Live Review: Could GRRRL Camp replace Maha as Nebraska’s premier new-music indie festival?

Category: Reviews — Tags: , , , , — @ 11:18 am July 22, 2024
Saturday evening at Grrrl Camp with Hurray for the Riff Raff, Falconwood Park, July 20, 2024.

by Tim McMahan, Lazy-i.com

The above headline is like tossing a lit grenade in the room full of indie kids. I have no idea what Maha Music Festival’s current status is. The rumors are that Maha is over, done, won’t be back next year. I’m not so sure, though, and see no reason why it would end except that the Maha folks have yet to provide any updates on the festival’s status for 2025. 

But if Maha is over, Grrrl Camp could easily slide in and take its place. In many ways, it reminded me of Maha – its lineup, the vendors/festival atmosphere, the laidback feel of the crowd, even the location, which brings me to Falconwood Park in Bellevue.

This was my first time inside the confines of the Falconwood compound, having skipped the last couple years of Outlandia, partially out of concerns about the facilities and access. Though it’s only a quick 25-minute drive via the Interstate, there’s always been a “do-I-really-want-to-drive-all-the-way-out-there?” sort of feel about it. All the photos I’d seen made it look like Falconwood is an empty field near the banks of the Platte River – muddy, mosquitos, parking in a grass field, etc. 

Well, I’m here to tell you, Falconwood was worth the trip. They have a pretty amazing set-up. Getting there is easy via a two-lane county road off the interstate that takes you to a very narrow access road (easy, but I wonder how easy if, say, 8,000 people headed to the concert). Signage makes it hard to miss, though we did go in through the camping entrance by mistake. Parking was, indeed, in a grassy field near the campgrounds but was only a few yards from the concert area. 

Falconwood’s fancy lodge located at the west end of the park.

One of the first buildings you encounter is the facilities’ west lodge, a very cool structure with a stage, a full bar and probably a kitchen (though they weren’t serving food), with bathrooms and booths along one wall. I asked one of the organizers what would happen if there was a heavy rain during the concert, and she told me they’d take it into the lodge, but the structure’s capacity could be more than a few hundred. 

Beyond that was the festival area, with more vendors than I’ve seen at any other local music festival. There must have been 100 vendor tents, most selling clothing, jewelry, art and tchotchkes (I saw one selling shoes!). Food trucks were set up along the back – maybe a half-dozen of the usual suspects (the El Churro Spot had the longest lines).  

A 360-degree view of Grrrl Camp at Falconwood Park, July 20, 2024.

More vendor tents and picnic tables ran along the edges leading up to the stage area, and, just eye-balling it, I’d guess that the footprint for this section of Falconwood is smaller than Stinson Park at Aksarben Village (but this is just a fraction of Falconwood – more on that later). 

Maybe it was the fantastic weather, maybe it was the bands, maybe it was the size of the crowd, but the whole thing felt very chill and fun. We got there on Saturday afternoon right before Girl Ray took the stage, found a spot about 30 yards from the stage, and dropped our folding chairs complete with a Modelo tallboy in hand (alas, I didn’t see any Rolling Rock in their coolers).  

I’d guestimate the crowd was around 200 not including the army of vendors. Organizers say Grrrl Camp attracted 1,000 people over the course of the weekend (again, not including vendors), which is much less than your typical Maha festival. That said, for its second year (and first with national touring bands), it’s a good start. 

Girl Ray at Grrrl Camp, Falconwood Park, July 20, 2024.

Leeds, England, band Girl Ray played tunes off their latest LP, Prestige (2023, Moshi Moshi), which were fun, un-cheesy disco rock songs. I don’t think they play many U.S. festivals, and said they were surprised to get the call for Grrrl Camp. With the weird CrowdStrike outage impacting airports earlier, they had to take a series of overnight flights from LA to make it to the festival, but seemed happy they did.

This stage at Falconwood is a permanent structure and is really all they need for this portion of the park. The sound was fantastic, especially with this band. The young, fashionably hipster crowd happily bounced to the beat. Yeah, it was mostly women in the audience, but there were plenty of dudes, too.  There also was a small army of people slinging SLR cameras taking photos everywhere – there must be a shit-ton of aspiring rock photographers in Omaha. 

Annie DiRusso plays Grrrl Camp at Falconwood Park, July 20, 2024.

After a quick switch-out and some bumping DJ action, Nashville’s Annie DiRusso and her band were next. Their sound is more akin to modern indie rock, reminiscent of Blondshell and other artists who were clearly influenced by Liz Phair. She played most of the songs off her 2023 EP, God, I Hate This Place, as well as new songs from her upcoming debut full-length (which I think she said drops next month). 

