[thebends]

I was thoroughly impressed with Hillside. Without doubt the "greenest" festival we've ever been to: Free water, excellent foods from all over the world, reusable beer and wine cups, recycling stations for your dishes, easy and quick access to porta wc, and "modern hippies" everywhere. We saw both performances with GD & TCOM although I have to say the afternoon improv show was amazing. Each band member chose a song (or two) from their catalogue and essentially gave everyone else on stage the chord changes on the go. I thought Gord was a little challenged with this format which just may be because he has not been playing instruments his entire life like the other members of TCOM. None the less the spontaneity of the jams was something well worth experiencing! Julie's two song's were fantastic specially the first one which had the same chord structure as "House of the Rising Sun" but a slightly different tempo and melody. The main stage show was also good but IMO the crowd did not seem into it that much. The previous two acts were Reggae and Hip Hop respectively, and I didn't think Gord's stylings were a natural progression for the crowd. Both shows were taped.

Again, hats off to Hillside and as mentioned earlier if you get a chance to go, do it! I cant think of a better festival to support.

Aside from the official festival archivist I didn't see anyone taping. Do you know otherwise?

The archivist had gear and people at each stage, for all shows, all weekend but that was the only gear that I saw (some of it was mine...).

For the Island Tent show there was gear mid stage right where the picnic tables started (right beside one of the tent poles), and for the Main Stage there was gear right in front of the sound board at the back. May have been the archivist's stuff.