Archive for the 'Phish' Category

Phish Hartford Review

Published on June 21, 2010 in Music, Phish and Review. 3 Comments

I’m going to write this review a bit differently than I would normally write it. Since I’m reviewing two shows, I’m going to compare them a bit and talk about what I liked better in one over the other.

First off, the Hartford shows on June 17 and 18 were awesome. They were both a ton of fun and featured some great songs, great playing, and great fun from the band. Going completely on memory, my favorite of the two was the second night. I felt the band had more energy to their playing. They seemed to have fewer problems with the sound system. They also seemed to be having more fun. The crowd also had more energy and it was reflected in the band’s playing.

The first show seemed disjointed. It seemed that the band didn’t know where they wanted to go with each set. I remember one standout moment after the great Down With Disease > Sand when they were jamming out Sand and it seemed as though Trey decided he wanted to play The Horse>Silent in the Morning. The segue seemed abrupt. Compare that with the segues of the second night and it’s night and day. The segues of the second night were patient and smooth. The first show also had Farmhouse come in and kill what energy existed after a great Guyute. While on its own, that Farmhouse was awesome, it took the set to a standstill. The band could have tore it up with the Mike’s Groove that followed had they not dropped, as one person put it, the “clusterfly song”. What should have been a raging set kicking off with Party Time ended up falling apart with that Farmhouse.

On the other hand, the first set was strong, though there seemed to be some sound problems during Divided Sky, which were worked out during the setbreak as the guitar techs were on stage the entire break, which seemed extended. Esther and When the Circus Comes were played for Cirque du Soleil, which was taking place across the street. The Walk Away had a HUGE jam that was completely unexpected, about as unexpected as the song itself. Sugar Shack had a nice jam that was also unexpected. While there wasn’t a ton of flow to the set, each song was strong on its own.

Now when the second night came along, the place was full of energy from the first notes of Fee straight through the last notes of the second (yes, second) Tweezer Reprise in the encore. The first set was full of energy, especially with Possum, Moma Dance, Julius, Reba, and Cavern. While Julius saw some flubs from Trey, who had a hard time with the lyrics, Reba was played with absolute precision. Possum, which doesn’t usually excite me, was loaded with energy that had the entire place bouncing. It also featured the new song Summer of ’89. It started out slow, but was a great ballad. I think this one may take some time to grow on me in the live setting, but it was a pretty song.

The second set was full of segues and flowed absolutely perfectly. The Light>Billy Breathes was beautiful and then the Tweezer>Theme from the Bottom was patient and perfect. The place went nuts when they started Harry Hood and the transition to Wading in the Velvet Sea was beautiful. That song made my wife particularly excited, though I also love that one. The only part that I was a little surprised about was the Stealing Time set closer. I was hoping for something bigger, like a YEM after such a great set.

Then came the encore. I was expecting YEM. It would have put a nice cap on the show, but Trey started playing Sleeping Monkey and then paused to tell a story about a sign someone had the night before. The song concluded with an audience singalong and the band started Tweezer Reprise, which was particularly energetic. The second they finished, Trey says they’re gonna play it again because they didn’t in Hershey. They start it up again and the crowd blew the roof off the place. They had even more energy than the first. Everyone walked out on cloud nine talking about the encore. Rarely is the encore the highlight of the show. In this case, it was more than a highlight. It was the theme.

As you can tell, I greatly enjoyed the second night the best. The Walk Away and Sugar Shack from the first night were my favorites from that night, and I always love a good Horse>Silent. Aside from the encore, the highlight of the second night were the segues of the second set and Reba from the first set. Tomorrow I’ll do it all over again at Great Woods (aka the Comcast Center) in Mansfield, MA.

