March 23rd, 2024, was the One Love Lunar Solar Eclipse Festival, hosted by GoodVibesNetwork Worldwide in Jamul, where a score of bands and a handful of staff fought blood, sweat, tears, and buckets full of rain to deliver good vibes and memorable music. I was joined by photographer Ryan Valenzuela who helped me document the festival, gave me some insight into the sound quality (he has a degree in music production), and kept me company on the hour-long drive to Jamul.

The festival took place on the ranch property of the non-profit community, GoodVibesWorldwide Network, a charity organization whose goal is to create spaces for individuals to explore their art and wellness, according to Carolyn Miller, founder, and organizer of the festival. Their property accommodates tent and RV camping, including bathroom and shower facilities, a patio bar, pool tables, outdoor disc golf, and a large outdoor stage with a big lawn to watch from.

Driving up the dirt road onto the property, there was no ticket check or parking attendants, but we quickly adjusted to the situation; cones had been set up around the lawn where we could park and a small brown dog, a ‘good vibes’ ambassador, came right up to my car door to say hi and welcome us to the festival.

The main stage was bordered on each side by wings of trees that hung over colorful collections of tents. One end was met by the start of the “parking lot,” which consisted of a line of cones surrounding the lawn in a half circle. A line of food and trinket vendors connected with the cone line to link back with the line of trees on the other side of the stage. Looking from above, the stage grounds formed a neat little circle, like a waxing moon. Behind the stage was a vast view of Spring Valley, and outside the circle were the facilities like the bathrooms and patio bar.

Immediately, it felt as if we had stepped into a space that had been unaffected by time since the late 60s. Attendees had long hair and beards, bell bottoms, tie-dye, and Frank Zappa t-shirts. Rows of flowers adorned the stage, and I saw one older gentleman wearing a tie-dye “Dark Side of the Moon Tour” t-shirt who looked as if he had come from a Grateful Dead concert the night before. Vendors could watch the show from their tents, a few patrons parked their trucks backward to watch from the comfort of their tailgate, and most viewers put out blankets and chairs to watch from the lawn, while others seemed to be enjoying it from within their tent circles. Good vibes all around.

After getting the lay of the land, Ryan and I made our way to the lawn where we caught the last bit of a punk rock band called Slosh. This was when we first noticed the man who ended up being the MVP of the event, Adam Barrows. Barrows was the one and only sound guy for the entire festival, working with barebones equipment: four PA speakers and what looked like a 12 or 16-channel live mixer. We watched this sound wizard run laps between the stage and the center of the lawn: listening to the mix, running back to change a dial, running back to listen, and back to the dials to adjust, a smile on his face the entire time.

We got a chance to speak with Barrows who told us a bit about his experience and mixing philosophy. A local from Spring Valley, Barrows got connected with GoodVibesWorldwide by attending their weekly open mic sessions. After becoming a part of the community, he volunteered to help run sound for the festival with his vast amount of personal sound equipment. He told us that he had never done sound for such a large event before and wished he had more equipment, but part of the fun was making everything work with the limitations. As we watched him setting up the first few bands the mix sounded hot (which wasn’t helped by the guitarists turning their amps up after being asked not to), but after a couple of songs (and laps back and forth), Barrows was able to dial in a warm, balanced sound. “Just because [the sound] is BIG, doesn’t mean it’s LOUD,” Barrows said. “Different bands have different settings, once I can get the bass and drums, the rest comes into place.”

Across the morning and noontime, bands went on in thirty-minute sets, staying surprisingly prompt and on schedule. We watched a lively punk/reggae set from the band Odilon who got the crowd on their feet, a stripped-back singer/songwriter session from Now or Never, a pop-punk mashup from the amusingly-named The Ellen Degenerates, a folk rock/alternative combo from the band Plants, and a death metal/screamo set from The Observerz.

Ryan and I were able to pull Now or Never aside for a short Q&A in between sets. They impressed us with their delightfully wistful songs about what it would be like to be an orange and how a toxic relationship is comparable to falling into drugs. Now or Never is the solo project of Teresa Luna of Fontana CA, who sings and plays guitar, and she was accompanied by her friend Jeremy Barnes who sang harmonies. Luna started the project in 2010 and has been seeing success thanks to online platforms like YouTube and TikTok where her music has been able to reach a wider audience. While this isn’t a full-time gig for them just yet, Luna lives by the popular creed, “music is therapy” and continues to follow her dream of making music.

After talking to Now or Never, we settled in for the The Observerz’ set, which was hardcore both for its music and the bone-chilling rain that slowly descended upon the festival. The cold was settling in near the end of the previous set, and by the time The Observerz got rocking, the weather was unignorable. The band powered through, but the audience had a harder time. By half of the set, all of the attendees had retreated to their tent circles, the vendor’s EZ-UPs, or their cars. Ryan and I stood alone in the rain for as long as we could, but eventually even we couldn’t bear it. Conveniently, because parking was a ring around the stage, Ryan and I could watch from inside the car, even if our sound wasn’t as good. The sound guy Barrows and a couple of volunteers helped set up tents on the stage in order for the band to finish their set, but unfortunately, what little crowd was left had already begun to disperse.

