High Sierra Music Festival 2025: Through The Eyes & Ears Of 1st Time Attendee Cam Herdt
The Best Show Ever host shares his experience attending the long-running event for the first time.
By Cam Herdt Jul 11, 2025 • 11:37 am PDT
It was my first high sierra and I sure hope it isn’t my last.
I wanted to title this article “Comedian Runs Out of Adjectives to Describe High Sierra Music Festival” because I am still coming back to earth after one of the best experiences I could have asked for at the 2025 High Sierra Music Festival, held at Plumas County Fairgrounds in Quincy, California over the 4th of July Weekend.
My brother, Kyle and I would make the trip Thursday up from the Bay Area, through the mountains, with our only expectations being seeing great music and sharing a tiny tent for the next four days. We showed up without a parking pass and were told we could “street park or wiggle your way in wherever you can” and with that first direction, we knew that this was going to be a true “create-your-own-adventure” type of festival.
It took roughly two minutes of driving through the grounds for Kyle and me to fall in love with High Sierra. Without hearing a note of music, and without even parking the car, we could tell that this weekend would be the summer music festival that we’d been trying to attend our entire crunchy careers (yes, your music fandom is a career).
There was already a parade of life-size puppets working its way through the camp, following a Subaru Outback passing out homemade fruit popsicles. We were immediately pleased by how independent and free the festival seemed, indicated by the seemingly laissez-faire camping policy. With a true “get in where you fit in” system, there are camps set up right next to stages, up the hills, and into the woods, and even in one of the many working horse stalls on site.
The grounds themselves were easy to quickly navigate, with incredible mountain views in every direction. We were set up in a perfect location to enjoy the beautiful weather and listen to sick jams.
Lucky enough to catch up with artists like Dogs In A Pile, Andy Frascoand Karina Rykman before and after their shows, it felt like the artists were just as excited to be on the property as the patrons were. One of the main byproducts of the improvisation the Grateful Dead leaned into was the invitation to the audience to be a part of the show and create a unifying relationship between the band and the crowd. Something everyone in attendance is all in on, with no separation between the two entities.
This type of relationship is more difficult to accomplish than ever with bigger stage productions, further distance between the band and the crowd and the distractions of giant video screens, or the smaller one in your pocket. High Sierra seemed to cut through those distractions in a way that only a small independent festival could, but the secret wasn’t just in the size of the fest.
As we talked to neighbors at camp and folks waiting for the next set, we quickly realized what an institution High Sierra is. Rarely did we speak to someone who hadn’t been to the fest eight to 10 years running. There wasn’t one person we camped near that had been to HSMF less than 15 years total.
With High Sierra having over 30 years of history, and generations of attendees, that made the festival bigger than any one of the artists, meaning they are here for the spectacle, just like the patrons are. We saw that play out the rest of the weekend with how much fun was had on stage.
Our first night was dominated by improv with The Slip, Dogs In A Pile and a Daniel Donato late set, all playing to the clear, open and inviting vibe of the festival grounds and attendees. The fest was set up for an embarrassment of riches for music fans.
Our Friday schedule set up like a Stefon bit from SNL: High Sierra had everything, a Simon & Garfunkel group jam, a Bavarian Bluegrass band, Holly Bowling's child ripping a solo with Andy Frasco & The U.N. and a pick-fest Daniel Donato sit-in with Dogs In A Pile. These are all things that happened before 4 p.m.
We carried the momentum from those sets into a Karina Rykman mainstage performance that saw Brian Murray from Dogs In A Pile sit-in on her song “City Kids.” We followed that up with a Daniel Donato set that had us all begging the question, “How ARE we dern?”
We were then showed the true silliness of High Sierra in the wee hours of Saturday morning with a few frames of penguin bowling (people bowled on skateboards into a pin set up of plastic penguins), a seesaw that we were really good at (we weren’t), and the famed and time-honored tradition of 5 a.m. kickball — complete with a trampoline for second base, a gong at shortstop that can be hit for an automatic home run, and a guy dressed as Jafar from Aladdin being very rude and taking a call for the entire game.
We were gassed and blown away by the time we were having. We certainly needed something to soothe our souls on Saturday, and we were met with an incredible presentation of music from Natalie Cressman and her husband Ian Faquini. A blend of beautiful Brazilian compositions and wonderful celebratory instrumental music written for James Casey brought us right back to earth. This wouldn’t be the last time we were blown away by beautiful compositions this weekend.
We saw two Mikaela Davis and Southern Star sets that caught us completely off guard. We loved her record, but left her sets completely dumbfounded by the sound harpist Mikaela Davis and her band create live.
Reed Mathis and Brian Haas of Jacob Fred Jazz Odyssey had possibly more fun on stage with each other than I’ve ever seen two artists have. Screaming for joy and shouting expletives in merriment throughout their set had us grinning from ear to ear.
We were able to catch LaMP with Scott Pemberton, Jennifer Hartswick and Natalie Cressman, which exceeded already sky-high expectations. We capped our weekend with the genius compositions of Holly Bowling, and wiped the streaming tears from our eyes to catch the unbridled shredding funk power of Grace Bowers & The Hodge Podge.
Kyle and I left High Sierra with the memories we made imprinted on us forever, but more than anything, we’re just excited to head back next year.
