Local jam band Big Metal Rooster works on a new song during practice in drummer Matt Miner’s basement. The band is playing at the second annual Wakarusa Music and Camping Festival in June at Clinton Lake. Members of the band include Billy Wassung, guitar, Luke Henry, acoustic guitar, Tom Fleming, electric guitar, Derek Hein, bass guitar and Miner.

Tom Fleming’s memory of Big Metal Rooster’s set at last year’s Wakarusa Music Festival was of a domino effect.

When his band started playing, there were 15 people watching.

Then five minutes later, there were 100 people. Fifteen minutes later, there were about 500.

“That crowd came up to us and we were instantly blown away by that energy,” said Derek Hein, Big Metal Rooster bassist.

That energy was just part of the spirit of the Wakarusa Music Festival, Fleming, electric guitarist, said.

“The excitement level is exponentially bigger than any other gig we’ve ever played,” Matt Miner, Big Metal Rooster drummer, said.

Big Metal Rooster and about 60 other bands will play on five stages at this year’s festival, scheduled for June 16 to 19.

Nationally known acts on the bill include Wilco, Big Head Todd and the Monsters and the String Cheese Incident.

Organizers expect 12,000 to 15,000 people to be the festival each day, up from 7,500 each day last year, said Brett Mosiman, festival director.

Music lovers from as far away as Europe and Japan have bought tickets for the festival, he said.

Wakarusa Music Festival was a lot like a family reunion for Big Metal Rooster, a band that has been playing for five years.

“One of the big surprises of last year is the people I ran into that I haven’t seen in years,” Fleming said. “It was like a family reunion.”

There were familiar faces from the band’s early days in 2000 watching them play, Hein said.

Meeting, hanging out and watching other drummers such as Leftover Salmon’s Michael Wooten and Garaj Mahal’s Alan Hertz were some of the aspects Miner enjoyed about the festival, he said.

“It was the first experience being shoulder to shoulder to those bands that we’ve looked up to for a long time,” Miner said.

An unpleasant experience of last year’s festival was provided by chiggers — tiny biting insects that live in the grass and leave itchy bites.

“A lot of people never experienced chiggers before,” Hein said. “The chiggers were terrible.”

To address this problem there will a nature expert on hand to help people fight off chiggers and address other nature concerns, Mosiman said.

He recommended wearing socks and shoes and not sleeping in the grass where chiggers live.

There is also advice on how to prevent chigger bites on the Wakarusa Music Festival’s Web site, http://www.wakarusa.com.

On May 29, Big Metal Rooster will play a similar festival called May Daze in Strasburg, Colo. After that festival, the band will go on a seven-day tour of the southeast United States and then return to Lawrence to perform at the music festival’s pre-party shows at Liberty Hall, 642 Massachusetts St., and The Bottleneck, 737 New Hampshire St.

— Edited by Kim Sweet Rubenstein