In a narrow canyon dwarfed by sheer cliff faces, hundreds of artists and fans of independent music gathered in an outdoor venue that looked like an oversized version of the Playboy Mansion Grotto.
Things went surprisingly smooth at this past weekend’s sponsor-free event, which is dirt-poor and depends on the kindness of friends to survive. With audiences shuffling back and forth through tents strewn across the stony expanse to reach two stages, the schedule was more or less kept for the first 24 hours. Not bad for a festival which doesn’t sleep: The music started at 6pm on Friday and continued well into Sunday morning.
Stone Free is a gathering of genre tribes unsatisfied with the empty offerings of Thailand’s commercial music machine. They may want indy rock, country, world, synth or hard rock, so they drive a few hours outside of town each year to listen to their favorites and hear everything else.
Therefore the genuine and sincere are not in short supply, making for plenty of musically impressive moments. A show highlight came early Sunday morning when the audience went wild during crowd-favorite Yellow Fang’s “Muek Mai Picco,” turning the stage area into a surreal dance party.
Of course there’s something for and not for everyone when you have nearly 60 bands playing a little of everything, from the Low Fat’s retropunk thrashings and Yellow Fang’s indygaze cool to some questionable DJ acts and that one woman who just kept repeating “I can make you cum” until we doubted her claim. Then of course, there’s acts like The Sticky Rice, which may not provide accomplished musicianship but nonetheless leaves its followers satisfied.
Despite any hippie pretensions otherwise, music divides people more often than it unites them. But at Stone Free the prevailing mood is open and experimental, attitudes not hurt by the sheer quantity of ganja burning day and night. And if you really don’t like something, you can always wander off to find beer or new friends. – Todd Ruiz
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