Shpongle's really good show
Yesterday as planned I went up to Santa Rosa to see Shpongle at the Harmony Festival. It was a very good show. It was such a good show that on the way home Jeff and I couldn't stop giggling about what a good show it was. Giggling at the utter absurdity of any show being able to be that good.
"Why didn't anyone else want to come out to this show? Was it not good enough or something?"
"They were probably at an even better show somewhere else."
*maniacal laughter*
It was good enough that matrushkaka might have got her hearing back if she'd been at that show. It was so good I feel like tracking down Simon Posford's ebay profile and leaving positive feedback. "A+++ WOULD ATTEND SHOW AGAIN"
You might think I'm being a dick, trying to hype it up to make people feel sad about not coming with me. Maybe you would have had to be at the show to understand, but it was so good that saying so would be futile. I couldn't possibly punish you any more than you already punished yourself by deciding to miss that show. If you still don't believe me call Jeff. Ask him how good the show was. Go head, ask. You know what he'll say? He'll say it was a really good show.
I posted about the event earlier but nobody bit. I ran into JeffY at Philz and managed to convince him to come to the show depsite having a lot of work to do. We drove up to Santa Rosa and I stopped by at Ed's place to install some stuff on his network - took a little longer than expected but in the end we got everything working.
Harmony Festival had a very good vibe and was a lot of fun. A smaller version of Burning Man with vending. Maybe that makes you roll your eyes but I tell ya: going from feeling a little hungry to eating the organic hoo-haa of your choice is a good thing. One minute you're starting to feel peckish and the next minute you're eating a really fresh seaweed not-really-sushi wrap thing and the hippies are counting five new dollars: everyone's happy. We ran into S&P and I was very happy to see them appear to be doing brisk business selling flowtoys. The new flowlight-based stuff looks really good.
Aside: seeing vending done right rather than filling the place up with funnel cakes and hot-dog-on-a-stick makes the "no vending" rule at Burning Man make about as much sense as a "no shoelaces" rule. Where's the most consistently round-the-clock popular place at Burning Man? Center Camp cafe. Where the Org sells coffee. For money. I rest my case. (more)
Another thing: Jeff's got a Fish Head. He bought it at a yard sale for $30. It's a giant rigid foam head, like the Mickey heads that performers wear at Disneyland - you need to wear it with straps around your shoulders to keep it supported. The fish head is covered with red fur and for some reason people love the fish head. If you wear the fish head to any kind of large gathering you will be one of the most popular people there. At this particular event people also seemed to assume that it meant Jeff was selling Acid: at least two people approached him and tried to buy something he was not selling. We guessed that maybe this was some kind of bizarre mix-up. "Do you have the stuff? How can I find you?" "Oh I'll be the guy wearing the giant red fish-head. Only one there. You can't miss me." I wore my Japanese drinking pants and the pair of fivefingers shoes that I'm rapidly falling in love with. It's like being 80% barefoot. *Excellent* dancing shoes.
We wandered around the grounds which were deceptively large: we spent a lot of time waiting for the show to start before we realized we were waiting at the wrong stage, fortunately caught this early enough that we didn't miss anything. The event itself was inside a large covered exhibition hall with some pretty cool decorations: stage area in the front, beanbag chill area in the back. Stanton Warriors did a good set of mash-ups. Then the Shamanic Cheerleaders came on during a set change, which was the most bizarrely unpleasant event of the entire evening. "This is a really great show with a really great vibe. What's the very last thing that this moment needs? How about a high school pep rally?" Flee in mindless terror. That was a problem in general: this was the first event with "MCs" who seemed to think it was necessary to "pump up the crowd" between sets. Good trance sets usually blend seamlessly between each other - sometimes there's a little pause but breaking the mood to let a guy in a backward baseball cap yell at you. Rabbit in the Moon followed Stanton and did a good set also, and then Simon was on.
The first two-thirds of his set were good: he didn't play anything that I hadn't heard before, but he kept things interesting by staying away from the "oontz oontz oontz" stuff that we'd heard quite a lot of by that point in the evening. Behind him was Lucent Dossier doing some beautiful acrobatic work. Suggestion: in future events please turn the "hot women on trapeezes" knob UP and the "creepy puppet show" knob DOWN. It's hard to say when exactly the show turned from "good show" to "really good show". Maybe it was the point 2/3 of the way through the set, just when everyone was getting really thirsty and sweaty and funky-smelling, that Lucent Dossier started throwing baskets of oranges into the crowd. Everyone caught and peeled their oranges at once and suddenly the whole enclosed stadium was hit with the smell of fresh oranges. Or maybe it was the point at which the acrobats started crowd surfing and everyone stopped dancing and started trying not to drop the random people suddenly appearing overhead. It's hard to explain, but the last third of the set turned absolutely insane with a crescendo of music and a crazy stage dance number and when the music stopped everyone - including Simon - just stood there blinking at each other in a daze as if to say "what the hell was that?". That, my friend, was a really good show.
Ways the show could have been better:
One more thing: Shpongle/Hallucinogen/Younger Brother will be doing another show at 1015 Folsom on June 22. I plan to attend, and I welcome you to join me.
"Why didn't anyone else want to come out to this show? Was it not good enough or something?"
