Devirginized
On Saturday morning, my best friend and I said good bye to her fourteen month old daughter and her husband. They were going to spend the day at the beach while we had our own fun. Around noon a friend and her nine-year-old son joined us, we took off for Pimlico race track outside of Baltimore.
Traffic, for a Saturday afternoon, was pretty heavy, though it was much better for us than it was for the beach going expedition. Apparently even the most good natured of 14 month olds will be pretty cranky in a car for 8 hours. Most of our ride was spent playing Mad Libs with the 9 year old and discussing the various artists coming to the show. Our aim was to get to the horsetrack around two o'clock so we could see the Amy Winehouse set, but we underestimated the traffic at the track. There wasn't really any evidence that the local law enforcment or traffic control people were there to get things moving properly.
Ultimately, though, we found a place to park and we wandered through the gates, under a tunnel and onto the center track in time to hear the last two songs of the Winehouse set. She sounded Ok, though I didn't really know her enough to know if she was all out great for her or mediocre. We also weren't all that close to give a good listen.
After her set, we wandered a bit to get our bearings and to obtain beer. The field was pretty damned, big and I couldn't even see the other stage, though I knew that there were at least two. One side of the track was lined with food and drink vendors, the other with local community outreach organizations and radio stations. There were a few geodisic domes set up with misters and massage chairs, and there were a few "shade tents". It also seemed like there were a few art installations set up around the inside part of the track. It looked like it was fairly well laid out, and I never really heard residual sound from one stage when I was listening to a performance at another.
Incubus was next up on the North Stage, and Katie and I made the decision fairly early on to sort of stick with that stage, and we set forth into the crowd to stake out some territory. Her friend was interested in Peter Bjorn who was going to start in the middle of the Incubus set, so she and her son took off with promises of text messages and meeting up at the car should future meetings be impossible. Incubus wasn't bad, though I don't think I'd pay money specifically to see them. The festival going population was similar to most of these events that I've gone to for the last few years: in their 20s and 30s, generally white, generally stripped down as far as modesty and/or comfort level with body image would allow, plenty of tattoos and piercings. There was a lot more pot smoke early on than I've seen at ACL and Lollapalooza.
It was hot. Someone said the temperature got somewhere in the high 90s, though I never found out for sure. There's also been a drought in the area, so there wasn't much grass growing to hold down dirt. It wasn't as bad as the Dust Bowl that was ACL 2005, but definitely there was more particulate matter in the air than usual. Coming from an unusually mild and wet summer in Houston, the heat and dust sort of got to me a bit, and after Katie and I saw a woman do a face plant after passing out from heat exhaustion towards the end of the Incubus set, we were extra careful to hydrate as much as possible. I think the woman broke her nose: it was certainly bleeding and she had a new bump raising on the ridge. We went through 4 liters of water easily.
After Incubus, we walked around a bit, and I got a crab cake sandwich (as always when I fly from Houston to Baltimore, I was amused to watch the Texas Gulf Coast crabs being loaded onto my plane to be served in Baltimore) and Katie got some ice cream and we sat in one of the shade tents for a few minutes to cool down and chat a bit. I like Ben Harper, but I've seen him several times in various festivals over the years, so we spent a bunch of his set time just wandering. We declared the tee shirts ridiculously over priced, and we briefly thought about a massage, but the "refresh tent" was a little too stuffy to warrant waiting around for much time. Eventually, we staked out territory at Ben Harper and listened to the rest of his set and people watched.
One of the things that I didn't like at all about this festival was trash management. I'm probably spoiled by ACL, but it was absolutely ridiculous how many cups and plates and just garbage was strewn on the ground. There were a few trash areas designated, but they tried to be cute and set up stations for recycling, landfill and compost. That's all very well and good, but the number of stations was miniscule in comparison to the amount of trash. At ACL and Lollapalooza it seems that there's a trashcan/recycling bag every twenty feet, and people wander around with trash bags picking stuff up throughout the festival. Here, by the end of the evening, the ground was absolutely disgusting with paper plates, cups, bottles, and food remnants, and I felt sorry for anyone who'd taken off their shoes. They were also selling lemonade, which was a great idea. But they put half lemons in the lemonade that ended up caked in dirt all over the ground, which wasn't a great idea.