Phish @ SPAC Ticket Giveaway

Published on May 28, 2010 in Music and Phish. 0 Comments

Albany-area tweep Jim Stagnitti (@jimstagnitti) will be giving away a pair of highly coveted pavilion seats to the Phish show at SPAC in Saratoga, NY on Saturday, June 19. All you have to do to enter is donate to his cause. He will be doing a 100 mile bike ride to raise money for MS research. See more at his blog.

Win a Phish Alpine Valley Travel Package

Published on May 7, 2010 in Music and Phish. 6 Comments

I was lucky enough to win a travel package for the Alpine Valley Phish shows this summer from CID Entertainment. Unfortunately, I can’t make it. However, my loss is your win!

This Week on Lot, a weekly podcast about the music scene, is re-running the contest for this travel package. The package includes 2 nights in a hotel room for 2 people, shuttle service to and from both shows for 2 people, 2 Phish Alpine Valley t-shirts, and 2 download codes for LivePhish.com. If you’re planning on going to the Alpine shows, this is a pretty good deal.

Head over to TWoL for more details

Phish 3D Review

Published on May 1, 2010 in Music, Phish and Review. 2 Comments

I just got back from the theatre where I saw Phish 3D. Rather than wait until I lose my thoughts, I figured now would be a great time to write the review having just discussed what I liked and disliked about it with Susan, who reluctantly went with me.

For those of you who don’t know, Phish 3D is a 3D movie that was filmed at Festival 8 in Indio, CA. The three day festival was held over Halloween weekend and included eight sets of music. On Halloween night, the band played the Rolling Stones’ Exile on Main Street in its entirety. And on the final day, they played a full acoustic set.

To make this easy, I’ll use bullet points with explanations of what I liked and didn’t like, along with a letter grade.

  • Song selection (B-): There were some good point and some bad points, but overall it was decent. I think they should have shown more from the Exile set. After all, that was the focal point of the festival. Only choosing four songs from that set was a little weak, though the song selections were good. I would have liked to hear more of the “raunchy” songs. I would have liked to have seen more from the acoustic set, though I thought the song selections from that set were just fine. It would have been nice to see McGrupp and hear Trey tell everyone to sit down on the nice soft grass. Finally, the songs from the other sets could have been better. My biggest complaint is that they didn’t show Party Time. The song kicked off the first set of the festival and set the tone for the whole weekend. It was a big party. I would have liked to have seen Fluffhead and You Enjoy Myself. Both songs were high points with fun from the fire towers in the back of the concert field. The only easy going songs they showed were from the acoustic set. It would have been nice to see Joy or When the Circus Comes.
  • Song order (C): I don’t know why they couldn’t play the songs in the order that they were played at the festival, starting with the first night and ending with the last. I know it worked out best showing a set opener first, but, again, why wasn’t the first song Party Time? Instead, they started with songs from the last night. They showed the acoustic set before the Halloween set. I imagine that was to put some of the higher points of the movie towards the end, but that goes into the whole song selection. They could have picked more upbeat rockers from the acoustic set.
  • Views (C+): While I really liked seeing the stage, I would have liked to have seen more of the audience, especially on Halloween night. Part of what would have made this movie great would have been seeing glowsticks and balloons flying at your head, just like you’re there. It would have been nice to see more views out from the stage as well. They also showed way too much of Trey and Mike finger work on their guitars during the acoustic set. Why this set in particular you ask? Because they were sitting down with their legs spread and the guitars resting on their thighs. What am I getting at? Crotch shots. There were WAY too many of them. One of the parts I really enjoyed seeing was Fishman playing the drums. He’s the one guy who is hard to see from the audience because he’s surrounded by tall equipment and he’s not a really tall guy. It was fun watching him get into it. The last thing that I have a complaint about is the lights. The lights are one of the best things about a Phish show. I don’t know if it was the editing or the cameras, but the lights didn’t really come through in many of the shots. I was really hoping to see some 3D lights. It also would have been nice to have a camera way in the back to film the whole field of people and the speaker/light towers near the back of the audience. Those are a bit part of the festival experience.
  • Picture quality (A-): The picture was clear as day. It was better than any of the DVD’s the band has released date. I was very impressed by it. However, for what they were trying to do, this would have been much better in IMAX 3D. I’m sure the movie crew didn’t have the money for IMAX cameras, but that would have really drawn you into it.
  • Sound quality (B+): The sound was excellent, though the bass could have been turned up a bit (no surprise there, that’s exactly how I feel about the soundboard copies of the show). I did feel that Page was a bit louder in the mix than usual, especially during the acoustic set.
  • Overall (B-): It was a good movie, but I didn’t feel drawn into it the whole time. The song selection, the order, and the shots were distracting at times.