After a short break and seeing that the rain wasn’t letting up, the band Juniper took the stage to an empty lawn and heavy downpour. These guys SHREDDED. The three-piece band consisting of Lukas Whipple, Geovany Garcia, and Eli Reynolds, played clean, biting, and riff-heavy rock that snaked between alternative, metal, and hardcore pop-punk. Squeezed between an EZ-UP and a tarp hanging by some rope, the band battled through the rain and played a set deserving of a muddy, messy moshpit, but alas, they were alone. My heart goes out to Garcia, their drummer, who I noticed was getting sporadically dumped on whenever a pool of water would collect on the tarp and eventually empty on him like the giant bucket attraction at a water park. We got a chance to speak with the band after their set and when asked about playing in the rain, Garcia said, “It rains like this all the time back home, we’re used to it,” though he did admit he wasn’t thrilled about the sporadic splashes from the tarp. Juniper drove down from Tracy CA, near Sacramento, and was celebrating their 100th show at the Eclipse festival

Unfortunately, after Juniper, the festival halted in its tracks. The rain got worse and it seemed like the festival was going to wrap up early, but it was in this moment of adversity that Ryan and I witnessed the source of magic behind the good vibes at Good Vibes Ranch: the community. Ryan and I came to realize that most of the attendees and vendors who had stayed were regular patrons of the ranch and their friendship and support for each other was keeping them there, through the cold and damp, in high spirits.

First, we spoke to Karen Rangel, a vendor from San Diego who was selling hand-designed glow-jackets called GLO Getterz. The fuzzy, faux-fur coats, lined with LED, rave-style lights, are a part of Rangel’s vision to “make physical the light we have within, and embrace it so together we can light up the world.” Rangel sells these coats to fund her non-profit, Youth Fit2Lead, a leadership program for disadvantaged teens that teaches them leadership and entrepreneurial skills. She met GoodVibes organizers while selling her coats at the Ocean Beach farmer’s market and was invited to run a vendor booth at the festival.

An hour and a half went by without music or any word from the organizers, so Ryan and I decided to pack it up and try again on Sunday. According to Carolyn, the show picked up again around 8 p.m. when a few bands consisting of GoodVibesRanch community members played on the rain-protected patio.

The next day Ryan and I arrived at the festival at 10 a.m. to a sour sight. The stage had been abandoned, there was no crowd, two trucks were stuck in the mud and calling a tow, and the rain was worse than the day before. After finding the organizers, we were told that the festival wouldn’t pick up until the afternoon, but a wailing, mournful voice coming from the patio stage proved the contrary. Dylan Welcher, a veteran living on the ranch, started a solo singer/songwriter performance. With an audience of eight people bundled up in hoodies and raincoats around a pool table, Welcher played a mournful set, an elegy of hand-written songs and covers, delivered with the voice of a less-throaty Tom Waits. But what we thought was marking the premature end of the festival was actually a catalyst for the fierce and loyal community. Bands who were getting ready to pack up and go home rallied behind this performance and went on with their sets despite the rain and small audience, piling their gear under the gazebo and squeezing together under the tarp-covered stage.

Welcher was succeeded by a punk rock duo called Shuu, consisting of Enrique “Kiki” Chares on bass and vocals and Kevin Lorenzo on drums. The duo from Stockton came on loud and full, despite being only a two-piece band. We spoke with them after their set about how they managed to create such a full sound with spare instrumentation, and Chares revealed that he used to be a guitar player, so when he switched to bass, he plugged it into his guitar pedals and then ran it through both a guitar and a bass amp, which offered him a wider and warmer range of sound. They played a combination of covers, like The Beastie Boys’ “Fight For Your Right,” as well as some originals.

They were followed by a family band that, frankly, blew our minds. Jnx, all the way from Mariposa, California, is a trio consisting of brothers Jonah and Xavier Dacanay on guitar and drums respectively, and their father Roger supporting them on bass. Inspired by bands like Metallica and Van Halen, these guys looked like they traveled to the festival in a time machine straight from Ozzfest 96’. Not only did they look like a hair-metal band from the 80s, they sounded like the best of them. Their musicianship was phenomenal: Jonah played his razor-sharp guitar like a proto-Randy Rhoads, Xavier’s drum fills and sense of rhythm never faltered even over the trippiest of 32nd notes, and Roger’s bass licks supported the sound like a steel-plated spinal column.

Not only did the band play like professionals, but they ran their show like it too. Jonah fired up the shivering audience immediately, getting us singing and clapping along, and every song seamlessly transitioned into the next. They got especially inventive when Jonah whipped out a toy ray gun and mashed it into his pick-ups for an out-of-this-world solo. Speaking to them after the set, they informed us that they are currently doing shows up and down the California coast as well as working on an album of original material. I’m in no place to give anyone career advice, but they need to get to L.A. immediately; the amount of raw talent, and rigorous musical discipline made them a force to be reckoned with.

And with that, Jnx put a positive close on the festival for me and Ryan. While Shuu and Jnx gave electrifying performances, the audience never climbed above 15 people and we decided to call it a day. According to Carolyn,  “[the rest of the day] went ok. The weather was tough to overcome, but the vibes were strong.”

Overall, the One Love Lunar Solar Eclipse Festival had incredible potential and strong organization to be a great festival, but the weather had other plans. The weather problems and logistical complications that consequently arose caused significant difficulties for the festival and the organizers are hesitant to do a sequel, though they are open to hosting a future festival if it is planned and run by another organization. I, for one, hope that they learn from this year and try again next year, because, despite the rain, the One Love Solar Lunar Eclipse Festival had every component necessary for an amazing event. The facilities were clean and functional, the schedule of bands was up-to-date and interesting, and the stage, lawn, and set-up were comfortable and accessible. 

In the abbreviated words of B. J. Thomas: “Those raindrops are falling on my head, they keep falling/ But there's one thing I know/ The blues they send to meet me/Won't defeat me, it won't be long/ Till [GoodVibes] steps up to greet me.”

Photos courtesy of Ryan Valenzuela