Cornerstone Music Festival 2012

Right before my busy season hit at work, I was able to get a way for a few days over two Bushnell, IL for the Cornerstone Music Festival.  It was my first Cornerstone experience and unfortunately it would also be my last.  After 29 years of the festival, the operation was closing down due to a struggling economy.Though this was the last year it was definitely still a vibrant festival.  None of the bands were paid to come and play, but many good ones did show.  Even though I hadn't heard of many of them before.  I found many of them that I liked.  Because of this I found that that is what going to a music festival is all about.  Listening to sets of many different bands helps you to broaden your taste in music and discover many new bands that you like, but did not know existed.  Also the fact that many of the artists are there for a good period of time before and after their show (sometimes even a day or more) makes you wonder how many you run into without even realizing it.The weather during the festival was insanely hot, as one should expect in the beginning of July.  With temps in the upper 90's, heat indexes in the 100's and the nights cooling down to the low 80's there wasn't too much relief.  When getting down in front of the stages, despite the shade of the tents.  The hot air, the crowd's body heat combined with your own and the stagnant air, things got very very hot while taking the photos.  I went through gallons of water and about a dozen shirts, but it was all so worth it to get to see all those bands up close.Though you don't nearly get to see all of the bands, I was able to take pictures of a good number of them.  I'll give each of them their own blog post in the days to come so keep your eyes open for more posts.  Also, I'll be posting as I edit them, in the order that I saw them, not necessarily from least to most popular.  For now, here are some shots from the festival in general.  Hope you enjoy them!!This work by JD Maloney is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.