More tales from the Park
Yesterday started well with a trip to the Magnolia Cafe on South Congress where I had some yummy gingerbread pancakes. We had to wait a while, but it gave Chris and I plenty of time to talk to Scott (xkot) and Peter (texaspenguin) and allow John (gtijohn) and David (metacub) to arrive from the northern location, where they went first.
Lines were longer to get out to the park today, and the crowd had swelled. Where on Friday there was a different crowd from one stage to another, yesterday there was more of a mass that just turned from stage to stage. A big deal is made out of grabbing territory, but there's a real difference in people, some sit down early, if possible, try to get a good comfortable space, and others like to run in in the last second and take up any remaining space you carelessly tried to control a few minutes ago. Case in point, we set down chairs about half an hour early for a band, and we were the only ones there for a while. The crowd comes in like a tide and suddenly there was a person sitting right where my legs would go. A minute later, this thin cowboy is actually using my legs for a seat back. If he was cute...but he wasn't. As it is usually with these guys, halfway through the set they were bored and gone.
David and John had it bad for the Shins set where a gaggle of pot-smoking teens descended in front of them. These kids were talking, tripping, calling more of their friends over to the already small space. They seemed to have no reason to be there, because they weren't into the band. I had to tell one of them to shut up when they were yelling for their friends to come over.
Again it was hot, but not too hot, and some welcome clouds came over for Aimee Mann's quiet acoustic set. We had occasional visits from Ben and Nakia as they hopped about the park, and saw some other bears as well.
Here's what we saw:
Phoenix - good and energetic of a early afternoon show
Ben Kweller
The Shins
Aimee Mann
Kings of Leon
Willie Nelson
We caught a little bit of Massive Attack, but we found them a little boring - probably because we were about ready to go.
I have to say that Ben Kweller is a real trouper, as he came on stage late because of a nosebleed - well, two nosebleeds. He tried to make it through a few songs, but the nosebleed remained, and he was not only reddening a towel, but also his guitar. We're talking gushers here. At one point he asked for, and was given a tampon from the audience, but couldn't make it through the song before it had expanded and was unusable. We were in the audience thinking, man, this is going to be his last show, ever. He got through one more song, this time on the piano, which when he begged our forgiveness, had also been stained with an octaves worth of red keys.
The audience was happy he tried, but happy to let him go get some medical attention, too.
John and David (photo by Chris) joined us for dinner (or might I say we kidnapped them). It's been really nice getting to know these guys and I hope they will come back next year.
My allergies have been on overdrive. Let's just say that having to go for Benadryl at 5:00 so you can sleep is entertaining, but not entraining enough that there is a story there.
Still one more day to go here. There's not as much going on, but I'm still interested to see KT Tunstall and the New Pornographers.
Lines were longer to get out to the park today, and the crowd had swelled. Where on Friday there was a different crowd from one stage to another, yesterday there was more of a mass that just turned from stage to stage. A big deal is made out of grabbing territory, but there's a real difference in people, some sit down early, if possible, try to get a good comfortable space, and others like to run in in the last second and take up any remaining space you carelessly tried to control a few minutes ago. Case in point, we set down chairs about half an hour early for a band, and we were the only ones there for a while. The crowd comes in like a tide and suddenly there was a person sitting right where my legs would go. A minute later, this thin cowboy is actually using my legs for a seat back. If he was cute...but he wasn't. As it is usually with these guys, halfway through the set they were bored and gone.
David and John had it bad for the Shins set where a gaggle of pot-smoking teens descended in front of them. These kids were talking, tripping, calling more of their friends over to the already small space. They seemed to have no reason to be there, because they weren't into the band. I had to tell one of them to shut up when they were yelling for their friends to come over.
Again it was hot, but not too hot, and some welcome clouds came over for Aimee Mann's quiet acoustic set. We had occasional visits from Ben and Nakia as they hopped about the park, and saw some other bears as well.
Here's what we saw:
Phoenix - good and energetic of a early afternoon show
Ben Kweller
The Shins
Aimee Mann
Kings of Leon
Willie Nelson
We caught a little bit of Massive Attack, but we found them a little boring - probably because we were about ready to go.
I have to say that Ben Kweller is a real trouper, as he came on stage late because of a nosebleed - well, two nosebleeds. He tried to make it through a few songs, but the nosebleed remained, and he was not only reddening a towel, but also his guitar. We're talking gushers here. At one point he asked for, and was given a tampon from the audience, but couldn't make it through the song before it had expanded and was unusable. We were in the audience thinking, man, this is going to be his last show, ever. He got through one more song, this time on the piano, which when he begged our forgiveness, had also been stained with an octaves worth of red keys.
The audience was happy he tried, but happy to let him go get some medical attention, too.
John and David (photo by Chris) joined us for dinner (or might I say we kidnapped them). It's been really nice getting to know these guys and I hope they will come back next year.
My allergies have been on overdrive. Let's just say that having to go for Benadryl at 5:00 so you can sleep is entertaining, but not entraining enough that there is a story there.
Still one more day to go here. There's not as much going on, but I'm still interested to see KT Tunstall and the New Pornographers.