Nightmare Music Festival: A Scary Good Time

Nightmare Music Festival in Darlington, Maryland ushered in my Halloween in the heaviest of fashions. Throughout my year of covering music festivals, no festival before made my neck and back more sore than my two days at Camp Ramblewood; where the festival was held. Although my muscles ached and my movements were slowed due to the lactic acid build up within the headbanging regions of my muscles, I still found myself captivated by the performance and hypnotized by the grime.

The size of the venue, the carefully crafted lineup, the decorations, as well as the performances of the staff really brought this Halloween music festival together in the most haunting of ways.

There were three total stages – each stocked with their own unique swagger. With acts such as Liquid Stranger, Figure, Squnto, Ganja White Night, and so many more playing at The Void, it definitely was the place to be if you were dedicated to breaking your neck.

Freak Show was another stage that was much more personal and hosted the beautifully experimental acts such as Govinda, who ended up playing his violin majestically over his own music, & Phutureprimitive, who sadly only had a 40 minute set!. It also came equipped with three rows of seating so all the exhausted festival goers could pop-a-squat and still enjoy the music comfortably.

Area 51 was the smallest stage that hosted heavy acts during the daytime such as Sadboy, and also premiered scary movies during the early morning hours on a large screen after the music dwindled down to the closers.

My favorite sets of the weekend ended up being Govinda, Squnto and his brutal octodrop, Ganja White Night and their savage wobbles, and Dubloadz, of course. This lineup went extremely well together and allowed festival goers to have a refreshing variety to quench the ears of the eager. There was not one artist on that lineup that disappointed; even the artists that played in the early afternoon and late night sets killed it. Every producer came to put on a memorable show and that\’s exactly what they did.

If you’re looking for a variety of food vendors you won’t find much; but you’ll find enough to satisfy your tummy grumbles. There was a placing selling authentic Thai food that smelled delightful however my attention was, of course, caught once again by the smell of pizza.

Old Town Brick Oven Pizza, or known over Facebook as OTBOP, was the creator of this fine pizza that entered my belly and warmed it right up. After a brief interview with the owner I learned that the pizza was fully vegan! Vegan cheese pizza based with soy milk and coco oil which was derived from Chef Sky Michael Conrow. They keep their ovens at 900 degrees which provides the firm, crunchy base for an orchastra of  pizza that melts in your mouth; if only they had ranch.

Nightmare Music Festival was truly a memorable way to spend my Halloween weekend. Haunted houses, watching scary movies with herds of fun strangers, dancing way to hard with people I’ll only know until the set is over, and watching the sun rise from its slumber as a day full of filth commenced across Camp Ramblewood will stand vivid in my mind only until the next year where I can add to the memories that BadassRaves helped compose.