Another series of Festivals I Have Known And Loved...Float Fest was something that started out great, but gradually went downhill every year. The whole concept behind it was that you could float down the San Marcos River on a tube (a popular summer activity in this part of Texas) and then catch some live music afterward in the festival. And of course there was camping available, which we did every year. I think it just got too big and popular for its own good.
2016
This was my first and probably favorite Float Fest. I was three months removed from that year's Euphoria, still feeling its residual vibes, and joined the extended fest fam, some of whom I hadn't met yet, on Saturday morning at an out-of-the-way convenience store in Martindale. The festival wasn't too packed yet so finding a space and setting up camp was a simple matter.
After everything was set up, the next thing to do was float the river. If you've never been to the Texas Hill Country, you should know that tubing (or "toobing" as local businesses inexplicably spell it) is a big deal there. You spend a few hours lying lazily on your inflatable tube, probably sipping a few beers along the way, in a specific stretch of a river like the Guadalupe, Comal, or in this case, San Marcos.
So our huge group (there must have been at least ten of us) walked down to where the festival goers were entering the river, picked up our tubes, and hit the river. This was a good time, the San Marcos river wasn't too crowded, we had plenty to drink as well as a big waterproof Bluetooth speaker someone brought to keep some music in the air.
The artist lineup that year was mostly a bunch of not-entirely-unknown C-listers as well as a few acts who used to be bigger. The first artist I saw on Saturday, Bone Thugs-N-Harmony, fit into that latter group.
After the sun went down, I saw a band I'd never heard of, Future Islands. They were one of my favorites from this festival; I think they listened to a lot of New Order because they're certainly in that same tradition.
The headliner that night was a singer named Santigold. I wasn't too familiar with her material but still mostly enjoyed the set. There was just one problem I was having at that time, and it did not involve music.
There was only one complaint I could possibly have about that year. I looked all over while Santigold was singing, but there was no coffee to be found, and the only thing with caffeine they were selling was Coke, regular sugar-laden Coke which I didn't want. Without something caffeinated I have a hard time staying awake after sunset, which is why I passed out not long after getting back to camp.
The next morning I rode back to the convenience store with a friend and got some coffee there, and I could feel myself coming back to life on the way back in. After that, Sunday followed a similar pattern as Saturday; another float down the river, after which our mellow beer-buzzed party continued back at the campsite where we could throw a late lunch on the grill. While still in the camp that afternoon, we could hear the sounds of Night Drive wafting over to us.
After that set I decided I'd missed out on enough music and headed into the fest, where I got to see Auto Body, who had a similar new-wavey sound to Night Drive and the previous night's Future Islands.
Nina Diaz was the last artist I saw that day.
I had to leave in the middle of the afternoon, since I had to go to work the next morning. Between the early departure and the river floating, I did miss quite a few of the musicians there. I know Kongos was on Sunday night after I left, and looking at the poster on my wall I see I also missed Chromeo and Big Gigantic. Nevertheless, this was my favorite Float Fest and much music from that year's lineup, including Auto Body, Night Drive, Future Islands, and Metric (who I didn't see) became at-work playlist favorites for the next two years or so, and I still throw them on occasionally today.
2017
My second Float Fest had its moments, and I saw some bigger-name artists than those who appeared the previous year, but ultimately it wasn't quite as enjoyable. There were a lot more people there than the year before, and so I had to sit in my car waiting in a long line to get in. Also, rather than being in a big campsite with a big lively group, we had been pared down and split up since last year so I spent most of the time with a much smaller group and didn't catch up with the others until late Saturday night after the music was over.
Also, I didn't enjoy the river floating nearly as much. The river was crowded and the float often felt tedious, and the long time spent on the river meant missing out on some artists I'd been interested in. I had done the same preparation as for other fests over the last year, making a big YouTube playlist out of songs by a good deal of the artists. So, I was a bit disappointed that, after getting familiar with Ume, Neon Indian, and Moon Taxi, who I thought were all pretty good, I wound up missing all of them thanks to the many hours on the river.
