Camp Jam in the Pine’s spring festival, a three day camping, arts, and music event, is just around the corner, meaning that, in a little over a week, self proclaimed ‘Camp Jammers’ will be pouring through the entrance of the Buena Vista Campground in Buena, N.J to begin setting up their sites and preparing for a weekend of fun and music.
Since 1999, Lori Dean’s music festival, Camp Jam in the Pines, has been in existence. Her festival was initially just a front yard gathering, that has steadily grown to the capacity of larger campgrounds, and to occurring not once, but twice a year with both fall and spring events. Along with this expansion, her responsibilities have expanded as well. “It’s a lot, a lot of work. It’s a labor of love,” Dean says.
Among the tasks to fulfill are duties such as completing last minute organizations of the volunteers, making sure the vendors and merchandise are all set and ready for customers, and perhaps most importantly, seeing to the conclusion of the artist bookings for the music lineup, which in its 15 years is where Dean has noticed the biggest change in her festival. “When we started, we just had three bands, local bands, that we knew all the members,” Dean explains.
Throughout the course of the years, Dean and her partners have been able to schedule more groups to span the length of three days, and even more recognizable names. Dean proudly recalls her very first concert in 1976 with the New Riders and the Grateful Dead. “There came a day and a time, and I could not believe it, that we hired the New Riders for our festival. I’ve been listening to them since I was like 15 years old, and that was the biggest thing for me… We went from little local bands to the New Riders playing on my stage,” Dean says.
Dean also points out that it is with some aid from Camp Jam that some bands, such as Sister Sparrow and the Dirty Birds, have had the opportunity to build a dedicated audience. “We’ve gone to shows at World Café Live… when Sister Sparrow was playing and half of the audience were Camp Jam people,” she explains.
After having played Camp Jam multiple times, and playing the upcoming festival, Arleigh Kincheloe, lead singer of Sister Sparrow, remembers their first time playing Camp Jam. Even at the time, when the band was scarcely known by the crowd, Kincheloe relays that there was little hesitation by the audience to accept them. “Immediately the crowd was just like so excited and so enthusiastic and that makes us have more fun. I remember being like, ‘this is the best.’ Also, John and Lori are so sweet and they support us and they come see our shows in other places as well so it’s really like their friends of ours now at this point,” Kincheloe says.
It isn’t simply the artists who are touched by the communal aspect Camp Jam offers, but those in the audience as well, the campers. Gina DiCristo, an attendee since 2009, points out, “Every time I’m there, I just feel kind of happy, because you get along with everybody. It feels like everybody is your friend, you make new friends, you see old friends, and I feel like I could walk around and go hang out wherever, do whatever, and have fun doing it.”
More with Gina DiCristo:
Listen to Gina DiCristo talk more about one of the other fun aspects to attending Camp Jam- the clothes! As she points out, the festival wear is very 1960’s and 1970’s “hippie” inspired, so click through the photos to get examples of pieces and the familiar places they come from to create the Camp Jam look.
Blast from the Past 