Anyhow, the trash situation started getting bad right around the time the Beastie Boys came on, but I didn't really pay all that much attention to the ground because I was so enthralled by the music. I have a running playlist on my ipod that is entirely Beastie Boys based, and I felt strangely compelled to start running while listening to their set. I settled with dancing. Everything sounded great, the production of the performance was top notch, and the three MCs played off of each other beautifully. The DJs were also amazingly good. They probably played for an hour and a half, but it seemed to fly by. Their new album, which I've heard once but haven't bought yet, is entirely instrumental, and they played a few songs from it. But they also managed to cover some material from most of their other albums, too. The crowd loved them, and they seemed to love the crowd. Because my sister has been so involved with putting on heavily produced DJ parties lately, I paid a lot more attention to stuff like the mixing and the presentation on the jumbotrons. All were top notch. They came out wearing suits, but pretty soon MCA muttered something about being as hot as a mofo and everyone was pretty stripped down by the end.
After the Beastie Boys ended, I got some of the lemonade and Katie got some pizza and we managed to move a little closer for the Police set. It was very similar to the set they'd done in Houston a little over a month before, but they seemed a little tighter. I thought that Andy Summers was the weakest link in the Houston show, but he was as good if not better than the other two in this show. This performance was slightly shorter than Houston, though I think that the time limitations on a festival setting are such that you sort of have to expect that. I missed "The Bed's Too Big Without You", (I think that and "Truth Hits Everybody" were the only songs missing from the Houston set), but the "So Lonely" rendition was so damned good I wasn't too disappointed.
Katie and I left the show pretty jazzed about the whole day, and we made it back to the car in pretty good time. Her friend had managed to get up to the very front of the other stage, so getting out for them was a bit of a problem, but they reported that LCD Soundsystem, TV on the Radio and Modest Mouse were really good when they met us at the car about 20 minutes after we got there. It took us about as much time to get from the race track to 695 as it did to get from 695 back to McLean, and I think we rolled in around 12:00, filthy with dust and sun and sweat, but pretty damned glad we went.
Traffic, for a Saturday afternoon, was pretty heavy, though it was much better for us than it was for the beach going expedition. Apparently even the most good natured of 14 month olds will be pretty cranky in a car for 8 hours. Most of our ride was spent playing Mad Libs with the 9 year old and discussing the various artists coming to the show. Our aim was to get to the horsetrack around two o'clock so we could see the Amy Winehouse set, but we underestimated the traffic at the track. There wasn't really any evidence that the local law enforcment or traffic control people were there to get things moving properly.
Ultimately, though, we found a place to park and we wandered through the gates, under a tunnel and onto the center track in time to hear the last two songs of the Winehouse set. She sounded Ok, though I didn't really know her enough to know if she was all out great for her or mediocre. We also weren't all that close to give a good listen.
After her set, we wandered a bit to get our bearings and to obtain beer. The field was pretty damned, big and I couldn't even see the other stage, though I knew that there were at least two. One side of the track was lined with food and drink vendors, the other with local community outreach organizations and radio stations. There were a few geodisic domes set up with misters and massage chairs, and there were a few "shade tents". It also seemed like there were a few art installations set up around the inside part of the track. It looked like it was fairly well laid out, and I never really heard residual sound from one stage when I was listening to a performance at another.
Incubus was next up on the North Stage, and Katie and I made the decision fairly early on to sort of stick with that stage, and we set forth into the crowd to stake out some territory. Her friend was interested in Peter Bjorn who was going to start in the middle of the Incubus set, so she and her son took off with promises of text messages and meeting up at the car should future meetings be impossible. Incubus wasn't bad, though I don't think I'd pay money specifically to see them. The festival going population was similar to most of these events that I've gone to for the last few years: in their 20s and 30s, generally white, generally stripped down as far as modesty and/or comfort level with body image would allow, plenty of tattoos and piercings. There was a lot more pot smoke early on than I've seen at ACL and Lollapalooza.