It wasn't all bad though. Saturday night I was treated to the mashup DJ known as Girl Talk, as well as Passion Pit, a synthy band I'd seen once before at ACL 2013, and finally the biggest name of the night, the EDM producer Zedd. I had seen Zedd once before, in 2012 in the Ibiza nightclub Amnesia, where he was the lesser-known opener for a night headlined by Skrillex. And now, after five years and a string of hits ("Clarity," "I Want You To Know," etc.) he was the one headlining. This was probably my favorite set of the weekend.
Sunday was another river float which I don't think took as long as Saturday's. I got into the fest early enough to see Sweet Spirit.
Sweet Spirit has a bit of an eccentric singer. Just watch any of their videos and you'll see what I mean. Also, they have a whole song about Pamela Anderson.
This was the only Float Fest for which I took the following Monday off from work, so I could stay through the end. It was worth it. As the sun slowly set we got to take in sets from MGMT, Cage The Elephant, and finally, Weezer. Weezer went through every one of their old hits that everyone knows, and also threw in a few unexpected covers of more recent songs by other people, such as Mike Posner's "I Took a Pill in Ibiza."
Cage the Elephant
So all in all, this was still a good festival, I did enjoy it, but not quite as much as the year before. The artists were bigger names but the atmosphere just wasn't the same.
2018
My last time at Float Fest almost didn't happen, due to it almost getting cancelled and saved at the last minute. Locals had a lot of complaints about the noise and the San Marcos city council almost didn't let it happen there. For me, it wasn't nearly as enjoyable as the last two, as the problems that made 2017 not as good as 2016 were only amplified in 2018.
The Texas Hill Country was in the middle of a record-breaking heat wave at that time. While the previous years were still pretty hot, this year's heat just felt more oppressive and unbearable than before. The crowds were also bigger than before, and the venue just wasn't big enough to accommodate everyone. The river float felt even longer and more tedious than in years past, even though it was the same stretch of the same river, and this was probably due to the huge amount of people floating on it at one time. We must have been on that river for five hours, if not six, Saturday afternoon, and it wasn't long before I was thinking "Holy shit, are we there yet??" It didn't help that I was also feeling "over" tubing in general.
Even though I did my usual routine of making a big YouTube playlist of festival artists I didn't know too well, I didn't listen to it too much, probably because after last year, I knew at the back of my mind I likely wouldn't see most of them due to the long river float. Even so, I was a little miffed about missing Com Truise.
Saturday evening we got into the fest, and this is what it looked like. Burning heat, an endless dust cloud over everything, at least twice the people as two years ago in the same space...Float Fest just wasn't what it used to be.
There were some good memorable moments. The food was delicious as usual; I think I went to my favorite Austin food truck Shawarma Point, either that or something serving something similar. And also, while Texas festivals may not openly serve liquor anymore, there was a tent set up by Cascade Blonde whiskey, where you could go in and have some shots of their product, just as long as you drank them in the tent and didn't take any outside.
Finally, Bassnectar headlined the night. This was, I believe, my third Bassnectar show, the first two being ACL 2015 and Middle Lands in 2017.
By then I was just so burnt out I spent most of the set lying flat on my back on the grass.
Sunday, I and the handful of friends I went with--there weren't nearly as many of us as in the last two years--had little desire to do another river float so we just spent most of the afternoon sitting by the shore talking about whatever, and then going to Red Lobster for a combined lunch/dinner. Back in the fest that evening there were great sets from White Denim who were a Grateful Dead/Phish/String Cheese Incident kind of jam band, and Toadies, a '90s band from the Dallas/Fort Worth area, and after that I packed up and headed home.
Toadies
2018's Float Fest was going to be my last no matter what, as I knew full well my impending move to Germany was only three months away. Even so, I drove away from it thinking that if I wasn't about to move, I still wouldn't come back to Float Fest, because it had become more trouble than it was worth. Months later, after my international move, I learned that the 2019 edition, like the one before it, almost got cancelled for the same reason as in 2018. This time San Marcos didn't budge on refusing to let the festival go down, and it only happened after another venue on another river in another nearby town agreed to host it. How that went, I don't know, since I had moved far away by then and no one I know in Texas went to it.
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