By Judy Won Photography

While the first two days of Bunbury were filled with some decent weather, a little too hot for my taste, but nice nonetheless, mother nature held off until Sunday to show a little rebellion. I first started my day off at the Main Stage to watch New Jersey’s Brick + Mortar, featuring lead singer/guitarist/bassist Brandon Asraf and drummer/back up vocalist John Tacon. The sky was slowly turning grey as they got further into their set, and roughly after 3 songs, the skies began to crack, letting out lighting and thunder, causing the festival to come to a halt. Vocalist Asraf comedically told the crowd, “I just tricked you into liking me for a minute.”

As the rain came down, I took refuge in the media trailer, along with a few BMF volunteers and another photographer, who ended up buying a huge delicious pizza for us. The sky was dark, the air was eerie, filled with what appeared to be a monsoon going on in downtown Cincinnati. Bunbury was on the ball with keeping in touch with everyone at the festival with informing everyone how the schedule was going to adjust according to the delay, responding to any questions asked by fans. After about an hour of a delay, the festival ensued with the updated schedule on the Bunbury app and displayed on LED screens at various stages.

When the music began again, Columbus’ very own rock and roll band Red Wanting Blue began to play, wasting no time with setting up their instruments. They preformed some new songs off of their album that was recently released on July 1st. Throughout the set, there was light rain, but the band played on. As they were finishing up “You Are My Las Vegas”, thunder cracked and lighting lit up the sky. Then I made my way down to the River Stage to catch the Kopecky Family Band, an Indie-Rock band from Nashville, Tennessee. They were definitely a “family” band, having a plethora of members playing instruments from the trombone, guitar, keyboard, to the cello. Due to the fact that it had just rained and the stage was right by the river, little gnats were flying around everywhere, landing on every inch of your body, crawling around everywhere; I was surprised that I lasted 3 songs in the pit with all of these little critters crawling on me.

ZZ Ward took the main stage, keeping the crowds interest, entertaining them with her strong, blues- rock influenced voice. Sometime later in the day, I had the brief chance to take a photo with her and talk to her; she was an absolute sweet heart and had a very modest and humbling personality. Shortly after, soloist/DJ Robert Delong took the River Stage and filled the little amphitheatre with live-looped recordings and electronic beats. The crowd was filled with neon covered teens, getting face/body painting from Delong’s music family. Due to the change in schedule, Delong’s set cut into Young The Giant’s set over on the main stage, causing a loss in Delong’s crowd.

Cali’s indie-rock Young The Giant took the main stage, and filled it with intense waves of melodic indie vibes. The crowd was filled with hard core Young The Giant and The Flaming Lips fans, who were camped out against the barricade of the Main Stage throughout the entire day. No one stood still as they rolled through songs like “Cough Syrup”, “I Got”, and of course finishing off with “My Body”. About half way through Young The Giant’s set, almost all of the photographers who attended Bunbury made their way to the Warsteiner Stage to check out The Orwells. The last time I saw The Orwells was at the LC Pavilion in Columbus when they were opening up for Arctic Monkeys. They put on quite an interesting, to say the least, show; especially front man Mario Cuomo. The Chigago youngsters had a pretty good crowd size, minus all The Flaming Lips fans who were still camped out at the Main Stage. The show was mellow, yet filled with raw rock, with Cuomo making his way around the entire stage, seeming as if he was high on something.. maybe it was the fresh dew smell from the wet ground that influenced his bizarre dance moves.

As the night began to come to an end, The Flaming Lips graced the main stage for the final performance for the 2014 Bunbury Music Festival. If I had to sum up TFL’s performance in one sentence, it’d go something like this: If I had to make a guess as to what being on psychedelic drugs was like, I would pull up a video of The Flaming Lips and use that as my example. They had fans participating in the most intriguing ways; dressed up as puffy clouds, magical mushrooms, a dancing rainbow, and so much more. Their performance was absolutely beautiful, and vocalist Wayne Coyne was decked out in a muscle print body suit, covered with hundreds of slivers of tinsel, waving it all around the stage like a magical piece of fabric. His personality glowed on stage, really showing how kind and gentle of a human being he is, promising the crowd that they would play out their entire set, even if it had to get postponed due to possible rain.

Overall, my first experience at the Bunbury Music Festival was a positive one, filled with new friendships, great photos, and good stories to tell. If you’re from around the Indiana/Ohio/Kentucky, Bunbury is definitely a festival worth checking out, and I’m definitely looking forward to next year.