Their mix was much heavier and louder (in went my earplugs), which made things sound chunkier and less refined than her recordings. These folks apparently drove from Seattle to make this festival, which in itself was impressive. 

In case you didn’t know, Charlie XCX’s new album, brat, has been deemed the album of summer 2024. DiRusso invented the term “NeBratska” in its honor, which she rolled out when introducing her band’s unique, rocked-out cover of “Apple” from that album – a highlight. 

After DiRusso’s set, the fine folks at Falconwood gave me a quick tour of the entire facility (via golf cart), including where the upcoming Outlandia Festival will be held on the opposite side of the park. That concert space is immense, surrounded by old cabins that have been renovated for camping (or glamping). There is little doubt that Outlandia will be a completely different concert experience than Grrrl Camp (both are booked by 1% Productions) and more akin to the mammoth machine that was the Maha Music Festival. 

The Outlandia Festival, by the way, is in just a few weeks – Aug. 9 and 10 – and will feature headliners The Flaming Lips, The Head and the Heart and The Revivalists, along with a fetching (and, in my opinion, more interesting) undercard that includes The Faint, Dinosaur Jr., Buffalo Tom (yes, that Buffalo Tom), Devotchka, Flipturn and more. 

The story behind Falconwood is kind of inspiring and something I hope to pursue at a later date.

Hurray for the Riff Raff at Grrrl Camp, Falconwood Park, July 20, 2024.

Hurray for the Riff Raff were on stage when we got back to the Grrrl Camp area. Their folk-tinged rock was the perfect compliment for a beautiful evening outdoors. No doubt the medical tent was kept busy doling out mosquito repellant (I certainly got my share). 

We left before Indigo de Souza, whose music I love but who I’ve seen before. Because of our timing, getting out of Falconwood was simple, but like I said, I’m not so sure how it all works when you have a few thousand people leaving at once. 

The moral of this rather long-winded review is to not be afraid of Falconwood Park. The facilities are awesome. The location – while nowhere near as convenient as Stinson Park – is easily accessible from Omaha (though the jury is still out regarding traffic during a big event), and holds far more potential than what Aksarben Village could provide. 

Hopefully Grrrl Camp will return next year, building on the buzz generated this year. I was trepidatious about the name, but I get it now. As long as that name doesn’t hold back organizers from booking bands that don’t have at least one female member, I could see this festival growing to Maha proportions. 

Ah, Maha, what has become of thee?

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Read Tim McMahan’s blog daily at Lazy-i.com — an online music magazine that includes feature interviews, reviews and news. The focus is on the national indie music scene with a special emphasis on the best original bands in the Omaha area. Copyright © 2024 Tim McMahan. All rights reserved.

5 Comments

  • Why would organizers book bands without female members for next year’s festival? That’s the whole point of Grrrl Camp, it’s literally in the name. This may come as a surprise but not everything has to cater to or involve men.

    Comment by TN — July 23, 2024 @ 2:02 pm

  • They obviously don’t have to book bands without female members. My point was if they want to be AS BIG AS Maha (which had over 12,000 in attendance over two days in its last year vs. this year’s Grrrl Camp total of 1,000), they would likely be limiting themselves if they only booked female-fronted acts. But who knows. If they could book Lana Del Ray or Phoebe/Boygenius, anything is possible…

    Comment by tim-mcmahan — July 23, 2024 @ 2:11 pm

  • Girl Ray is misspelled twice, additionally they did not take any flights to NE, they drove from LA.
    Your last paragraph is uneducated bs. Grrrl Camp was in part created because we need more femme/woman bands at festivals. Less than 20% of bands at music fests are femme/woman ran. You would know this if you did research on the fest before writing this piece, which comes off as uneducated and biased.
    Do better journalism.

    Comment by SNS — July 23, 2024 @ 2:15 pm

  • Thanks for pointing out the typo. Fixed! As for the flight info, that’s what I remember them saying from stage, but perhaps I got it wrong. They did have a struggle getting to Nebraska because of the computer-security snafu. As for the femme/woman bands comment, see my previous response.

    Comment by tim-mcmahan — July 23, 2024 @ 2:30 pm

  • I want to continue to see GRRRL Camp small, weird, and focused everywhere other than cis men. I was a kid whose mom worshipped Tool and was taken to live music events the way some people go to church. GRRRL Camp was easily in my All Time Top 5 Live Music Events. I need months to let it digest to see where it falls within the Top 5 list.

    I am a man that also ranks public restrooms and the sheer chaos of the GRRRL Camp Men’s Room easily makes it my #1 All Time Favorite Public Restroom.

    Comment by Colonel Redneck Scientist — July 23, 2024 @ 5:34 pm

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