However, the duality of a familiar image, fearing God and disc - scrabble, the raucous reality are so rooted in country music as the high and lonesome singing Hank Williams himself.
Located 200 kilometers northwest of Winnipeg, Canada reigning capital murder Dauphin Countryfest annually brings in big name headliners like Carrie Underwood, Dierks Bentley, and Reba.
The festival attracts 14,000 paying customers, along with thousands of artists, crew, volunteers, merchants, media types, and other parasites. The vast majority of who are white, drunk and sunburned as hell.
The festival grounds are located just north of the virgin forests of Riding Mountain National Park. The grounds feature a stunning hillside amphitheater, along with two side stages, various foods, trinket, and sellers of alcoholic beverages, and expansive site that houses everything from tents to 34 foot RV monstrosity’s massive young.
"We have two clusters of people coming here, children tents, campers and large, " Eric Irwin, president and mayor of Dauphin Countryfest , he explained with a beer on the first day . " Therefore, adapting at all is a bit of a puzzle, but we have people working on it at the camp. "
This puzzle includes plenty of portable shitters, pay showers, and more than a dozen campers confusing or downright racist flying Confederate flags. Some of them were taken with the standard of Canada, while others were flying style loud and proud lone wolf.
"I'm from south of the Mason -Dixon line and I do not pull that shit," said Sean Multan, harpist for some bands during the weekend and my drinking companion Sunday night, when the issue was raised. "What the fuck are these people thinking?”
The campground itself is divided in two, with quiet for most people at the top of the hill camping , and muddy camping , rowdier (where all the Confederate flags were seen ) down on the ground at low altitude that smells strongly manure. It is in the lower reaches of the site that are the “Back 40 “where a heavily intoxicated and hot mass of 16 to 24 completely lose their shit from Thursday to Monday morning.
"This is my coming fourth year," Kylie Parker , 22, said while standing knee deep in a nearby creek mud , where they were drinking hundreds, recklessly throwing their empty cans and naked bodies in water running . Parker was camping in the Back 40. "It's all about the music, but the party too, man. "
" How would you tell someone who has never been to Countryfest to prepare? ‘I asked.
"For the worst," I replied, laughing his solo cup "Rocket Fuel" - a potent mix but not unpleasant Budweiser, Bacardi, and Sour Puss.
The Back 40 is the wildest scene at the festival, where people are very hard partying on a consistent basis. A patron, Ryan Krause, ankle broke on Thursday, but refused to leave the game, somehow the location of a wheelchair for $ 40 on site. On Saturday night, however, was taken by ambulance as the condition of his leg had deteriorated rapidly. Its members were seriously bummed.
A particularly wild camping, known as the Honey Badger, loudly proclaimed to passers-by and a team of local filming they were the undisputed “wildest partiers “in Countryfest.
"I do not give a fuck” a type proclaimed after chugging his drink and throwing their empty mason on the side of it - a badger honey camper fifth wheel. On Monday morning, the honey badger had been completely demolished, flipped on its roof, trampled to pieces, and left under a mountain of beer cans.
With thousands of impaired customers running wild, it's no surprise that security in place and the RCMP ran ragged over the weekend. Despite the dozens of charges brought Countryfest - everything from drunk driving to drug possession to assault - Countryfest Irwin and organization are quick to downplay the negative reports to the public.
"Some of our stats get a little exaggerated because police reports seem to suggest that everything that happens in a major Manitoba highway that runs through the site is in some way related to Countryfest " Irwin said in an official statement Countryfest following under the subtitle festival " event without incident. "
You cannot blame the people Countryfest, however.
In the past, the festival has been involved in the routine violence, death, and widespread but unconfirmed rumors of sexual assault.
When a female performers of Thursday it was having trouble locating your campsite late at night told a useless member of security personnel " not surprised women are afraid of being raped here " was , she found herself strongly rebuked by the organizers of the event the next day.
“That does not happen here," she and her bandmates were tightly secured.
The festival is run mostly by volunteers - with only three full-time employees who operate behind the scenes of each year. Proceeds of the party and therefore economic development in the community millions of 8500.
Local organizations such as minor hockey, Air Cadets, and the school band depend on that money to keep the program throughout the year. As such, a safe, healthy image is crucial to Countryfest.
But country music is constantly struggling to bury their real problems under the guise of an aesthetic - values based on the rose family. From Hank Williams to George Jones, Steve Earle to Randy Travis, mainstream country music establishment will ignore almost every problem in the rear of artists, provided that moves units or puts butts in the seats. Until it is too late.
And so, country music continues to struggle with himself, caught between the ' ideal and the reality honky first wild living healthy family. Somewhere in between lies Dauphin Countryfest , a matter of bad taste,
where the whitest , drunkest in western Canada congregate annually to blow off some steam people , see some country music, and try not to succumb to alcohol intoxication , violent misfortune or death. It really is a good time ... if you like that sort of thing.
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