This is it! My last Gathering of the Juggalos post of 2021! But don’t think you will stop seeing juggalos from me anytime soon because my juggalo NFT series will continue and I am sure I will keep bothering you guys about that stuff. Sorry about that. Anyway, day three was my most chill day. I “only” have 160 photos for you guys today. I sort of felt like I had everything I needed and planned to photograph the bands and shoot some more portraits and shoot ICP and then be done with it but my day got sidetracked a little bit.

My first sidetrack was meeting the owner of Legend Valley, the campsite that the festival is on. I was photographing one of the giant dinosaurs that are on the lot and he started talking to me about them. Apparently they are for a EDM fest called Lost Lands that’s happening in a couple weeks. He told me he had 40 small dinos just sitting at his house. They apparently all move and I realize I had actually seen them on Shark Tank. He let me back to a place beyond the security fencing to photograph some of them. It was very cool. I even made a dumb TikTok. 

My next sidetrack was taking some photos with Ouija Macc. As I mentioned before he’s the #2 artist on Psychopathic Records after ICP and he’s managed by a friend of mine so we set up a quick shoot. I went backstage and they were loading huge pallets of Faygo for ICP’s set onto the stage with a forklift and I had an idea. The dude driving the truck looked like Stan Lee if Stan Lee were a biker and loved the idea and lifted Ouija up into the air as high it would go and I grabbed a few shots. He put it down before I was finished but I wasn’t gonna complain and I still got a couple of good ones. 

After that I finally shot a musical act. (I actually took a couple photos of Free Will too.) Lardi B performed and I knew nothing about her except her name sounded pretty funny. Apparently she went viral for doing a WAP parody. She had a set with donuts and candy behind her and as soon as she started playing the crowd started throwing food at her. I honestly couldn’t tell if they were doing it to support her or boo her but either way she took it in stride and it became one of the more memorable performances of the festival. People were throwing entire boxes of snacks at her. I got hit in the neck with a bag of cookies and just caught it, opened it and ate the cookies while shooting her set. It was really fun. There was also a unicorn. 

My next distraction was a pinata. I had shot a juggalo pinata event once before and it was pretty insane. This dude Poncho and his friends go around with the pinata to every campsite just collecting stuff to put in there. So yeah there is candy but there was also a quarter pound of weed and ton of other drugs plus every sort of weird thing you could imagine. I put one of my Driven By Boredom enamel pins in it, so shout out to whoever got that. 

After that a band called Black Raven played and I missed the start of their set so I couldn’t get in the photo pit so instead I shot their mosh pit. People were covered in chalk dust or something and it was a pretty fun scene. I actually went on IG live and filmed it which was fun since I never go on there ever. It just seemed like a good time and people could see what the Gathering was like first hand.

I spent a little while taking portraits during their set but then it started getting dark. I went back to the car to get my flash and realized I didn’t bring it. I made a calculation and decided it was worth trying to go back to the hotel. It took longer than it should have and by the time I got back it was pitch black outside and Big Hoodoo was almost done playing. Fortunately I made it back for Danny Brown.

Danny Brown is a dude I have photographed a ton of times. I actually had a meeting about doing a video for him off his first album but that didn’t ever happen. I still fuck with his music and his performances have always been fun. During his set juggalos seemed to be really vibing with him but after I left the photo pit something must have happened because he started talking shit to the crowd and kinda walked off stage at some point. I have no idea what happened and he didn’t mention it on his social media but he just threw his mic in to the crowd and walked off. Real bummer. 

Finally the festival ended with ICP and I have photographed ICP a million times now including 2 days earlier so I don’t really have anything to say about their set but I am gonna talk gentle smack to my girlfriend who was supposed to go on stage for the final song for the “Faygo Armageddon” and she chickened out and we ended up leaving before their set ended to beat traffic. I’ve done it twice and it’s the most fun thing ever. Just running around on stage throwing soda. Also shout out to Ouija for giving me his backstage pass so she could do it. 

Okay, so that’s it! Another Gathering of the Juggalos in the book. Gonna link some stuff below so you can see all my coverage. I actually have some photos in an article on Insider coming soon so I will link that here too when it’s out. (Update: It’s out.) Thanks for coming and I will see you juggalos next year!

 – Daily Beast – Rolling Stone – Brooklyn Vegan – Insider – Juggalo NFTs – NSFW Juggalettes – 

Now click here to see all the photos from Day 3 of the Gathering of the Juggalos in Thornville, OH. 

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