The Dangerous Road to Langerado

Magic marshmallows, a tragic death, storms and freezing temperatures — this hippy fest had it all

By Angie Hargot

Lots of hippies busted out their peace pipes at Big Cypress during Langerado. Photos by Rachael Lee Coleman

On Friday night, at the Alligator Alley tollbooth that leads to the Big Cypress Seminole Indian Reservation, things were already getting weird for Langerado Music Festival attendees. There was a slight holdup at that particular tollbooth: a rather large bug.

“I don’t even know what kind of bug that was,” said the tollbooth worker, standing next to the male co-worker who had rushed to her aid, armed with a large can of bug spray. Several heads peered out of car windows to investigate. It turned out to be some kind of supped-up grasshopper. The $2.50 toll was accepted. The car rolled forward.

After exiting I-75, miles of cars crept single-file along Snake Road, a precarious 15-mile gravel road barely wide enough for two cars that led to Langerado. On one embankment, a fence and one or two cars that broke down or ran out of gas; on the other, a dark, mysterious canal.

Drivers stopped and hollered, and passengers popped out of sunroofs as the occasional alligator splashed about in the murky depths. Whole carloads of people jumped out of their cars for, at times, 10 or more minutes to converse with other drivers, pass out fliers and stretch their legs, only to jump back in again to move the car forward only a few more yards.

As it turned out more than two hours later, the delay was caused by a checkpoint designed to confiscate glassware from 25,000 attendees who showed up each day because, in accordance with tribal law, glass was not allowed in the park. The problem was exacerbated by the huge influx of cars pouring into the festival Friday and Saturday nights. (It seems no one managed to head out early.) The line, although frustrating, was rather civil, though, until the bitter end, when passengers’ full bladders undoubtedly demanded an end to it all, gas needles shifted toward empty and concert-goers who had purchased one-day tickets to see a specific band watched their $80 go up in smoke.

Moments before we reached the holy grail of a parking lot, drivers began honking their horns and, curiously, screaming out of the windows as the Beastie Boys provided background music from the Everglades stage.

Later, frustrated festival-goers learned that waiting in line for three hours paled in comparison to the tragedy that occurred the next night, as those who remembered were setting their clocks forward for daylight saving time.

Details are still sketchy because the incident is currently under investigation by reservation police, but we do know that the long road to Langerado claimed at least one life.

Just after 1 a.m. Sunday, “a bus and a pickup truck” collided on Snake Road, three to four miles north of I-75 and more than 10 miles from the festival entrance, according to Florida Highway Patrol spokesperson Sgt. Mark Wysocky.

Constance Leach, a 36-year-old American Indian from Clewiston, was pronounced dead at the scene from injuries sustained in the accident, according to the Broward Medical Examiners Office. An unknown number of vehicle passengers were injured.

Langerado had hired Target Sports Adventures, the independent shuttle company involved in the accident, to ferry people from airports and hotels to the festival, according to Langerado spokesperson Megan McFann.

“The Miccosukee police [which enforce the laws there for the Seminole Tribe] aren’t releasing details,” Wysocky said.

Removed from that tragedy, though, inside the fairgrounds, community was an inescapable feeling at the sixth annual Langerado Music Festival.

Just hours before the tragedy, concert-goers Crystal and Laurel Schwartz huddled up in a blanket, just feet from the hordes of fans watching R.E.M. take the stage, bathed in yellow lighting under a cold, moonless sky. Soon after, Michael Stipe, who accidentally threw his green Barack Obama T-shirt into the press pit, before ordering the media to toss it into the audience, asked, “Where the hell are we?”

“We saw them in Athens,” said Crystal Schwartz, 17, who wasn’t even close to being born when R.E.M. released its first album. “Hey, I remember tapes!” she added, looking around at a littered field.

“These are fake hippies,” said her mom, Laurel, 35. “Real hippies wouldn’t litter.”

“It’s disgusting. It makes me feel bad inside,” Crystal chimed in.

The duo had waited in line for three hours, until 1 a.m., the night before. Laurel caught three hours of sleep, while her daughter got in a good 14 hours. “We met people who hadn’t slept since they got here on Thursday,” Laurel said.