"They were probably at an even better show somewhere else."
*maniacal laughter*
It was good enough that matrushkaka might have got her hearing back if she'd been at that show. It was so good I feel like tracking down Simon Posford's ebay profile and leaving positive feedback. "A+++ WOULD ATTEND SHOW AGAIN"
You might think I'm being a dick, trying to hype it up to make people feel sad about not coming with me. Maybe you would have had to be at the show to understand, but it was so good that saying so would be futile. I couldn't possibly punish you any more than you already punished yourself by deciding to miss that show. If you still don't believe me call Jeff. Ask him how good the show was. Go head, ask. You know what he'll say? He'll say it was a really good show.
I posted about the event earlier but nobody bit. I ran into JeffY at Philz and managed to convince him to come to the show depsite having a lot of work to do. We drove up to Santa Rosa and I stopped by at Ed's place to install some stuff on his network - took a little longer than expected but in the end we got everything working.
Harmony Festival had a very good vibe and was a lot of fun. A smaller version of Burning Man with vending. Maybe that makes you roll your eyes but I tell ya: going from feeling a little hungry to eating the organic hoo-haa of your choice is a good thing. One minute you're starting to feel peckish and the next minute you're eating a really fresh seaweed not-really-sushi wrap thing and the hippies are counting five new dollars: everyone's happy. We ran into S&P and I was very happy to see them appear to be doing brisk business selling flowtoys. The new flowlight-based stuff looks really good.
Aside: seeing vending done right rather than filling the place up with funnel cakes and hot-dog-on-a-stick makes the "no vending" rule at Burning Man make about as much sense as a "no shoelaces" rule. Where's the most consistently round-the-clock popular place at Burning Man? Center Camp cafe. Where the Org sells coffee. For money. I rest my case. (more)
Another thing: Jeff's got a Fish Head. He bought it at a yard sale for $30. It's a giant rigid foam head, like the Mickey heads that performers wear at Disneyland - you need to wear it with straps around your shoulders to keep it supported. The fish head is covered with red fur and for some reason people love the fish head. If you wear the fish head to any kind of large gathering you will be one of the most popular people there. At this particular event people also seemed to assume that it meant Jeff was selling Acid: at least two people approached him and tried to buy something he was not selling. We guessed that maybe this was some kind of bizarre mix-up. "Do you have the stuff? How can I find you?" "Oh I'll be the guy wearing the giant red fish-head. Only one there. You can't miss me." I wore my Japanese drinking pants and the pair of fivefingers shoes that I'm rapidly falling in love with. It's like being 80% barefoot. *Excellent* dancing shoes.
We wandered around the grounds which were deceptively large: we spent a lot of time waiting for the show to start before we realized we were waiting at the wrong stage, fortunately caught this early enough that we didn't miss anything. The event itself was inside a large covered exhibition hall with some pretty cool decorations: stage area in the front, beanbag chill area in the back. Stanton Warriors did a good set of mash-ups. Then the Shamanic Cheerleaders came on during a set change, which was the most bizarrely unpleasant event of the entire evening. "This is a really great show with a really great vibe. What's the very last thing that this moment needs? How about a high school pep rally?" Flee in mindless terror. That was a problem in general: this was the first event with "MCs" who seemed to think it was necessary to "pump up the crowd" between sets. Good trance sets usually blend seamlessly between each other - sometimes there's a little pause but breaking the mood to let a guy in a backward baseball cap yell at you. Rabbit in the Moon followed Stanton and did a good set also, and then Simon was on.
The first two-thirds of his set were good: he didn't play anything that I hadn't heard before, but he kept things interesting by staying away from the "oontz oontz oontz" stuff that we'd heard quite a lot of by that point in the evening. Behind him was Lucent Dossier doing some beautiful acrobatic work. Suggestion: in future events please turn the "hot women on trapeezes" knob UP and the "creepy puppet show" knob DOWN. It's hard to say when exactly the show turned from "good show" to "really good show". Maybe it was the point 2/3 of the way through the set, just when everyone was getting really thirsty and sweaty and funky-smelling, that Lucent Dossier started throwing baskets of oranges into the crowd. Everyone caught and peeled their oranges at once and suddenly the whole enclosed stadium was hit with the smell of fresh oranges. Or maybe it was the point at which the acrobats started crowd surfing and everyone stopped dancing and started trying not to drop the random people suddenly appearing overhead. It's hard to explain, but the last third of the set turned absolutely insane with a crescendo of music and a crazy stage dance number and when the music stopped everyone - including Simon - just stood there blinking at each other in a daze as if to say "what the hell was that?". That, my friend, was a really good show.
Ways the show could have been better:
- Dennis Kucinich was at the festival. If Dennis Kucinich had just randomly wandered across the stage in the middle of the show without explanation that would have been an excellent nonsequitur. "Hey, isn't that the leprechaun who's running for president? What's he doing here?"
- If Jeff had still been wearing the fish head he probably could have gotten up on stage.
- If we could have persuaded Dennis Kucinich to wear the fish head.
One more thing: Shpongle/Hallucinogen/Younger Brother will be doing another show at 1015 Folsom on June 22. I plan to attend, and I welcome you to join me.