Mexico. Ever since I returned from Mayan Holidaze 2011, I had been counting down the days when I could go back – to both Mayan Holidaze and Mexico at large. And I’m not alone. Last year at this time, it seemed like every Facebook status update in my news feed could be reduced to, “Let’s do it all again.” So we did. And it was every bit as good as we remembered, without it being the least bit redundant. We didn’t have the wide-eyed bewilderment that only a first-time experience can provide but, instead, we let a little familiarity inform our decisions so we could not only do it again, but do it better. This was the year I went so deep as to end up in an actual jungle — not just the well-lit path from Building 8 to the beach. But first:
Mayan Holidaze is the natural evolution of Caribbean Holidaze, an adventure that began in Jamaica in 2007 as a joint destination festival for both the Disco Biscuits and Umphrey’s McGee. Last year — 2011 — the event transformed into Mayan Holidaze and, appropriately, expanded to include Sound Tribe Sector 9 (STS9) as a third co-headliner. Having moved to Mexico, the event is held at the Now Sapphire resort in Puerto Morelos, about 30 minutes south of Cancun. The resort has a lot to do with the event’s success — everything from the accommodating staff to the all-inclusive structure to the lush landscaping is letter perfect for a music festival that is supposed to replicate some kind of paradise. And, on that charge, it does.
Mayan Holidaze begins the moment you land in Cancun, pass customs and get on the shuttle to the resort. You can tell a lot from a bus ride. The story unfolds from the countenances and the vibrations of the other passengers as everyone joins in on the same ongoing conversation despite the fact that, technically, it’s mostly strangers. At least at that point. That was one high-spirited shuttle. Let’s put it this way: We weren’t heading to school or a sporting event. We weren’t even heading to a normal festival, under which condition the mood would be expected to be festive. But the mood on this bus wasn’t festive — it was exuberant. One step beyond festive. Yes, yes — after a two-hour drive followed by a six-hour flight and another hour through customs, I had arrived. Almost.
Thursday night everyone settled into their rooms and unpacked. My crew headed to the buffet but got sidetracked by the Mediterranean restaurant — Cibu — and thus welcomed our stomachs to Mexico with a little mahi mahi. Naturally, I ordered a Dirty Banana to wash it down but, then again, I had one of those in my hand before I even finished the check-in process. Let’s get something straight here: a true Dirty Banana is 2 oz. coffee liquor, 1 oz. white rum, 2 oz. half-and-half, 1 whole banana and 1 tsp. of powdered sugar. Now Sapphire has an abbreviated version that is mostly just a splash of rum, a dab of banana liqueur and a whole lot of cream. Nonetheless, it is the flagship drink of Mayan Holidaze and it was therefore my duty to get into the spirit of things, so to speak. I had a responsibility here, after all, damn it. An obligation to seize the day. And to make sure I kept it going long after day turned into night — and back again.
To that end, opening ceremony sets by Sound Tribe Sector 9 and Umphrey’s McGee certainly earned a point each on the assist. Something has happened to Umphrey’s McGee as of late. It’s like somebody whispered life’s impermanence — death’s imminence — in their ear because they all have their heads cocked to the wind as if they’re trying to outrun fate by getting there first, on their own terms. All I’m trying to say here is that they’ve been playing with a new level of intensity and, in fact, some kind of ferocity that they haven’t had since the days of the Big Summer Classic. Except, this time, wise enough for their years. They’re no longer hungry; in fact, at a place like Mayan Holidaze, they’re well fed. But they’ve got the fire and, as such, they’ve been lighting it up every night. Way to take the torch and run with it, fellas.
As for Sound Tribe Sector 9, they played with a whole other intent, entangled in other elements entirely. Whereas last year’s Mayan Holidaze sets were positively charged emotional affairs stemming from a health issue within the band, this year’s shows were designed to embrace a whole different order; something a little more universal — on a literal level. These three STS9 shows were part of “The Great Cycle Spectacles” of 2012 in which the band and their fans celebrate the end and beginning of the Mayan calendar cycle. How very appropriate then — and very not coincidental — that these three shows would take place on a coastline that actually marked the edge of Mayan territory.
“In lak ech,” in Mayan, means, “You are my other or my brother.” It’s just another way of saying we are all connected, all in this together. Not only is it a bit of Mayan mysticism (or, for that matter, advice…philosophy…truth), but it is, indeed, a certain state that can be attained during a STS9 show for the willing participant. Being on a beach in Mexico after dark certainly helped with the mystical part. So did the music.