Now that I’ve gotten that out of the way, I’ll explain what I think could have made the movie better. Concert movies are tough. They either really draw you in or really don’t. The one other time I saw Phish in the theatre was for their show in Brooklyn that kicked off their “final” tour in 2004. The difference was that it was a live simulcast. People watching it in the theatre were just as excited as the people at the show. This time was different. It was just a film made at a concert. I think in this case it didn’t have to be 3D. While it was great to see the depth of the stage setup and all that up close, it wasn’t necessary, though, as I said, it would have worked if it was IMAX.

The best parts of the movie were the parts the audience and fans never get to see. I loved watching the band rehearse with the horns and backup singers. The movie needed more of that. I also loved watching the crowd come in for the acoustic set on Sunday morning. That part was fun because it added the excitement of the festival to the movie. What concert movies don’t usually do is give you that full experience of being there. That’s what this lacked.

This movie would have been better off as a documentary. It’s so difficult to make a concert movie out of a three day festival with eight sets of music. Which songs do you pick? What order do you show them? How much of the audience do you show? There needs to be a balance, but if you mess any of that up, it can make what could be a great movie into a mediocre movie. I had really high hopes for this, having been at the festival and dealing with the camera booms going up and down over the audience blocking our view. It would have been nice to have seen people coming in for the Halloween set. Other than the fact that the movie mentioned it was Halloween weekend, you couldn’t tell from watching. They should have setup an area near the entrance to the venue where they could have lights and a camera man filming people coming into the show in their costumes. That would have made the movie and given some people their 15 minutes of fame. The could have filmed people coming onto the site on the first day and setting up their campsites. There should have been more wandering around the campgrounds. There was so much at the festival, I feel this didn’t really capture it, even when it came to the music. Had they included more of this other stuff in the movie and cut out some of the music (they could have cut out AC/DC Bag, in my opinion) it would have really brought you into the festival and drawn you into the movie, like you were part of the experience. I guess if I had to summarize the movie in a word, it’d be flat (kinda funny considering it’s a 3D movie).

I’m not going to tell you if you should go see it or not. That’s up to you to decide. I did enjoy the movie. I don’t know if being there made me a bit jaded about the movie because it lacked that full experience. It really is a toss up. I’m inclined to suggest seeing it in the theatre for that full big screen experience and buy the DVD because I’m sure it will have special features with additional songs and hopefully some of that documentary type stuff I’m looking for.

Phish 11-28-09, Albany, NY

Published on February 15, 2010 in Music and Phish. Closed

When Phish announced their Fall Tour, there was a severe lack of New England dates. In fact, there was only one – Portland, ME. However, they had six dates in scheduled in New York State – one in Syracuse, two in Albany, and three at MSG in NYC. I was upset about this decision on their part. They had off dates that coincided with off dates at other arenas they used to play on a regular basis, including the DCU Center (aka Worcester Centrum) in Worcester and the Dunk (aka Providence Civic Center) in Providence. A band based in New England did a whole tour centered around the Northeast, and they skipped pretty much all of New England.

