OXFORD — As temperatures climbed into the 80s under a cloud-barren blue sky on Saturday afternoon at the Nateva Festival, people of all ages chilled, mingled, danced, showered, and camped just about everywhere at the Oxford Fairgrounds.

All that to the hip hop reggae sound of John Brown’s Body who jammed on-stage nearby, their music echoing around in the parking lot of Hannaford as scantily-clad to wildly-dressed young folk drifted across Route 26 for drinks and groceries.

Over in the Norway Field Camping area, Heather Rhoda of Portland and her friend Nicole Ingalls of Gorham relaxed at their site under a rainbow umbrella. Sweet-smelling incense floated on the breeze.

“This is good,” Rhoda said. “It’s relaxing, fun and really safe. I love the fact that it’s kid-friendly, family-friendly.”

The two social workers, sporting metallic raspberry-painted toenails, both came sans children though, mainly to catch what’s left of the Grateful Dead band, Furthur, which features former Dead members Phil Lesh and Bob Weir.

They’re scheduled to perform Sunday from 8 p.m. to midnight.

“This is my first festival ever,” Ingalls said. “It’s been amazing! I’ve discovered that I’m a funky girl. Every time a funky beat came out last night, I was dancing to it.”

“She listened to cheezy funk before. This is the real funk,” Rhoda said. “I’m really looking forward to Furthur, because I was here in ’88 when Little Feat and the Dead were here, so I’m chomping at the bit.”

Across the way, Lana Loguidice of Nateva-ville, drifted around barefoot on the chalk dust-lined grass parking/camping sites, her figure barely contained in a skimpy black bikini.

“Hi, I’m Lana,” she said matter-of-factly, extending a hand in greeting, the other hand clutching a beer can from which she occasionally sipped.

“This is my first festival ever, and look at me now, I’m just a hippie chick. I gave up my Gucci and Prada bags to do this. I’m here for Furthur. We’re surviving Dead Heads.”

She said moe., a progressive rock band of three decades, “was pretty amazing.”

The bare-chested guy she seemed to be with, Bond MacGillivray of Lovell, was dancing to John Brown’s Body under a canopy with a few others.

Spotting Loguidice talking to a couple of younger guys, he sashayed over, long hair bouncing over his white-framed sunglasses.

“I brought my mini-winni,” MacGillivray said of a faded white and brown-lined 1981 Winnebago LeSharo he said he bought for $5,000 in Bethel to tour the countryside, skiing in the winter and catching music festivals in the summer.

“I’ve been to 17 countries in 7½ months, and then I went to Colorado for 10 years, got a degree in art and started an art gallery in Lovell, man,” he said.

He brought 20 Djembe drums from Bali, Indonesia, to Nateva, and arranged them in a broad drumming circle under a canopy beside his 14-footer mini-winni.

“They’re for pleasure,” he said of the drums. “We have people that come by, drum with us.”

One “drummer,” Wyatt Dendy of Hancock, N.H., said he drove in at 2:30 a.m. Saturday, but Nateva security wouldn’t let him and his friends in, so they parked beside the road and camped until the gates opened.

“It’s been awesome,” said Dendy, whose dad and older brother loved the Dead. “It’s hot, but it’s nice. I came to listen to some great music and have a great time. I’m hoping to see Furthur tomorrow night. This is a great spot with a bunch of chill people around us, like really friendly people.”

“Camping here is awesome,”18-year-old Kevin Desmarais of Francistown, N.H., said. “Everybody has to experience it sometime in life, this kind of livin’, just an awesome time.”

He, too, came to see Furthur, as did a long-bearded man in a faded Furthur concert shirt, his black ankle-high tennies propped on an ice chest.

Identifying himself only as “Biggy” of Milford, N.H., he said he attended the 1988 show.

“It’s hard remembering them three days, but I got here that first night, and then eight hours later, I kind of lost touch with reality. I was younger then,” Biggy said. “I remember there was tons of people, but the bathroom situation was pretty poor, not like it is today. This is way better.”

He came with a friend to also see Derek Trucks and Susan Tedeschi, The Flaming Lips, and Jakob Dylan.

Watching several younger bare-chested men and bikini-topped women stroll past, Biggy said, “Half these kids here probably just got out of their mommy in ’88, but it seems like the girls never change.”

Farther down the road, a group of giant alien puppets from Big Nazo performance troupe mingled with the crowd, some of whom broke into wild dance with them while others posed with them, snapping photos with cell phones.

Two security guards mounted atop horses watched, stone-faced.

Back out at the main gate, Oxford County Sheriff’s Lt. Thomas Harriman watched incoming throngs of people as they were frisked and had their belongings searched by security workers before entering the fairgrounds.

“I think everything is going well,” Harriman said. “There’s been no violence, at least at this gate. It’s not that type of crowd.”

The only arrests have been for drugs, he said.

According to the Oxford County jail log, a Rhode Island man was booked at 7:30 a.m. Saturday for disorderly conduct and bailed, and a New Jersey man was booked at 1:23 a.m. on drug trafficking charges.

On Friday, 13 people from across the country and Maine were booked on drug trafficking charges. Of those released on bail — usually $5,000 cash or $10,000 real estate — all had conditions not to return to Nateva or the speedway.

Other than drug arrests, Harriman said it was quiet.

“This (festival) is extremely well organized,” he said. “I hope they come back next year. I enjoy working for them.”

tkarkos@sunjournal.com