I wasn’t sure how Electric Forest could get any better with how amazing and magical the third night was. But it definitely did.

The heat really got to me in the morning, so I spent most of the day looking for shade and resting at camp. The String Cheese Incident played their last set at 6:45 p.m. last night, so it was still light out for most of their show.

Cheese ended the weekend with another unbelievable performance. They finished their first set with “Colorado Bluebird Sky” and opened their second set with a guest appearance from Boulder saxophonist Dominic Lalli.

Cheese encored with a cover of Bob Marley’s “Could You Be Loved,” and I about lost it. Everyone was smiling and singing along; the moment was pretty damn close to perfect.

The rest of the night got pretty crazy after that. Bassnectar played a pulse-pounding and earth shaking set of womp and wobble. He brought the biggest crowd any artist had seen at the festival up until that point. I stood towards the side of the crowd and watched thousands of glow-stick filled hands wave back and forth to the beats.

After Bassnectar’s set, we went back into the forest to make sure we had explored every square inch. I took some time to just walk around by myself and let the hard work and care that went into creating such a beautiful place sink in. The magic of Sherwood Forest is something I will never forget.

Boulder’s Big Gigantic closed out the weekend on the Sherwood Court stage. The Boulder duo drew a crowd significantly larger than the one Bassnectar had an hour before. It seemed that the entire festival came out to see the final notes play. I’ve seen Big Gigantic play better shows than the set they played last night, but I definitely still enjoyed it.

As the sun was about to rise, my friends and I meandered back to camp, sad that we had to leave such a fun weekend behind. I’ve made so many wonderful memories here, and I’ll take all the love and magic I’ve found back with me to share with all of you.

I’m headed off to start the long drive back to Boulder; thank you for reading about my Electric Forest adventures!

Bonus: Here are a couple of videos I took on the second night; the first is from String Cheese’s set and the second is from the surprise set Griz, Gramatik and Dominic Lalli played in the forest:

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Cassandra Smith is an editorial intern at elephant journal.  She is a fifth generation Colorado native who believes dance has the potential to liberate human consciousness from its cultural prison.  Cassandra formerly trained at Boston Ballet and is currently a senior at University of Colorado Boulder studying journalism, sociology and philosophy. Read her blog at cassandralanesmith.com.

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