Wooks, lasers and bubblegum acid: reviewing a weekend at Gem & Jam

It was Saturday night and the vibes were high at Gem & Jam Festival, which was started in 2005 as a series of nightlife events for the Tucson Gem, Mineral & Fossil Showcase — the largest gem show in the world — and became a full-fledged camping party in the mid-2010s.

Following a relentless assault of psychedelic visuals set to a tide of warm, wacky sound waves from EDM artists G Jones and Eprom, a bold assertion flashed on the screen: R.A.V.E. — Realizing Alternative Visions for Earth.

It’s the title of a song the two made, but it got me thinking: what is this whole rave thing all about?

Gem & Jam — which returned after organizers took time to regroup last year — is where the older hippie heads and aficionados of bands like Grateful Dead and the String Cheese Incident collide with the generally younger EDM rave culture at the Pima County Fairgrounds.

Josh Pollack, a producer of the festival who does most of the talent buying, said the organizers always try to have a diverse genre selection with different sounds and experiences.

“It’s important for me to provide that experience where you can reset your ear and clean your audial palate, as opposed to hearing the same thing over the whole weekend,” Pollack said in an interview, sitting in the shade at noon on the festival grounds.

On its surface, the jam and bass crossover is a strange union. The ethos of improvisationally driven rock is wildly different from that of bass-heavy electronic genres like dubstep. The economies and clothing are different: earthy fabrics drive hippie culture, while rave culture embraces bright consumerism, elaborate costumes and lots of flow toys. Everything seems to be ordered from Amazon and made in a Chinese sweatshop. Raves are like Halloween on acid, and depending on what you think about the global economy, that can be a gorgeous or terrifying trip.

But in some ways, there is a throughline from the mass hippy gathering of the 1960s and 1970s to the massive crowds at EDM festivals of contemporary times. A “wook” — your common, perhaps fragrant festival drifter — is not too far from what a hippie was in 1970. And anyway, bass music is where the money is. Plus its whimsical tendencies attract misfits — and that’s a beautiful thing.

“As festivals are becoming increasingly difficult to produce, costs are rising across the board,” Pollack said. “Inflation, staffing, and people just aren’t spending like they used to. There are a lot of macro factors that are really challenging right now.”

The music has changed, the drugs have changed. But the spirit is still about bringing people together to experience art. And people from around the country — ravers, hippies, artists, painters, precious stone hawkers, vendors of every sort, general party enthusiasts — made it to Gem & Jam for a rollicking time.

Not without its hitches

To be sure, there were some complaints. A noise ordinance forced acts indoors after midnight, and some attendees complained about the subwoofers being turned off at midnight. While the camping grounds were fairly close to the festival, anyone trying to get in had to go through security every time, which meant lines. The port-o-potties were a little out of control everywhere on Friday night, but seemed to get better Saturday and tolerable by Sunday.

There was some real camaraderie in the camping grounds. I mingled with neighbors as we did some jamming of our own, playing guitars and singing songs both old and improvised. Some veteran members say that this vibe — also exemplified by the few jewelry sellers roving around the lot — were echoes of the culture that used to dominate Gem & Jam. Now you go back to your campsite at 3 a.m. and get to listen to some half-awake wook trying to DJ.

One of the major operational changes to Gem & Jam this year was the festival’s partnership with Relentless Beats, an EDM promoter that puts on about 400 shows a year. Pollack mentioned that the two parties had been in discussion for collaboration for years. 

“They have staff, they have infrastructure, they have local knowledge. It just made a lot of sense,” said Pollack. “Some people were really concerned that Gem & Jam was going to change a lot with Relentless Beats coming on board. The truth of the matter is it hasn’t and it won’t.”

As some attendees pointed out, that impression is up for debate.

“People aren’t following these artists around the country, like they do with Billy Strings or The String Cheese Incident,” Sam Booth, a sculpture artist whose work was featured at the festival, said about the change in the vibe from previous headlining artists.

But as with any festival, there has to be some change to keep the ship moving.

Here are the sights and sounds of Gem & Jam 2026, reproduced loosely from the notes I made in my journal while I was busy both working and partying. Come and walk with me.

Friday: hear the world

The first day emphasized world music, an atmosphere one epitomized more than CloZee, the French producer and musician who calls her work “world bass.” Think of it as a sampling platter of sonic delights, backed up by heavy basslines. Each song had its own unique regional and cultural influence, embodied by the surrealist visuals on stage projecting the snow-laden temples of the Himalayas, the pyramidic intrigues of Egypt, the peaceful gardens of Japan and the dense majesty of the Amazon.

Earlier in the day, Moontricks played a soulful evening show with their signature mix of mountain banjo and funky electronic beats — a perfect foundation for the night.

It was smoky and dank after midnight inside the Top Secret Bus — a tricked-out, converted school bus from Wisconsin with a bumping sound system and couches to hang out on. It was a vibe. (I’ve DJed on the bus before, and it’s like playing the organ in a cathedral. The whole bus is the instrument.)

The bus was for late-night local talent, and three Phoenix-based producers and DJs carried the party. Baggins was money on the decks, throwing down tight, crisp house beats with grungy, vibrant bass lines and glittery melodies. Overcasti, the bass alter-ego of quickly ascending Valley favorite Casti, followed up with an eclectic, wubby open format journey (the ADHD special, she calls it). VVinstead closed out the night with a triumphant and strange set of all-original and refreshingly different songs, delivered with his penchant for absurdist performance art. He arrived on the bus with an imposing metal briefcase, out of which he took his headphones and a tattered, traumatized-looking Dobby plush doll, which he put a hat on before placing him behind the decks.

Saturday: psychedelia and nuclear rot

If Friday was about world music, Saturday was about turning the party up. 

