It has been at least 5 years since I’ve been camping and probably closer to 8 years since I slept in a sleeping bag (car ‘camping’ was more my style), so I really wasn’t sure what to expect from glamping this last weekend, but luckily I was not disappointed. I mean, look at Aimee and my tent – 2 beds, side tables, two chairs and another another table. Oh, and did I mention outlets? Because let’s face it, you can’t tweet and take video at a concert without power! And, the tents locked, keeping our stuff safe as we enjoyed the music every day.

Now, let me go back and recap the whole weekend, because it was incredible.

Thursday

After an early morning flight, arrive in Philly and wait around for our other concert mates. We then went into Philly to pick up a few friends who had arrived early and were exploring, but first had ‘lunch’ at 3 pm – first meal of the day for Aimee and me! This is where I discovered Commenwealth Cider. It was the local cider they had on the menu and first, it was delicious and secondly it only had ONE gram of sugar! That’s like unheard of. Angry Orchard (the shitty cider that adds HFCS (high fructose corn syrup) to their cider) has anywhere from 24-30 grams a bottle.

Anyways, then we went on to the campsite. In the car we played games while trying to get to know each other while also taking turns falling asleep as most of us took red eyes or early morning flights. After getting settled into our tents, we ventured over to the concert. Firefly has over 80,000 attendees and I was surprised at how many were there the first night! Luckily, Nokia helped us out by getting VIP tickets, so we were able to bypass most lines. #Spoiled

We got to see Kodaline (Irish band who rocks), tried to see Gregory Alan Isakov, Amos Lee Local Natives and just tour the grounds before heading back towards camp where there was another stage with a DJ and partying with the rest of the Nokia crew.

Friday

Friday was the big day because FOO FIGHTERS! But first, we went to Dogfish Head Brewery for a tour. Since I grew up from Fort Collins, I’ve definitely toured a few micro-breweries but it was great to tour one on the East Coast (side note, gotta love that Gloria tweeted at me:

@monikarun @dogfishbeer Sounds like a perfect Friday activity Have some 60 min for me!

— Gloria Huang (@riaglo) June 20, 2014

Remember her? She’s formerly of the Red Cross.)

We had a great time at the brewery AND they have an amazing gluten free beer called Tweason Ale which is made from buckwheat, strawberries and honey – but isn’t too sweet! They were also serving it at the festival, so I appreciated that!

After the brewery tour, we rushed back to Firefly, only stopping briefly so Danny could pee:

But then I saw: Gregory Alan Isakov, Iron and Wine, Portugal the Man, American Authors, Arctic Monkeys, Young the Giant, FOO FIGHTERS, White Denim, Girl Talk and Cash Cash. That was only 1/2 the day! I could have seen Foo Fighters and been a happy girl, the rest was just icing on the cake.

Saturday

After breakfast off site (which was delicious) we came back and had a full day. First we saw The Unlikely Candidates who we were able to meet later, and WOW they are an amazing band. Aimee and I connected with the bassist and I love how they remembered people from the Denver scene. Much respect. Then we say Twenty One Pilots, Royal Teeth, Third Eye Blind, MS MR, Grouplove, Kaise Chiefs, Sleeper Agent, Walk off the Earth, Imagine Dragons (most disappointing band of the entire festival), Teagan and Sara, Beck, Sleigh Bells, Outkast and Pretty Lights. Wowza! I’m tired just writing that list. Aimee and I went to bed when we got home.

Sunday

Again, we left for breakfast (yay!) and then played games with our campmates before heading to the festival. Once we got there we saw: NoNoNo, The Colourist (who we also met! Great band with a female drummer who also sings!), Haerts, Weezer, Ziggy Marly, Washed Out, Jake Bugg, The Lumineers, Broken Bells, Jack Johnson, Childish Gambino then SILENT DISCO!

One of my favorite memories will be from that silent disco. It was amazing. Everyone gets their own headphones with a switch to go between 3 stations. Each station has their own DJ who plays what they want, and every so often they ask everyone to yell which causes everyone on the other channels to change quickly to see why that one is better. But it was also awesome to be one of only like 3 people listening to Lorde and finding them in the crowd. Instant connection. It is so hard to describe, I just hope everyone participates in a Silent Disco at some point in their lives.

Nokia gave me a Nokia Icon to use while I was there, and while all of my instagrams above were taking with that camera, below are all the videos – they ROCK! Pay special attention to the audio – THAT IS FROM THE PHONE! I can’t wait to record Wiredogs with this camera.

I’ve said Thank You and I’ll say it again, but thanks to Nokia for not only brining me to an amazing festival, letting me use an awesome camera, but also for introducing me to such great people. They really couldn’t have selected a better group of people to glamp (with limited showers) and hang in out in the dust/dirt for four days with strangers, who are now friends.