Hot Buttered Rum’s Nat Keefe remembers an intense stretch at the Summer Camp Music Festival. Keefe may not be on stage quite so often often over the coming days but Hot Buttered Rum has an active summer tour itinerary.

SATURDAY May 26

12:45am. (Pacific Time Zone) Hot Buttered Rum finishes the last notes of a three-song encore to a packed house at the Hopmonk in Sebastopol, CA. (“Genie’s Loose” “Way Back When” > “Lovelight.”) There are so many old friends there that I don’t want to leave. However, I pack up my Toyota Matrix and drive the 1 hour home to San Francisco. Erik Yates comes with me to spend the night on my couch and get a ride to the airport.

2:25am. My head hits the pillow.

4:10am. Alarm goes off. It seems like the most unlikely thing to be here, in this bed, with this strange sound. A few moments ago I’d been flying through a Utah redrock landscape in my subconscious, tasting nectar from cactus flowers. Now I feel like a premature baby with organs that don’t work. I get my ass in gear, and Erik and I get out the door.

7:12am. After the usual bustle of lines and security, the five members of Hot Buttered Rum are on an airplane and taxiing to the runway. I’ve been called the best sleeper in HBR – I can sleep anywhere – and I promptly fall asleep in my seat.

1pm. (Central Time Zone) The jolt of landing at Chicago O’Hare wakes me from more flying and more nectar. Did I drool on my neighbor? This is not something to worry about. I check for my phone and my wallet and get off the plane.

1:52pm. Erik goes and gets the rental van and meets the rest of Hot Buttered Rum with a pile of gear at the baggage claim curbside. We load up and drive south.

5:22pm. Nearing Chilicothe, IL, the site of Summer Camp, we have to make a decision. Do we go to the festival and join the informal bluegrass jam session we were invited to by Cornmeal, or go catch a nap the hotel? We have only one van so it has to be a group decision. We decide to go to hotel – ouch – I love stuff like that. But we have to prioritize energy for the 2:30am set. We go to hotel, I eat an early dinner, change my guitar strings, begin the setlist, and sleep for an hour.

10pm. Arrive on Summer Camp site. So huge. So ridiculous. Masses of cars and flesh and dust. I think of the first festivals I went to before I had a professional reason to be there. I was a little lonely without a girlfriend or a band or a way to get beer, but man those were fun… We park the van next to the stage and touch base with our front-of-house sound engineer Andy Whilden, who flew in the the day before and is already there setting things up.

11pm. News of the SF Giants’ loss to the Marlins in Miami spreads through the band. I feel my testosterone level dip.

11:30pm. Soundcheck. Soooo good to have Andy here. The stage sounds good, he’s a great “doer of things,” and it’s wonderful to have a younger guy in the band to heckle. I throw my guitar in the van and go walk around the festival with Lucas.

Nat with HRB’s Bryan HorneSUNDAY May 27

1:45am. We’re realizing this is going to be a big set, maybe the biggest of the weekend. The Ragbirds are killing it on our stage and there are already 1000 people out there dancing. We make a few changes to the setlist… I think people are going to be ready for “Fruit of the Vine” with washboard about halfway through. Let’s do “Crest” tonight instead of tomorrow. Is it too heavy to do “French” and “Summertime Gal” so close? Nah…

2:20am. Things said in the band huddle before the set: Take time with the improv sections, we have all the time in the world; more reaction than action; don’t be Kobe Bryant and try to take it to the net every time, even if you can; let the energy we feel from the people there inform how we make the groove; sing the fuck out of these songs.

2:30am. We get on stage to shimmering light and big cheers. People are carrying poles topped with glowing animals and spheres, so there’s a whole other party going on four feet above peoples’ heads. Drummer Lucas Carlton is laying it down heavy and aggressive from the very beginning, though there is somehow room for the acoustic tones. As we kick into the “Late in the Evening” I feel this wave of happiness up front, people are hugging each other, smiling up at us. Aaron Redner is singing directly and people are getting it. I’m usually not into starting sets with a cover, but it feels right here. Right out of the unison rhythm ending of “Evening” I kick off the riff for “Like the French.” The band quickly trickles into a full groove and then drops out on a dime. With just the drums grooving, we sing three-part harmony “Like the French we drink the wine, we make the love in the afternoon…” As we get to the guitar solo I decide to take a real easy approach and lay on a variation of the basic riff for awhile. Remembering from the band huddle we are going to “take time,” I keep it in this textured middle ground and interact with Bryan Horne’s bass line. The band builds it up behind the guitar for a few cycles and then catapults things into a really hot space. We take things to a boil and hand it off to Erik. The set continues…

3:17am. This is off the hook. Good scene! 2000 people dancing! Matt Butler sits in with us on Lucas’ washboard for “Ramblin Girl.” It’s 3 in the morning but it’s still 75 degrees and humid and I’m drenched with sweat. I drop my pick and can’t find it. I don’t have another one. I hop over to Redner and steal his mandolin pick.

4am. “Squall” > “Crest” to close. Erik is in top form as he draws out the last cadence of “Squall.” The last four hits of “Crest” bring a huge flourish from the lighting director and we’re done. I feel like we did what we came to do. Very satisfying. I sit on the lip of the stage and meet the people. There are some great kids here. Lots of people we met on our tour with Cornmeal last month.

