited to see what comes of it in the future.
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