Late night in the disco on opening night, Wyllys and J.Ha — a husband/wife duo of Wade Wilby on ones and twos with Jennifer Hartswick (Trey Anastasio Band) on trumpet and vocals — provided mosaics made for an actual dance floor. Not that anyone was complaining about having to dance on the sand otherwise — well, okay, so maybe I prefer solid ground. Especially when it’s mixed with solid gold. With members of Umphrey’s McGee and the Disco Biscuits getting down in the front of house, it was the kind of late night that unites. And, truthfully, at this point, who has time for anything else? I know I don’t.
On Friday, after some proper R&R (and I don’t mean “rock ‘n’ roll” — although, that too, of course), and an appropriately big set by Big Gigantic on the beach, we settled in for some hibachi at Lemongrass. The Disco Biscuits’ Jon Gutwillig was seated next to me when David Murphy from STS9 swung by to say hello — and to remind him, joyously, that they were actually getting paid to be there. But there’s no such thing as a free hibachi dinner and so Gutwillig headed off to rehearsal and then, an hour or two later, earned his keep by working up the hottest Disco Biscuits show in recent memory. From the show opening “Little Lai” through the “Munchkin Invasion” encore, the Biscuits decided to show off their finer points, letting Gutwillig’s guitar dig deep while maintaining forward motion, with the whole band improvising their way through rocktronic territory as they snaked their way around segues, including a full body slam into “Spaga” from “Above the Waves” that had people talking long after the house lights went on. And by house lights, I mean the sun.
And indeed the sun was up long before bedtime on Friday night, err, Saturday morning. We watched it rise from the beach as waves of people came and went with the tide. Finally, when there was no business left to attend to, we went and ate breakfast — err, lunch — in the cafe, seaside, and then decided to get a quick afternoon nap in before the Disco Biscuits were set to do it all over again.
I know that at Mayan Holidaze you’re supposed to be all peace and love about everything, with no real enemies, but I had an aggressive assailant alright and his name was “time.” It rode with the wind and chased me all weekend. I could never get it to stand still and hash things out with me like any other reasonable adversary. And it knocked me down a few times, even when I tried to dodge its path — especially when I tried to dodge its path. I knew all along that before I knew it I’d be on a flight back to San Francisco and headed back to daily routine, so I made a pact that I would abide by the rules of time but I would in no way follow its schedule. Thus, we would agree to be at odds and it (“time,” I mean) would rule in the end — as, true enough, in the blink of an eye, the whole weekend would slide right by — but in the meantime, I squeezed more out of each minute than most hours would ever allow. This, of course, meant surrendering sleep… but I knew this going in. It was in the contract that I signed without really reading, I’m sure.
Of course, you could ask yourself, why travel all the way to the Yucatan Peninsula just to see a few bands that you can see often enough back at home. It’s a good question. Or, at least, it’s a fair question. But the answer is not as simple as you might think. The answer isn’t just about seeing these bands at a resort in Mexico, or at a tropical locale in the dead of winter. The answer has more to do with Cloud 9 Adventures itself. Yes, Cloud 9 is the company that produces Holidaze and they also produce Jam Cruise, Holy Ship! and, most recently, Panic en la Playa. In other words, they’re responsible for throwing the greatest musical parties in history, as far as I’m concerned. Right up there with the Grateful Dead playing the pyramids or Phish bringing in the millennium with an all-night marathon on swamplands in Florida. Cloud 9 events are not festivals and they’re not vacations — they’re music journeys. Experiences of a higher order for people who like action and adventure at large, as much as they like dance-floor action and adventurous music.
So the Disco Biscuits rose to the occasion for the second night in a row, as they opened with the rare “Sister Judy’s Soul Shack,” inverted a classic (“Confrontation”), and wove in and out of their improvisational showcase “Basis for a Day.” They also finished the “Spaga” that they began the night before with the help of Big Gigantic’s Dominic Lalli on sax.
Any professional Mayan Holidaze review would include coverage of DrFameus or Michetti and their consecutive Saturday late-night sets — or else the review would conveniently sidestep them altogether — but I plan to do neither. After all, this is not a professional review; it’s a professional account. I’m relaying my first-person experience, not talking about everyone else’s. Subjectively, I can say that I missed out just as much as you did by missing these sets. That is true. But the hardest lesson to learn at Mayan Holidaze is that as hard as you can go, you simply can’t do it all. So I had to be put to bed early Saturday — yes, after all this talk of sacrificing sleep — because I had a big day on Sunday which was scheduled to begin in the morning, hours before my usual bedtime on any other Holidaze night. But missing both these back-to-back sets is my one big regret this year and the reason I mention them here anyway is because they were both worthy of being weekend highlights and all reports said they dutifully raged. I’m sure they did. Both artists — Allen Aucoin and Chris Michetti, respectively — are champions. Heroes, really.
