Alberta's Big Valley Jamboree Is a Rave for Cowboys

Welcome to Big Valley Jamboree, one of the biggest country music festivals on this continent. Tucked away in the small, central Canadian town of Camrose, this festival featured the big shots of country music like Miranda Lambert and Zac Brown. A paradise for country music and country music lovers.

I kept hearing one line, repeated throughout the entire festival, like some weird hick mantra: “Fuck the music, I’m here to party.” I wandered the grounds with my camera and found it difficult to find a sober cowboy.

In the middle of the night I stumbled upon a strange paradox. Men—lots of them in full-blown cowboy attire: hat, boots, belt buckle, the whole shebang—losing their shit to crunchy EDM. The beats were coming from group of people who must have reserved multiple campsites. They brought in lights and a massive amount of sound equipment and, once the main stage had finished, they started churning out facemelting drops. People flocked to the makeshift club.

What was touted as the event for a true blue country music fan had, by nightfall, somehow morphed into a bizarre cowboy rave. A gaucho dance party. A bunch of white dudes dressed head to toe in denim flailing to the sounds of Steve Aoki. All the while trying to get into the cut-off jean shorts of the nearest pretty blonde.

Just north of the raves and a quick right from proudly hung confederate flags, I found a bus converted into a half-assed RV, an old truck box ingeniously reworked into a working hot tub, and a plethora of old beaten-up trailers with “Panty Dropper” or “The Low Standards Motel” spray painted on the sides.

The whole experience was a mind-boggling mixture of an underground club scene served with a heaping helping of country twang. It all seemed very off, but in the end it kind of worked.

Rave on Cowboys, rave on.