Los Angeles DJ and musician Nala understood the assignment. There was barely anyone at the festival’s only indoor stage, leaving plenty of room to dance to her cyberpunk tech house set — a counterpunch of dancing ecstasy to the bass-dominated electronica. It was bouncy, it was raw and tastefully rough, it was bubblegum acid set against Warhol-inspired Pop Art visuals.

I camped a few paces away from Nala at Burning Man in 2024 and we hung out in Black Rock City for a bit. She talks with a ditsy inflection, but don’t be mistaken, she is a woman of intellectual concepts. Much of her music has a rock disposition — she’s inspired by The Who and Led Zeppelin — and she sings vocals on her own tracks. She hung around the barrier after her set and chatted with a few fans. She also gave me two stickers, which was pretty nice. Thank you, Stefania.

Earlier in the night, California-based jam band TV Broken 3rd Eye Open gave a phenomenal performance. These quirky short boys in platform boots and skinny jeans brought a chill, wavy vibe to the old heads dancing and spinning barefoot in the grass. The six-piece band’s style was jazzy and psychedelic, the musical arrangements fairly complex and musicianship impressive. Their lead singer and guitarist added in funky harmonica and flute into the mix, sometimes strumming with one of the instruments in his hand.

TroyBoi goes hard — that’s all I wrote in my notes. If you’re into that, you probably liked his performance. 

DeVault closed out the night at the indoor stage with a dark, nuclear rot clubby set. It felt like poison in the veins. A man wearing gauges large enough you could throw a basketball through was spotted chain-smoking Marlboro 100s in the convention hall, hazing the air. At one point he was holding the cigarette in his mouth the wrong way.

Sunday: revolution in the air

Around noon, photographer Luna Garcia and I sat on cushions under a small tent with Pollack and a man named Ron Jon, who first poured tea as a gift to the spirit world before pouring it for us. On his table were dozens of ancient artifacts from thousands of years ago, most of which were found or purchased by a tech magnate friend of Ron Jon’s. 

“He channels alien entities — or something, they say they’re alien entities. I’ve seen him do it. You can see he phases out of time and space,” Ron Jon said of his friend. Apparently the entities told him to found a tech company even though he didn’t know anything about tech. “He literally made a domain name and barely did anything at all. He just branded it and people came and made him millions of dollars.” Then, Ron Jon said, the entities instructed the friend to sell the company and go dig in the dirt for the artifacts — and he arrived in Jalisco to find locals had gathered them already.

I spoke with festival-goer Rumin Tehrani, who said he was expecting to see more large crystals. 

“I feel like the gems need to be in greater excess,” he said. He added that he was disappointed that didn’t see anyone selling jam.

Denver-based Sunsquabi played one of the best shows of the festival around sundown. They were light and ethereal, funky and fresh, straddling the fence between the warm power of electronica and impeccable jamming musicianship. An older gentleman named Mark told me I should visit Crete for the hippie nudist parties on the beach. I thanked him for the tip.

Around sundown, I witnessed the most moving moment I saw during the whole festival. Apache drummer Andrew Ecker, the leader of Drumming Sounds, spoke to a circle of people playing percussion instruments in a workshop — many of which happened throughout the weekend. He spoke of Bulbancha, the Choctaw name (meaning “the place of many tongues”) for what is now called New Orleans, where before jazz was born, Indigenous drumming allowed musicians to come together. 

“What makes a drum circle different is that drum circles are multicultural, multiethnic,” Ecker said. “On the banks of the Mississippi, Native Americans, Africans, Europeans, people from all over the world came together with a common language of group drumming. That created a foundation for jazz, blues, gospel, rock and roll, hip hop and all forms of EDM. That to me is sacred. It is sacred when all people come together.”

There was revolution in the air.

“Let the soldiers of the world put down their guns and pick up their drums,” Ecker said over the sound of pounding drums. “Let the children of war zones no longer have to hurt, when governments defund the military-industrial complex, and love and gratitude prevail. Let peace prevail, let love prevail, let hope prevail, let unity prevail. Rise up!”

YES. Yes! Later, I couldn’t help but laugh when, walking past one stage to the bathroom, Boombox played a sweet remix of the Black Eyed Peas’ “My Humps.”

Boombassador, made up of Boombox and Dead Polish, played their first set outside Colorado on the main stage, starting off with icy electronic funk. There were some technical difficulties when they tried to bring a guitar on, resulting in a monotonous, basic beat playing for about five minutes as the audience looked around at each other. I spotted Tehrani struggling to put his earplugs in. I wasn’t expecting the Dutch minimal house, I told him. But once the guitar was working, Boombassador was phenomenal.

Ivy Lab’s Govind Kidao played a mind-blowing liquid drum-and-bass set indoors. As I was walking in, a woman told me it was “sexual and vibey.” Into the den I went, and she was right. “Clean up on aisle 12,” I remember her saying. 

Tycho’s performance to close out the main stage was simply gorgeous, musically complex and soaring. His ambient sound is an understated sonic euphoria driven by soothing bass. This was probably my favorite set. No notes.

Back inside, Dead Polish played a colorful, vibey Grateful Dead-tribute electronic set. 

“That felt like the one set where I could really feel the soul of Gem & Jam still alive,” Booth, the sculpture artist and veteran attendee of the festival, said. “To follow it up with shitty experimental bass music was a slap in the face.”

He was referring to Yheti and Toadface, bass sound artists wildly exploring weird shit in a b2b set. It’s unique, and the laser show that accompanied the performance was stunning from the back of the warehouse. 

I had to leave the set around 2:15 a.m. when they started blasting frog noises and I realized I needed to sleep.