Month: September 2004

Last weekend was filled with music. I cannot remember all the bands I heard, partly because there were so many crammed into only 3 days, and partly because the sun cooked my cranio-memory glands. Ninety (or so) degrees is not incredibly hot .. until you are sitting in it for several hours at a time. And surrounded by 75,000 other people. We were continually remarking how much better we liked last year’s weather (overcast and drizzly).

So apart from our sense of hearing getting a good fun workout, there was the sense of touch getting to experience a) pushing our way through immense crowds of bipedal primates and b) receiving a continuos heavy dose of infrared radiation. We prepared for the solar attack with sunscreen (SPF’s ranging from 15 to 45*(10^6^)). Which brings a third sense into the game — smell. Sunscreen has a particular, not altogther unpleasant, odor. However, it becomes less not-unpleasant when mixed with sweat. And smoke .. oh, and the smoke from legal cigarettes as well.

The signs listing the festival rules pointed out that no illegal substances were allowed .. including narcotics. I’ll let you guess at how well this was enforced. Bags were searched on the way in .. search being defined as a quick peek inside, or grabbing the bottom of a bag to check if there’s … anything in the bag? I don’t know, really. Long folding-chair-shaped bags containing folding-chairs (or anything else), were groped quickly or not at all before being admitted. This is a good thing, really, because if they actually did search the bag of all 75,000 people, nobody would get inside.

Anyway, the music! I was a bit disappointed that the Beta Band and Rilo Kiley both cancelled a while back. Plenty of other good stuff to hear though. Cake was cool. Howie Day was good .. kind of relaxing. Ben Kweller, good. Toots & the Maytals, Blind Boys of Alabama, Rachael Yamagata, Soundtrack of Our Lives, Broken Social Scene .. all good. Could be just the weather, but it seemed like there weren’t as many really amazing acts as Favorite was probably Wilco, just because it was neat to finally see them live. Jeff Tweedy said something like “How many of you have our album called Being There?” [cheering and screaming] “just wondering because this next song was written before most of you were born … but we thought we’d play it because it tends to rock” .. and then they played Kingpin.

So it was a good weekend .. not sure if we’ll be going for the 3 day pass next year though. Three days is a lot of fun and music, but three days of sun makes for a lot of tired.

Also, pictures were taken (some with cell phone, some with real camera).

went to the body shop this morning and cleaned out the car … wouldn’t let me take the plates .. gets picked up by the salvage yard later today 🙁 .. I need to get the title to the insurance people so they can pay us for the car .. then we see about finding another one 🙂 (posted via aim)

cost to repair and total value were both more than I expected …

on the phone with state farm right now .. Jetta was declared a total loss ..