Not So Great GoogaMooga
I did not attend the Great GoogaMooga festival in Prospect Park last year, and not just because of the massiveness of its name's stupidity. Food festivals are very rarely worth anything to me, even if they're free: how many times can you wait in line to spend ten dollars on a small meal before you (a.) get frustrated by the wait, (b.) run out of money, (c.) fill your stomach, or (d.) start wishing you were somewhere where you could just go and sit down and eat somewhere civilized? Like the ground or something?
I heard during the fact that film critic and Park Slope resident A.O. Scott hated the festival on principle, because it corded off large sections of Prospect Park that's usually public space for a ticketed (though, I'm pretty sure, free-by-lottery) event. I heard after the fact that people who attended it last year had a terrible time, due to exacerbated versions of (a.), (b.), (c.), and (d.) above, plus general incompetence on the part of the festival runners (I assume all of that overshadowed the stupidness of the name).
So, naturally, I bought tickets to GoogaMooga this year.
It made sense at the time! They announced an opening night paid-tickets component with full sets from the Yeah Yeah Yeahs and the Flaming Lips. $60 tickets to this event seemed fair, even in this summer when it seems like every goddamned concert I go to costs $60, because both bands charge at least $40 if not more for their own concerts, and here I could see them together (and attend either Saturday or Sunday of the lottery-free portion if I were so inclined). Plus, there were plans to improve the festival. Booths would only offer one item, speeding up lines. Marisa was on board with this idea, and when I found out Derrick was heading this way that weekend, I sold him on it, too. We could eat some fancy unhealthy food and see two awesome bands. I saw virtually no downside.
As it turns out, it was a totally terrible idea.
The thing is, I don't really have any problems with how GoogaMooga was handled. I mean, I get A.O. Scott's point (reiterated this year) that it's just an indulgent mess, inviting all of these food vendors to sling their wares in a quarantined section of the park where normally people can go to get away from food vendors and city noise. And maybe I'm just a Prospect Park amateur, living in Greenpoint and spending most of my park time in McCarren, but this festival took place at a part of Prospect Park I had literally never seen before. I'm not saying this means the Nethermead Meadow isn't a big attraction for people who spend more time in the park, but Prospect Park is fucking enormous. Things happen in New York. That is one of the wonderful and sometimes unfortunate byproducts of living here. If you want to live near a park that never has ticketed events, there are many towns and cities in this fine country that offer this option.
Maybe that other-towns-and-cities thing could be the rejoinder for when I complain about traffic. But, seriously: traffic. Traffic delayed Derrick's bus for two hours, turning perfect timing for meeting him at Port Authority, going back to Greenpoint to drop our bags, and then heading to Prospect Park to meet up with Marisa and see the early-starting Flaming Lips into perfect timing for waiting at Port Authority, going straight to Prospect Park with his gear in tow, missing two thirds of the Flaming Lips set, and meeting up with Marisa, who missed even more of the set, due to the same goddamned traffic.
Here is the Flaming Lips set we saw:
Riding to Work in the Year 2025 (The Invisible Now)
Turning Violent
All We Have Is Now
Always There, In Our Hearts
---
Do You Realize??
Here is the Yeah Yeah Yeahs set we saw:
Sacrelige
Under the Earth
Bang
Mosquito
Art Star
Down Boy
Zero
Soft Shock
Subway
Cheated Hearts
Gold Lion
Despair
Maps
Heads Will Roll
---
Date with the Night
As Derrick pointed out, the YYYs have reached the point of being able to play all-killer no-filler sets. This one, drawing from pretty much everything they've ever released, was nearly worth the $60 on its own. It would have been fully worth the $60 if the band had seen fit to fill their allotted 90 minutes. To be fair, the 70ish minutes or so that they did play is pretty much exactly what the Yeah Yeah Yeahs play these days. I assume they played last more due to some kind of vampiric conditions that prevent them from being seen in daylight. Even so, it didn't seem a great use of time by the organizers: the Flaming Lips started crazy early (6:15PM! And on time!) with a de fact opening slot, and filled ninety minutes with no problems, then the Yeah Yeah Yeahs wrapped up twenty minutes early. I mean, I'm glad I missed the Lips rather than the YYYs. Frankly, the Lips set seemed pretty downbeat even when they weren't playing cuts from The Terror (I was surprised to see that we actually only saw them do two songs from that album; they just picked other songs from other albums that could be played in a similarly spare and funereal way) and their elaborate stage set-up wasn't very impressive-looking in broad daylight. But I would've been gladder if they worked it so maybe the main band doesn't start earlier than 7PM.
So we got some good pulled pork sandwiches and some bad vanilla milkshakes and watched a little Flaming Lips and a lot of Yeah Yeah Yeahs. In the end, I didn't have a terrible time. Derrick and I and Marisa rolled with the punches and we saw a really good band kick some ass on a nice summer night. But before "Sacrelige" kicked in, it was kind of a mess.
