virgin music festival

Sat'dee:

Drove to Lexington Market to get on the Metro. Parked in the Hippodrome's parking garage. Baltimore's Metro is filthy compared to DC's. Also all the passcard vending machines were busted so the Metro was free. Took that to the Rogers station and got off and took a bus for a few blocks to Pimlico.

Got there in probably the middle of the Fratelli's set, and scoped them for a while. Was alright. The bass player switched basses between every song, which is such a guitar player thing to do. Maybe the heat & humidity kept throwing them out of tune or something.

After the Fratellis we met up with Brit's coworker+girlfriend+roommate and walked towards the main stage where Amy Winehouse was doing that one Lauren Hill song that's all "That thing, That thing That thi-i-i-ing". We stood around there for a while, then Brit went to hit the can and evidently got distracted by Paolo Nutini on the second stage so it took her like a half hour to get back to us. Then Brit & me and +roommate went to go check out the rest of Paolo Nutini's set, all the while figuring that Paulo Nutini was Pete Bjorn & John.

I guess right as we got there Cheap Trick was coming off the main stage, but we didn't know, for some reason in my mind CT was on the second stage later, so I kept waiting for CT (that was our excuse for leaving the other folks to watch Incubus on their own), but we missed them. Oh well.

Then we ran into Brit's pothead ex-friend Lindsay, and we watched Pete Bjorn & John. They were pretty interesting.

Then we parted ways with Lindsay and went to get some food and hit the can. We hung out inside the Pimlico building for a while as we missed Ben Harper & the Innocent Criminals on the main stage. When we got back to our feet we went back to the second stage to catch a little bit of LCD Sound System but I wasn't feeling it so we headed to the main stage.

Then, after a while the Beastie Boys came on and did their thing, and it was pretty awesome, even though by then the sun-baked/stoned/drunk crowd wasn't gonna go off too much. Their way-old punk stuff with Mike D on the mike didn't translate quite as well as it could have, I think Adrock is their better punk singer. They did a good mix from all eras.

Then we left.

Sundee:

Drove to the Metro Stop next to Pimlico which took way less time.

Got there as Explosions In The Sky were setting up, listened to them for a while, was cool. Then we headed over to the main stage for Panic! At The Disco which Brit though she wanted to see but was wrong. When they came on she said "Wait, this is that band? They suck ass." So we headed back to the second stage and waited for the Bad Brains to come on. Brit went somewhere, but then came back before the Bad Brains hit the stage. They came on and they place exploded. I slammed with the crowd for a few tunes and have a bruise or 2. HR more stands and sings than goes off and screams these days, but the rest of the band was totally on point. They did a little more of their 90s-era chunka-chunka metal bullshit than I cared for, but they did enough ROIR era stuff to make up for it. HR stood around strumming one of theose Ibanez Artcore hollowbody jazz guitars for half the set which was weird. He also threw a big round loaf of bread into the crowd which confused everyone.

After them we waited for fucking ever and then Wu Tang Clan showed up and rocked the house. They got the crowd going more than any other act that I saw. A lot of audience participation. They did a lot of 36 Chambers stuff, and Method Man was definitely the frontman. They also did a singalong of "Shimmy Shimmy Ya" in honor of ODB. I was sorta surprised when they did "Da Rockwilder" from the Redman Methodman Blackout album, seeing that Redman wasn't there. Cappadonna was there though, to put his verse into "Triumph".

I was pretty drained after Wu Tang.

Then Velvet Revolver came on and I guess a lot of people care about that band enough to know all the words to a lot of songs, where I really only care about it because it has 2 of the dudes that played on Appetite. They rocked pretty good, and I got to see Slash, who basically was the reason I ever picked up a guitar. They did a lot of their songs which I don't know, then they did "Sex Type Thing" which I though was way improved over STP's version, and then some more of their own tunes and then "It's So Easy" from Appetite. We stayed around for a few more tunes before I realized that they weren't going to cut the bullshit and just play every tune from Appetite front to back so we mosied over towards the main stage where the Smashing Pumpkins Lightshow Extravaganza was starting up.

It was pretty obvious that the effort to get less than a quarter mile from the stage was going to be tremendous, so we hung back for a few minutes then decided to beat the traffic out of there. I will say this: According to my eyes and the big projector screen, either Billy Corgan got James Iha and D'Arcy back or he got some other Asian dude to play rhythm and some other skinny blond chick to play bass.

So, all in all it was pretty fun. I liken the mainstream festival concert crowd more to a sports event crowd than an actual real club show crowd. Only with more pot. Jesus was there a lot of fucking pot there. Everybody there but us was smoking pot. Being in the television industry for this past most-of-a-decade really made me forget that there are people out there who still do that. I kinda feel like it stopped being in production around 99.

That's about it.