It was hot. Someone said the temperature got somewhere in the high 90s, though I never found out for sure. There's also been a drought in the area, so there wasn't much grass growing to hold down dirt. It wasn't as bad as the Dust Bowl that was ACL 2005, but definitely there was more particulate matter in the air than usual. Coming from an unusually mild and wet summer in Houston, the heat and dust sort of got to me a bit, and after Katie and I saw a woman do a face plant after passing out from heat exhaustion towards the end of the Incubus set, we were extra careful to hydrate as much as possible. I think the woman broke her nose: it was certainly bleeding and she had a new bump raising on the ridge. We went through 4 liters of water easily.
After Incubus, we walked around a bit, and I got a crab cake sandwich (as always when I fly from Houston to Baltimore, I was amused to watch the Texas Gulf Coast crabs being loaded onto my plane to be served in Baltimore) and Katie got some ice cream and we sat in one of the shade tents for a few minutes to cool down and chat a bit. I like Ben Harper, but I've seen him several times in various festivals over the years, so we spent a bunch of his set time just wandering. We declared the tee shirts ridiculously over priced, and we briefly thought about a massage, but the "refresh tent" was a little too stuffy to warrant waiting around for much time. Eventually, we staked out territory at Ben Harper and listened to the rest of his set and people watched.
One of the things that I didn't like at all about this festival was trash management. I'm probably spoiled by ACL, but it was absolutely ridiculous how many cups and plates and just garbage was strewn on the ground. There were a few trash areas designated, but they tried to be cute and set up stations for recycling, landfill and compost. That's all very well and good, but the number of stations was miniscule in comparison to the amount of trash. At ACL and Lollapalooza it seems that there's a trashcan/recycling bag every twenty feet, and people wander around with trash bags picking stuff up throughout the festival. Here, by the end of the evening, the ground was absolutely disgusting with paper plates, cups, bottles, and food remnants, and I felt sorry for anyone who'd taken off their shoes. They were also selling lemonade, which was a great idea. But they put half lemons in the lemonade that ended up caked in dirt all over the ground, which wasn't a great idea.
Anyhow, the trash situation started getting bad right around the time the Beastie Boys came on, but I didn't really pay all that much attention to the ground because I was so enthralled by the music. I have a running playlist on my ipod that is entirely Beastie Boys based, and I felt strangely compelled to start running while listening to their set. I settled with dancing. Everything sounded great, the production of the performance was top notch, and the three MCs played off of each other beautifully. The DJs were also amazingly good. They probably played for an hour and a half, but it seemed to fly by. Their new album, which I've heard once but haven't bought yet, is entirely instrumental, and they played a few songs from it. But they also managed to cover some material from most of their other albums, too. The crowd loved them, and they seemed to love the crowd. Because my sister has been so involved with putting on heavily produced DJ parties lately, I paid a lot more attention to stuff like the mixing and the presentation on the jumbotrons. All were top notch. They came out wearing suits, but pretty soon MCA muttered something about being as hot as a mofo and everyone was pretty stripped down by the end.
After the Beastie Boys ended, I got some of the lemonade and Katie got some pizza and we managed to move a little closer for the Police set. It was very similar to the set they'd done in Houston a little over a month before, but they seemed a little tighter. I thought that Andy Summers was the weakest link in the Houston show, but he was as good if not better than the other two in this show. This performance was slightly shorter than Houston, though I think that the time limitations on a festival setting are such that you sort of have to expect that. I missed "The Bed's Too Big Without You", (I think that and "Truth Hits Everybody" were the only songs missing from the Houston set), but the "So Lonely" rendition was so damned good I wasn't too disappointed.
Katie and I left the show pretty jazzed about the whole day, and we made it back to the car in pretty good time. Her friend had managed to get up to the very front of the other stage, so getting out for them was a bit of a problem, but they reported that LCD Soundsystem, TV on the Radio and Modest Mouse were really good when they met us at the car about 20 minutes after we got there. It took us about as much time to get from the race track to 695 as it did to get from 695 back to McLean, and I think we rolled in around 12:00, filthy with dust and sun and sweat, but pretty damned glad we went.