Lightning in a Bottle 2024 Review: Leave Your Sanity At The Door (or a tale of pickles and princesses)
Stretching across 200 acres of Buena Vista Lake Park, ravers descended on Bakersfield, California for the annual Lightning in a Bottle (LiB) festival. Scattered around the repurposed campground is a wide collection of art pieces, sound stages, and performance artists. Running May 22-27, the weekend was heralded by a never-ending stream of DJs from the EDM scene alongside a few live bands.
From top to toe, the festival rattled my senses and distorted my perception of normalcy. That is due in part to the psychedelic landscape that the organizers and artists created, but even more so to the eclectic crowd. From outfits to dance moves, the folks at this festival all felt one-of-a-kind. The first person I met was at Will Call, a Wookie-looking man trying to buy a ticket off of the arriving guests. He gave me a five-minute lesson on haggling, based on what he learned traveling South Asia for five years, and then introduced himself as ‘Shenanigans’ and sauntered off.
After setting up camp, there was ample time to explore the festival grounds as DJs started hosting “welcome sets” in the early afternoon. The grounds were already full of people who had got there as soon as registration opened at noon, eager to party. As the sun shrunk and the crowd grew, so did the personalities.
At the “Brodega,” a trash-laden convenience store that secretly hosted a party in its storage closet, was a drag queen feeding folks hot Cheetos sprinkled with hot sauce and make-up foundation, and dunking a dildo soaked in pickle juice down men’s throats. Across the way at the “Unicorn Palace” was a pickle fairy, challenging an audience to devour more relish than her and then feeding it into a man’s mouth like a bird.
While every character might not be so bold, there was no shortage of people from all walks of life ready to strike up a conversation or randomly dispense life advice such as, “Carry your home with you and you will never be lost,” before non-sequitously wandering off into the 3 a.m. darkness.
When the nighttime debauchery ended, the festival mutated into a hippie summer camp. Kicking off at 8 a.m. (which is immediately after the last after-party ends) all the stages were hosting art and wellness classes. Festival patrons were offered lessons in subjects such as Qigong, therapeutic pizza baking, painting, and, of course, group yoga or tantric tea ceremonies consisting of young women burning stalks of white sage while new-age gurus preach about third-eye, pineal gland cranial reformation.
For those uninterested in new-age, pseudo-scientific, culturally appropriated eastern healing, the daytime festival grounds were dotted with designated rest areas. There were craftily designed daybeds to relax in, circular group beds made entirely of nets that collect hungover ravers like flies in a web, and Lake Webb was available for anyone brave enough to dunk themselves in the murky, frog-infested waters.
As the sun moved across the sky and wellness classes ran dry, the coming of night was heralded by wandering rave spirits. The first of these spirits was a two-story float of a screaming face that looked like a cross between Borat and Satan. Grafted onto an old pickup truck with two bobbing disco balls for eyes, this floating head drifted across the festival grounds blasting house music to drown out the wellness instructors trying to lead their final shavasanas.
This spirit, like the others, had the power of hypnosis, tempting students to slip away from their yoga instructors; from dropping into downward dog to climbing the stripper pole on Borat/Satan's back. After the heralding of Borat/Satan came an iridescent cuttlefish, ready to swallow up dancers too weak to resist it's pounding bass and tantalizing tentacles, and a floating pineapple whisking away swingers and lovers alike.
Day or night, there was no shortage of performers and artists manning live art installations and theatrical spaces. Jordin David (they/she/he) is one of those artists, stationed at an easel looking over the lake. From San Diego, David is a full-time art teacher who primarily paints murals. “I find a lot of work from bars, restaurants, and small businesses with clean walls,” they said. “If buildings don't want lines [tagging] on their walls, they can hire me. There's unspoken rules about tagging over other people's art.”
This is David's fourth LiB, but their first time attending as a working artist. “I've applied four years running and this is the first time I have been accepted. This isn't my first time painting at a festival, but it is the biggest.” When asked about their style, David said, “I'm at my core a figurative artist so I've always loved to do bodies. Lately, I've been trying to dive into surrealism. I want to focus less on details, but render ideas realistically.”
David's inspiration to pursue art as a career stems from the loss of their friend and business partner, Sean "Saniac" Curtis. “[Sean] is a big inspiration for my art. I did my first mural on my own and he dragged me to do more and keep going,” they said. “We were business partners, so I feel like I need to keep going to honor his memory.”
One art show, unique to the night, was the fire dancers. Alex Surks, a dragon-staff wielder from San Diego, was initiated by the group as he performed with fire for the first time. In a ceremonious display, the experienced fire wielders adorned the ends of his staff with their own oil and taught him the process of preparing his staff. When the organizers deemed him ready, he ignited the dragon's tail with the end of a tiki torch and was born anew as a fire dancer. Winding the staff through his arms like a great worm, Surks found a dance partner in the sudden rising wind, as it threw the tips of the flames across his face and body, illuminating the smirking grin of satisfaction on his face.
Things ramped up on Friday afternoon when the patrons who only bought three-day passes began to roll in and an uninvited wind current arrived to disrupt the festivities. It provided a cooling breeze for those dancing at stages, but elsewhere the gust tore up art installations and campsites. On the grounds, several hanging art pieces posed a danger to Jordan David's easel area. Security helped them remove their easel and supplies in order to make room to take down the installation.
Meanwhile, a sand spirit plowed its way through the campground in the form of dust devils, buffeting bare faces and launching unstaked tents 20 miles downwind. The sandy currents were accompanied by kufiya-wearing, goggle-donning desert dwellers. Looking like the Fremen of “Dune,” these patrons, unbothered by the wind-swept sand, sped around on tricked-out bicycles and scooters, zipping around like scarab beetles in a sandstorm.
Over the course of the final two days, stages ramped up while activities wound down. The floating stages that wandered the festival came together on Saturday night for a farewell dance party. Borat/Satan, the cuttlefish, a giant banana, and two other floating stages came together for a united performance, a “Megazord set” if you will, synching their sound systems together and having one giant dance party by the lake. Many of the art installations and exhibits had completed their special performances and the class schedule ended earlier in the day.
In their absence, the stages welcomed the weekend’s headlining artists, drawing the biggest crowds and bringing the festival to a close. Sunday night hosted the best consecutive performances of the festival by Nia Archives, M.I.A., and Skrillex, the latter employing fireworks and pyrotechnics into the set to give it some much-deserved catharsis.
The following morning the tent cities disbanded and patrons slowly filed out. Borat/Satan was being disassembled, the cuttlefish was deflated, and the banana had lost its peel. The air would have been melancholic if not for the loud, defiant dubstep blasting out of every car in the exit line. It reminded me of that mysterious 3 a.m. stranger and his wise, stoner words, “Carry your home with you and you will never be lost.”