But Sunday morning I was ready for a whole different kind of adventure. I was heading into the jungle as part of the optional Jungle Maya Excursion and it was the smartest decision I made all weekend. I chronicled the day for Rolling Stone and you can read all about it here, complete with a photo gallery by Dave Vann.
But there’s one thing I don’t really touch upon too much in that photo essay and that’s this: Music itself is supposed to heal. I mean, it’s supposed to entertain and make you dance or make you clap your hands or stomp your feet or annoy your neighbors late at night or wake up your whole household on some morning when you accidentally get caught up singing pop hits just a little too loudly in the shower. But beyond all of that, music is also meant to make you heal. It’s a cure-all. Just as it can make you smile on a cloudy day — both figuratively and literally — and ease your worried mind about finals or finances or whatever, it can take your mind off the girl at the store that never notices you or even the girl who wounded you so much deeper when, without warning, she just abandoned you altogether one day. Music gives you hope even after others have given up on you.
Yes, and music can make chemotherapy more tolerable, a root canal more bearable, a broken heart more endurable…until it has time to mend. And music will hold your hand as you go through the inevitable “much bigger losses” that life throws at all of us. It can take a damaged person and make them feel whole again. I have seen this happen just as I have experienced all of it myself, first hand. I can testify.
Music has saved me — more than once — and after all these times of reaching out to it for help, I think I’ve caught on to some of the secret of its magical powers. It’s about transcendence. First, you see, you dance yourself clean. You let the purity of the music, the literal vibrations as they push through the air, enter through your ears and affect both your body and mind. It gets you all sweaty and you let your sweat purge out all the poison accumulated by the rigors of daily life. Then you get to a space where you’re able to connect with something outside of yourself, through notes and melodies and beats — and by connecting with it through movement, you join in on its march towards the divine. When we get out of ourselves, we see things as they truly are: all is one. I and I. One love. Or, in Mayan speak, “in lak ech,” — “you are my other or my brother.”
That day in the jungle, I took the Mayan purification ceremony seriously. I breathed in only pure thoughts with nothing but pure intent and I took all of my current hang ups, my disappointments, things that have been holding me back lately, and I pushed them all out with each exhale. I let the Mayan priest sanctify me while knowing all the while that we each are responsible for our own sanctity. And, as I emerged from the cave by walking along a candlelit path back to the light, I felt kinda like I do immediately after dancing to a great set from the bands that play Mayan Holidaze. I felt purified. Like I had danced myself clean. But also… I felt connected to everyone around me. In lak ech.
I thought about this and how it related on the microcosmic level to Mayan Holidaze and how, with any other crowd or any other group of people, this experience just wouldn’t have been the same. And I mean even the people there that I didn’t have the pleasure of meeting or talking to… or hanging out with nearly as long as I wanted to.
And although it had only been four days, Sunday night felt like the final night of a four-week summer camp. Each band played one final set as a kind of victory lap. A grand finale. Umphrey’s answered the Disco Biscuits’ call for horns from the previous night by also inviting Big Gigantic’s Dominic Lalli out with them — this time, accompanied by Jennifer Hartswick on trumpet — for a cover of David Bowie’s “Let’s Dance.” It was kind of perfect.
The Disco Biscuits also performed a “kind of perfect” set which began with “Therapy” and stitched in and out of “Little Betty Boop” by the serendipitous request of a fan who had been chasing the song for some time and just happened to relay it to bassist Marc Brownstein as he was in the middle of composing the setlist from my friend’s balcony. She called on up from the beach below and he answered the call. We all threw in our two cents and, by set time, threw our bodies into it as well.
After that, it was a long goodbye that led us into another sunrise and, eventually, onto shuttles back to the airport. The shuttle ride out had a decidedly different feel than the one on the way in. My eyes were closed for all of it.
As we reenter reality and come back to our daily lives, so begins the long slow crawl back to Mexico, back to Mayan Holidaze, back to the place where we all belong — a sacred space on a beach in Quintana Roo where music heals and all are one. Of course, that could technically happen anywhere where there’s a stage and an audience. But, for four days this past January, it happened at a resort in Puerto Morelos. It happened at Mayan Holidaze.
