Bamboozle Or Bust

posted in: Features • Reviews & Playlists

As we all know, music is a roller-coaster of a business. Bands are hot one minute and cold the next, and the same holds true for music festivals. But one fest in particular has latched onto a genre and held tight, evolving to meet the needs of its audience in multiple ways. This year, The Bamboozle festival is taking place May 1st and 2nd, and we’ll be there in the heart of New Jersey to give you all the juicy details. But first, let’s take a look at the development of a festival that caters to a very dedicated yet hard-to-please crowd.

In 2003, The Great Bamboozle was born at the Stone Pony in Asbury Park, NJ.  Acts included The Roots, Keller Williams and Dark Star Orchestra and featured 4 stages. The Great Bamboozle called the Stone Pony home for the next 2 years and brought on bigger players like Sonic Youth, moe. and Galactic,  as well as adding 2 more stages. In 2005, the event was reborn as The Bamboozle. Brand New was originally scheduled to headline but was forced to cancel and Thrice took over. This baby festival hadn’t yet found its footing.

Fast forward to 2006. The Bamboozle solidifies its place in emo history after moving just over an hour to the Meadowlands Sports Complex in East Rutherford and then clear across the country to Pomona, California for The Bamboozle Left. With stages like the “Hurley/Hot Topic Stage,” “Riot Squad/Macbeth Stage” and the “Smart Punk Stage” and added talent like Fall Out Boy, Taking Back Sunday and My Chemical Romance, the festival committed itself to its new found niche .

The Bamboozle continued to grow in 2007, featuring over 150 bands performing on 9 stages. Not bad for a 4-year-old festival. The event also produced The Bamboozle’s first compilation “The Bamboozle 2007: Everything Will Be Much Better Once I Get These Clowns Out of My Head”. Many bands performed under “mystery names” like The Matches (The Locals), Hawthorne Heights (The Death Of…), and Motion City Soundtrack (The Great American Freedom Machine). Motion City Soundtrack will also be playing this year, but we’ll get to that later.

In 2008, The Bamboozle added 2 more features to the festival: The Bamboozle Roadshow and The Hoodwink. The Bamboozle Roadshow traveled to small venues across the country and featured several acts chosen by The Bamboozle staff. The Hoodwink was a less obvious, “mysterious” concert with an equally vague disclaimer that stated “The Bamboozle Reserves The Right To Trick Everyone on Friday Night, May 2nd With a Mysterious Concert Held Somewhere Close To Another Major Festival.” To give you an idea of what The Hoodwink actually is, we’ll tell you this: In 2009, taking a nod from Phish’s “musical costumes,” The Hoodwink featured bands playing entire sets covering other artists. Forever The Sickest Kids covered Avril Lavigne, Sum 41 covered Metallica. Get it?

Seven years since its inception,  The Bamboozle has found its way, navigating through the finicky punk crowds and building a following that warrants shows on both the east and west coast, a traveling show, a mystery show and now, a show in Chicago.  We first heard rumors about Bamboozle Midwest last year, and at the beginning of this year an official lineup was announced. 3OH3!, Cobra Starship and I Fight Dragons (OurStage artist alert!) will perform at The Charter One Pavilion on May 15th.

But as previously mentioned, WE will be in New Jersey this weekend keeping YOU up-to-date on artist performances as well as

behind the scene happenings in the Garden State. Headliners include Paramore, Drake, Ke$ha, Weezer, MGMT and a special reunion performance by Something Corporate. Seems like a weird assortment for a festival that built itself up on the backs of bands like Linkin Park and Senses Fail. However, the lineup goes on to name seasoned road warriors like Saves The Day, Hanson, Angels & Airwaves, Say Anything, Motion City Soundtrack, our beloved OurStage artists NeverShoutNever and Love Drug to name a few!

So, our dear OurStage friends, will you be in New Jersey this weekend also? Let’s meet up, listen to some tunes, and have a laugh (or cry, depending on how authentically emo you are). Keep an eye out for our tweets and maybe you’ll catch up with us at various tents. Or get at us at @OurStage and let us know what bands you want to hear about.  We’ll be live-tweeting the whole festival, so look for our updates as well as photos and video coming your way.