This always happens, though, doesn't it? New York is not built for festivals. Yes, they have a couple of big film festivals, and yes, it has street fairs on the regular, and yes, that Governors Ball thing still seems to be going. But the traditional music festival just does not work, even when you try to sneak it in underneath food. So really, A.O. Scott shouldn't worry. This isn't going to become a festival town where every inch of our parks are co-opted by enterprising promoters. $60 for one band is about all of the ripoff NYC can handle.
I heard during the fact that film critic and Park Slope resident A.O. Scott hated the festival on principle, because it corded off large sections of Prospect Park that's usually public space for a ticketed (though, I'm pretty sure, free-by-lottery) event. I heard after the fact that people who attended it last year had a terrible time, due to exacerbated versions of (a.), (b.), (c.), and (d.) above, plus general incompetence on the part of the festival runners (I assume all of that overshadowed the stupidness of the name).
So, naturally, I bought tickets to GoogaMooga this year.
It made sense at the time! They announced an opening night paid-tickets component with full sets from the Yeah Yeah Yeahs and the Flaming Lips. $60 tickets to this event seemed fair, even in this summer when it seems like every goddamned concert I go to costs $60, because both bands charge at least $40 if not more for their own concerts, and here I could see them together (and attend either Saturday or Sunday of the lottery-free portion if I were so inclined). Plus, there were plans to improve the festival. Booths would only offer one item, speeding up lines. Marisa was on board with this idea, and when I found out Derrick was heading this way that weekend, I sold him on it, too. We could eat some fancy unhealthy food and see two awesome bands. I saw virtually no downside.
As it turns out, it was a totally terrible idea.
The thing is, I don't really have any problems with how GoogaMooga was handled. I mean, I get A.O. Scott's point (reiterated this year) that it's just an indulgent mess, inviting all of these food vendors to sling their wares in a quarantined section of the park where normally people can go to get away from food vendors and city noise. And maybe I'm just a Prospect Park amateur, living in Greenpoint and spending most of my park time in McCarren, but this festival took place at a part of Prospect Park I had literally never seen before. I'm not saying this means the Nethermead Meadow isn't a big attraction for people who spend more time in the park, but Prospect Park is fucking enormous. Things happen in New York. That is one of the wonderful and sometimes unfortunate byproducts of living here. If you want to live near a park that never has ticketed events, there are many towns and cities in this fine country that offer this option.
Maybe that other-towns-and-cities thing could be the rejoinder for when I complain about traffic. But, seriously: traffic. Traffic delayed Derrick's bus for two hours, turning perfect timing for meeting him at Port Authority, going back to Greenpoint to drop our bags, and then heading to Prospect Park to meet up with Marisa and see the early-starting Flaming Lips into perfect timing for waiting at Port Authority, going straight to Prospect Park with his gear in tow, missing two thirds of the Flaming Lips set, and meeting up with Marisa, who missed even more of the set, due to the same goddamned traffic.
Here is the Flaming Lips set we saw:
Riding to Work in the Year 2025 (The Invisible Now)
Turning Violent
All We Have Is Now
Always There, In Our Hearts
---
Do You Realize??
Here is the Yeah Yeah Yeahs set we saw:
Sacrelige
Under the Earth
Bang
Mosquito
Art Star
Down Boy
Zero
Soft Shock
Subway
Cheated Hearts
Gold Lion
Despair
Maps
Heads Will Roll
---
Date with the Night
As Derrick pointed out, the YYYs have reached the point of being able to play all-killer no-filler sets. This one, drawing from pretty much everything they've ever released, was nearly worth the $60 on its own. It would have been fully worth the $60 if the band had seen fit to fill their allotted 90 minutes. To be fair, the 70ish minutes or so that they did play is pretty much exactly what the Yeah Yeah Yeahs play these days. I assume they played last more due to some kind of vampiric conditions that prevent them from being seen in daylight. Even so, it didn't seem a great use of time by the organizers: the Flaming Lips started crazy early (6:15PM! And on time!) with a de fact opening slot, and filled ninety minutes with no problems, then the Yeah Yeah Yeahs wrapped up twenty minutes early. I mean, I'm glad I missed the Lips rather than the YYYs. Frankly, the Lips set seemed pretty downbeat even when they weren't playing cuts from The Terror (I was surprised to see that we actually only saw them do two songs from that album; they just picked other songs from other albums that could be played in a similarly spare and funereal way) and their elaborate stage set-up wasn't very impressive-looking in broad daylight. But I would've been gladder if they worked it so maybe the main band doesn't start earlier than 7PM.
So we got some good pulled pork sandwiches and some bad vanilla milkshakes and watched a little Flaming Lips and a lot of Yeah Yeah Yeahs. In the end, I didn't have a terrible time. Derrick and I and Marisa rolled with the punches and we saw a really good band kick some ass on a nice summer night. But before "Sacrelige" kicked in, it was kind of a mess.
This always happens, though, doesn't it? New York is not built for festivals. Yes, they have a couple of big film festivals, and yes, it has street fairs on the regular, and yes, that Governors Ball thing still seems to be going. But the traditional music festival just does not work, even when you try to sneak it in underneath food. So really, A.O. Scott shouldn't worry. This isn't going to become a festival town where every inch of our parks are co-opted by enterprising promoters. $60 for one band is about all of the ripoff NYC can handle.