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5th annual Summer Solstice Hemp Happening
June 20, 20036/20 -22nd 2003 As usual I arrived on Thursday morning, to make sure all was set and as usual Tune Town looked fantastic. However It didn't feel quite the same without Buddy along. As evening set in we found very few had arrived for the pre-show party, but a dozen people are plenty enough people to have a good time.
As people trickled in on Friday it quickly became clear that we had a problem. Every single car coming in indicated that they had been pulled over on the way in, most received warnings for 2 miles over the speed limit. Since the main road coming into Tune Town was closed for construction, it was obvious that police harassment would put a damper on the weekend... Those from the north had to get by seven police cars, from the south only three.
The State Police threw down their trump card around 7pm on Friday night " A drug bust" right in the drive way of Tune Town 1 and half hours 3 police cars and a dog. We stood helpless at the gate while car after car slowed but suddenly decided they didn't want to drive past the police barricade. In side the few and the proud began to party...
Outside the Police "heavily patrolled" the area near the show until 10pm. They came back Saturday morning around 11am but the word was out and very few new souls came in. It was clear to everybody that the show was a financial bust, but everybody including the bands was having so much fun that when had a a general meeting among the bands and they were all told basically that they were not getting paid that weekend, All the bands said we are here, we got all this great equipment and since plans had been set to record a couple of Albums that weekend... So we put on the whole show..
Meanwhile outside the police got bored and went to the local fireman's carnival, because they had a much larger crowd. Several busts of locals and carnies, for marijuana, cocaine weapons and other unspecified drugs. Drunk and disorderly and other offences as well. It seems that they had the Judge standing by waiting for all the terrible hippie busts, which once again it turned out there were none. Saturday night around midnight locals started showing up expecting to come in and join the party for free. We locked the gate and put out a sign stating it was a private party. Meanwhile on the stage Hypnotic Clambake put on a show that Maury said was a special birthday show for me. They played well into the morning, and at one point joined with Caveman's drummer and did what they called the drum jam from hell. It was a half hour jam with three full drum kits and 3 drummers. Kinda like dueling banjos with drums instead. Sue got a few minutes of it on tape...
We got up early sunday morning, about two dozen folks still wandered around. Sunday had been planned as an open mike type day, but we just played CD's until noon and then tore down the sound system. Around four in the afternoon, we were just sitting around, bragging about how easy the clean up was, and then this big purple bus comes pulling in. Melvin Seals and JGB just stopped by to say high. Melvin was like "I can't believe you took the sound system down already, man we wanted to jam. "I told you I wouldn't miss your Birthday" JGB was originally scheduled to play the show Friday night, but we cut them so they could do a bigger show someplace else. So we sat around shared some wine and watched the sunset on five years of excellent music and good times.
Will there be another SSHH Festival? I hope so, we are currently hoping for 2014 reunion
Peace Freedom and Tolerance
John
