Musings from the stoner's paradise that was the inaugural Legends Valley Music Festival

    1 of 1 2 of 1

      Shoddy campsites, dirty porta-potties, expensive swag, and excessive drug use are all things you'd expect to encounter at an outdoor music festival.

      En route to this past weekend's Legends Valley Music Festival, an inaugural event that was one part music and another part marijuana, I expected all of those and more—but instead, Legends proved to me that, like stoners, festivals can't be pigeonholed.

      Situated on 172 acres of private land just minutes from Cowichan Lake, the festival was held at Laketown Ranch, Vancouver Island's newest outdoor festival venue, and drew close to 10,000 attendees.

      Arriving on Saturday (August 27), three friends and I were surprised to find that, unlike other festivals, we were allowed to car-camp—a major bonus for anyone who has had to deal with the horror of lugging sleeping bags, tents, and coolers of beer from a parking lot to a dusty campsite. But that was just the beginning.

      Inside the festival grounds, a main stage and a smaller, more intimate one geared to electronic artists—aptly named the Roachella stage—sat on the north and south edges of the ranch.

      Instead of the expected porta-potties—a smelly staple of festivals everywhere—we were also surprised to find actual toilets. At this point, I hadn't seen a single show or even pitched my tent, but I was already impressed.

      While the weekend's lineup of musicians was nothing to balk at—Sublime with Rome, The Sheepdogs, The Boom Booms, and Daniel Wesley, among others—the real meat of the festival was found in the centre of the grounds.

      Between the two stages, vendors from various sects of British Columbia's booming marijuana industry gathered under tents for the inaugural Bio Cup Canada, where they treated stoners to an experience I'm sure some have already forgotten, but one I certainly won't.

      Walking into the Bio Cup expo, even my group of seasoned stoner compadres felt inexperienced.

      In one corner, eight people were lined up at a dab bar.

      In another, a woman was handing out half-gram joints and t-shirts.

      Everywhere we looked, vendors were happily offering up samples of their products, almost insisting that passersby stop to indulge.

      The first booth my friends and I approached was for a local extracts company.

      "Come on over and spin the wheel for a prize," yelled out one of the vendors. My girlfriend approached with hesitation, but instantly won a disposable extracts pen. Not bad.

      Another friend wins a free joint. Another gets a $20 gift card. I assess the spinning prize wheel and realize that no one's going home empty handed: even I score a $45 gift card.

      The next booth offers up homemade cookies infused with, well, pot. There are samples. We're instructed to "take more than one!"

      Onward again, and this time we stop to ogle golden chunks of honeycomb wax at a booth that specializes in shatter and other extracts.

      An older gentleman is doing dabs at a rig to our left, when the vendor pipes up, "You guys don't look stoned enough. Want to give it a shot?"

      As an avid herb smoker, I'm a little hesitant about dabs: my first one a few years ago resulted in half an hour of complete silence, followed by an involuntary nap, but I figured the hot weather and infinite number of things to look at would keep me from going down the same road.

      My friends agree and go for it, too.

      We move on, passing by a hemp clothing retailer, another booth with edibles, and some fancy bongs and pipes, before stopping at the next booth.

      "Free doobies!" I hear a vendor yell. My friend agrees to wear a t-shirt emblazoned with the company's logo for the day, in exchange for a joint.

      We could have made the rounds scoring freebies for hours, and I'm sure more than a few festival go-ers did, but it was time to take in the tunes.

      Seated atop a hill overlooking both stages, we watched as the Boom Booms commanded a massive crowd to jump to the left, and then back to the right, over and over again.

      Later, we took in the mesmerizing sounds of Mat the Alien, whose four-hour set had indecisive stoners coming and going all night long.

      We were mid-set when, from across the festival grounds, I could hear the unmistakable opening dialogue for a song I'd hoped to hear at some point during the weekend.

      "She was living in a single room with three other individuals, one of them was a male, and the other two, well, the other two were females. God only know what they were up to in there. And furthermore, Susan, I wouldn't be the least bit surprised to learn that all four of them habitually smoke marijuana cigarettes.... reefers."

      Sublime's stoner anthem, "Smoke Two Joints" had even the most out-of-tune potheads belting it out and lighting up.

      It was the perfect way to end an epic day that surprised me on all fronts: the campsites were swell, there wasn't a filthy porta-potty in sight, and the swag was free. As for the excessive drug use, well, I can assure you there were no overdoses, but there might have been a few involuntary naps...

      Comments