4:37am. I feel completely unstoppable and could easily party until the sun rises. However, there’s a vague responsibility for the three sets Sunday afternoon. The van is packed and we drive towards the hotel.

5:15am. My head hits the pillow.

10:15. Alarm wakes me from dreamless sleep. It’s somehow not painful to get going. It feels like I’m waking up from a little nap.

11:15am. We decide to forgo a coffee stop en route and arrive at festival grounds to seek out our catered meal.

11:24am. I find myself in a catering tent with a badly-made pulled pork sandwich and a Pepsi cola. No coffee. No breakfast. It’s 95 degrees and humid. What am I doing with my life? Why do people come to these festivals? There’s so much wrong with the pork industry, I really shouldn’t support it. Why can’t I sit comfortably? Why do I hate my bandmates?

12:15pm. Tequila tastes lovely over ice in our trailer greenroom. I come out of my little funk with agave, nourishment and air conditioning. I work on the setlist and run it by bandmates.

1pm. We take the stage for our set. I’m surprised by how many people are there to dance in the dust and the midday sunlight. This might be harsher conditions than Burning Man. These Midwesterners are hardy people… The highlight of the set is “Where the Streets Have No Name” > “Desert Rat” > “Banished Set.” Aaron sings the U2 song so well, and it somehow works with our sound. “Desert” is still one of my favorites to play, even after years of singing it. I love the edgy groove, I love getting into a character’s head. I often get choked up on the last verse, as the world crashes down on the protagonist: “The altar was torn down/the machine defiled my sacred ground/so I stand above the desert sand/with a monkey wrench in my hand.” I feel like this song came out of raw emotion and experience rather than a genre or chords and words. I think again of my Utah redrock/cactus nectar dream from the night before… Then we segue into a set of three traditional Irish fiddle tunes that we call “Banished Set.” Here is where Aaron’s fiddle playing shines. When we play this next to the U2 song, I’ll bet at least one person in the audience gets that they’re both Irish music. I see a dude with a homemade “Busted in Utah” T-shirt. We played it last night or else I probably would have kicked into it – it doesn’t take much to tip us in a direction. The set goes on…

Nat with Al Schnier and the Everyone Orchestra3pm. After finishing the set and bowing to our wonderful audience, we jump into the van and drive to the Soulshine tent to do our set with Conscious Alliance. This is going to be a more chill scene, so we make the call to have it be a stripped-down, sit-down set. Lucas plays just a snare drum with brushes and a tambourine under his foot. This is low-pressure, so we try a bunch of very new songs like “Beyond the Sky” and “Diamonds in the Wind.” Conscious Alliance is a great old friend of ours. Their mission is to feed those in need and they do this with food drives and donations. I sit on their Advisory Board and we support them whenever we can. With Alliance director BJ Cochran, we talk about our food drive and visit to the Lakota Sioux on the Pine Ridge Reservation.

4:47pm. After a quick bite we meet Matt Butler and the crew he’s assembled for the Everyone Orchestra set. It’s a heavy-hitting group: Al Schnier & Vinny Amico from moe., Jennifer Hartswick and Natalie Cressman from Trey Anastasio Band, Black Nature from the Sierra Leone All-Stars, Robert Mercurio from Galactic, Joel Cummins from Umphrey’s, as well as Aaron, Erik, and me. Everyone Orchestra assembles a different group every show, and with no rehearsal, conductor Matt Butler leads the group in making music. I sometimes feel intimidated by the huge talent Matt drops me next to. But I love it and after doing perhaps 20 EO sets I’m comfortable with the context and what I have to contribute.

5pm. The Everyone Orchestra set is in an air-conditioned barn, and the musicians and fans all perk up. This huge ensemble comes to life. There’s room for everybody there to express their thing, but no one needs to try too hard. There’s form and discipline, but everyone is relaxed and playful. I especially enjoy trading licks and playing complementary rhythm parts with Al – such a great electric guitarist. Jennifer and Natalie throw down some tasty improvised horn section lines, you can tell they play a lot together. Jennifer plays a trumpet solo with a couple nasty phrases way behind the beat. When it’s my turn to take the lead, I take this to heart and play around with lagging behind the beat. Bluegrass is often played ahead of or right on the beat, so I have to break some trained habits…

6:16pm. We’re getting towards the end of the set and Matt writes “Limbs Akimbo” – my song – on the dry erase board. I have a quick heads-together with the rhythm section and basically say “highlife/afrobeat with clave and 4 on the floor, in D, watch me for the changes.” I didn’t know until later that percussionist Black Nature is from Sierra Leone and probably grew up listening to highlife. The groove comes together in a big way. I think this song works better here than in an HBR set. The crowd puts their arms in the air. “Arms outstretched, limbs akimbo…”

7:15pm. High fives all around backstage. And I’m done. 4 sets in 19 hours. I love music. I love my bandmates. I can’t believe I get to do this for a living. The world is a good place. Soundman Andy Whilden and I fill up beers and walk to see some Pretty Lights and Jane’s Addiction and party with Greensky Bluegrass. But that’s another story…