The pair learned one lesson that night: Although few and far between, some Langerado lines don’t move.

The trek in was the first, followed by lines for coffee and some foods and, predictably, a line for freshly made mini-donuts that extended to the back of the concession field. There was, however, no line to get into the festival press tent, since the thing had blown away.

The festivities started up again in the morning as the cleaning crews, who covered the grounds after each show and then en masse every morning, scoured the fields for debris. The 450 red-shirted volunteers were part of a group called the Work Exchange Team by Shimon Presents, Langerado’s marketing and publicity team. In exchange for festival tickets and camping amenities, the rubber-gloved workers picked up bags of plastic cups and other trash, and even recruited other festival patrons to do the same — many of whom gladly obliged.

Shimon side operations worker Tom Jones was responsible, in part, for building the hundreds of tents in which vendors, artisans and activists set up shop. He was also responsible for tearing down the remnants of the storm-leveled media tent.

“It’s a lot of work,” said Jones, who has spent four years as a Work Exchange Team volunteer. “And each year is different. Markham [Park] was nice, but it couldn’t hold the people. This is my fifth Langerado and I’m sorry I missed the first one. This is the Woodstock of the new millennium.”

Aside from the media tent, the storm that raged through the campground Friday damaged little else.

At a small tent on the very edge of the fairgrounds, a seller dressed like a fairy sold magic tricks and old-fashioned games. The owner also taught stilt walking and juggling at the Kiderado family area.

“Business is great — it’s lots of fun teaching lots of people how to play,” said Mr. Fun, who insisted that this was all the identification anyone would ever need from him. “You get to meet new people without being concerned with how you look or how you smell, for that matter. We rise above the rain and we’re one big happy family.”

Just a few tents away, a short line formed around Hasidic rapper Matisyahu, who sat in the shade sipping on a plastic bottle of Miller Light and signing autographs. “It’s been great,” he said, autographing a flier for his new Web site. “I got a little sunburned on my forehead, but it’s been great.”       

Sarah Skaggs from New Smyrna Beach waited in line for an autograph. “This is the most beautiful time of my life,” she said.

As Ben Folds took the stage, patrons from all walks of life came and went from their campsites to the festival grounds — kids in college sweaters, a shoeless Fred Flintstone-costumed camper philosophizing with a guy in a banana costume and a band of roving musicians drumming on light posts with metal sticks. Girls and boys dancing as the sun set in a flawless sky, the light was orange and warm even in the below-50-degree weather. News crews and their cameras captured the lines of girls with their sunburned skin glowing pink in the waning daylight, as roving jewelry sellers with velvet trays hunkered down suddenly for customers to inspect their wares. By early Sunday morning, the Seminole Tribe of Florida was rumored to have already signed a contract to hold the festival there again next year, although McFann could not confirm those plans.

“Langerado is better than any other festival,” said Stephanie Neveil, who attends Eckerd College in St. Petersburg. “It’s not too big and not too small.”

Stuart Fox drove down to Langerado from Athens, Ga. “It’s an opportunity to bond with people with a great soundtrack behind you,” he said, adding that it took him and his friends 15 hours to get to the reservation. “We had a little detour,” he said, with a chuckle and a sly smile. “We made a wrong turn.” Nearby, a girl pulled out a tiny plastic bag containing a single marshmallow and popped it into her mouth.

Many concert-goers agreed that Langerado created a collective consciousness: “It’s like cosmic debris,” said Greg, 21, from New Jersey. “You just meet so many people. After two or three shows, you actually recognize people.”

Will Caller, 22, put it a bit simpler: “Wooooooo!”

As the cold wind turned cheeks and noses red, the blues and oranges of the setting sun melted together, and trios of strangers huddled beside tents to keep warm and delve into conversation. They had just met, but already agreed on the feeling of unity here — they were themselves a symbol of it. And then, when they felt the impetus to go on their ways, they would stand up and brush the grass off their jeans. “Nice meeting you,” they would say, genuinely. And everyone would say the same. It was nice meeting them.

Comments? E-mail angie@miamisunpost.com