I’m definitely getting a late start today; that’s because last night was definitely the best night so far.

During the day yesterday, my friends and I hung out at camp for most of the day. It is so hot here and being from Colorado, I’m not used to this type of humidity.

But when we went into the venue as the sun went down, it cooled down and the forest came alive.

The String Cheese Incident was unbelievable last night. The best I’ve ever seen. They played “BollyMunster,” “This Must Be the Place” and encored with “Johnny Cash.” Cheese definitely gained some new fans last night. My friend’s younger brother had never seen them before this festival and told me, ”Cheese blew me away!”

They had gigantic beach balls going through the crowd and some of them had girls in them in crazy costumes. There were fireworks and confetti and glow sticks galore. I couldn’t have been more impressed.

In between String Cheese and the second set of Sound Tribe Sector N9ne, my friends and I decided to explore the forest some more. We found a lot of beautiful and mindful art placed throughout the forest that showed that even though a festival is a party, it can also be a place to reconnect to nature and life.

Of course, the party side of the festival was apparent last night as well. In the forest, we also stumbled upon a an old saloon (spelled Sullun), with a bar, couches and hammocks inside.

I found a wooden rocking horse out front and decided to let my inner child out. All of the sudden, a lasso came out of no where. A man dressed in a cowboy costume was about ten feet away and had succeeded in lassoing me and my wooden horse. It was hilarious.

We then remembered that there was a “T.B.A.” set scheduled for the hidden stage in the forest. We wandered over and heard the beautiful notes of Dominic Lalli’s saxophone echoing through the trees. Lalli is a part of Big Gigantic, a Colorado based band that is set to headline Red Rocks Ampitheatre later this summer.

When we reached the hidden stage, we realized that DJs Griz and Gramatik were also playing. Since Griz had such an overcrowded set the night before, I thought it was great that he got to play another one. And when you added Lalli’s saxophone, the sound was jazzy and sexy as hell.

I then went to go check out the second set of Sound Tribe. It was definitely better than the first night; Tribe tried to go all out. I guess I just wish they would switch it up a bit more or go back to playing the stuff they made in the early 2000s.

Check out the photos I took yesterday:

I’m going to go catch the last bit of String Cheese again and then go get ready for Bassnectar. Check back to elephant tomorrow to read what happens and follow me on Twitter at  @cassES89.