A Look At “On The Mountain”: An Event by The Wild Honey Pie
by Lana Fleischli
I have been lucky enough in the past year to meet Eric Weiner, creator of The Wild Honey Pie, which started as a music blog, like Desperately Seeking Serious. When I met him, he was working on the major event, “On The Mountain”. The event took place on Hunter Mountain in the Hudson Valley. For Weiner, it doubles as a great way “to expose people to the beauties of upstate New York… to understand that it's only a hop, skip and jump from the city. And there's just unlimited options. Unlimited potential up here. There's just so much goodness. It's such a rich environment for music and food and community”.
On The Mountain is very unusual and incredibly special. Everything is kind of “in a line” according to Weiner, “There's no overlapping sets. There's no really overlapping activities, so the only thing you have to choose from is between trivia and somatic breath work, but other than that everything else is just kind of in a line and you can do everything you want. And the wellness activities, with the exception of massager, are included in the ticket.”
The “not a music festival,” as I was told, was graced by many artists like Local Natives, Gus Dapperton, Rubblebucket, Fat Tony, Salt Cathedral, Runnner, Toledo, Girlpuppy, Saint Hippo, and Planetarium Party. All of which one wouldn’t be able to see in such an intimate setting due to their size, making On The Mountain a very intimate and unique event.
I spoke to Juliana Ronderos of Salt Cathedral about the event, asking how she and Nicolas Losada felt being part of the event. Ronderos says, “It was great! We enjoyed the sense of community and also for us it was an entire experience. We stayed there for the full weekend, got to see the other bands and enjoy the delicious food they had! It was a treat to be a part of it.” On The Mountain is also very different from shows they play, thus the sense of community seems to be something that Ronderos resonated with.
I continued by asking Ronderos what made the event itself so different than what Salt Cathedral normally plays. “It was different because of the sense of community and lifestyle. When we play other shows we kind of show up, play and leave but with this event we were a part of it for longer and got to experience so much more. From an artist perspective, it felt like a much more full experience than just playing one show…It was an overall great experience and I think there should be more events like this -it was a commitment (traveling upstate and staying there) and it allows for the true value of music to exist in a very different and unique collective experience.” It seems like while the music and activities are a major pull, the real standout is the community: community with the artists and with people you know but can see “in a different context” outside of the city, as Ronderos puts it.
That also seems to be the exact goal of On The Mountain. Weiner says, “I want, after the sets are done, to be able to hang out by the campfire with the artists, for example. I look forward to talking to Gus Dapperton after their set, and just feeling and hearing what they thought. Because the artists at this stage of their career aren't used to playing in a small room like this. So it does bring them back to a time when that was more common for them, but it's totally different.”
Until this year, On The Mountain hasn’t happened since 2015. Unfortunately, according to Weiner, there doesn’t seem to be an On The Mountian in the near future. “I think our priorities are very much on the dinners and the pizza parties, but On The Mountain, I would say one and done. We've certainly done it before. But it's not an every year type thing. Every ten years type of thing” says Weiner.
The brightside is that while they aren’t doing one big event, they have many small events happening often and that are definitely worth checking out!