November 28 was the Saturday after Thanksgiving. Susan’s cousin was getting married that day with an early wedding. I begged and pleaded and got a ticket really cheap. Susan caved and allowed me to leave the wedding a little early, only by about 30-60 minutes. I headed up to Albany where I met up with the Twibe at TJ’s. I then headed over to the show and met up with the rest of the crew, including the best vendor on lot, UNO’s Wine Bar.

I went into the show and found my way to my seat, which was behind the stage, Fishman side. Because there were so few people behind the stage, I just hung out by the rail on the landing. There weren’t many security guards in the area and we were able to just hang out there and dance. It also had a better view than my seat. The band came on and opened with “Party Time”. It was a fitting start to what would be an incredible show full of bust-out worthy songs and some of the best jamming of the year. Highlights from the first set included the bust-out of “Uncle Pen” and “Vultures”, “Sanity”, “Walk Away”, and “Alaska”. During the set closer, “Backwards Down the Number Line”, I spotted Jessie from Twitter. She was sitting with Steve, also from Twitter. I sat with them for the rest of the show.

The band came back for the second set and opened with “Seven Below”. Entering into some of the best type 2 territory they’ve hit all year, they segued nicely into “Ghost”, which also stretched beyond the 20 minute mark. The double-whammy amounted to about 50 minutes of type 2 jamming, the most they played in all of 2009. It was a real rager for the beginning of the second set. They brought things back down to earth with a cover of “Cool It Down”. The rest of the set was very strong with a great “Gotta Jibboo” and a funked out “Wolfman’s Brother”. They closed with a strong “Julius” and encored with a crazy “You Enjoy Myself”.

Overall, it was a killer show and totally worth the long trip up to Albany. It made me look forward to 2010. I’m hoping for some shows closer to home. They  need to return to Providence and Worcester this year.

Setlist 11-28-2009

Festival 8: Overall Thoughts

Published on November 8, 2009 in Music and Phish. 1 Comment Tags: .

This is the sixth and final post in a 6 part series on my trip to Indio, CA for Phish’s Festival 8 at the Empire Polo Grounds. I’m only separating them out because it would be one long post to put it all together. They’ll be posted immediately as I finish them. I’ll link to my pictures from the festival in my final post. My other posts about Festival 8 can be found using the fest8 tag.

I’m gonna try to sum up my thoughts on the whole trip in this post. My pictures from the trip are linked at the end of the post. I’ve organized this post into a few major topics on which I’ll give my overall thoughts. Please keep in mind that this is the first Phish festival I have ever attended, though I did attempt to go to Coventry and never made it in. The only other music festival I have attended was the Newport Folk Festival (posts: Day 1, Day 2, Overall Thoughts).

This is a long post, so I’ve broken it up into sections and I put the break here to keep it from taking up the front page of my blog. My thoughts after the jump.

Continue reading ‘Festival 8: Overall Thoughts’

Festival 8: Departure

Published on November 7, 2009 in Music, Phish and Travel. Closed Tags: .

This is the fifth in a 6 part series on my trip to Indio, CA for Phish’s Festival 8 at the Empire Polo Grounds. I’m only separating them out because it would be one long post to put it all together. They’ll be posted immediately as I finish them. I’ll link to my pictures from the festival in my final post. My other posts about Festival 8 can be found using the fest8 tag.

I woke up around 6:30 am on Monday morning, November 2. We had all woken up around the same time. After a quick shower, I packed up all my stuff. We pulled all our stuff together and packed up the RV. We wanted to be on the road as soon as we could. It didn’t take us long to get the RV packed up again and head out. After a wrong turn, we were on our way back to Las Vegas.

The drive back to Vegas was a lot quicker than the drive to Indio. This was primarily because we didn’t have to stop for supplies, but also because it wasn’t dark and we didn’t have to worry about the California agriculture checkpoint going into the state. I guess Nevada doesn’t care if you bring out of state produce in.

It was pretty amazing driving back. I had never been in the desert and because it was dark, I couldn’t see anything on the drive out other than what I saw from the plane. I’ll just say I’m glad I don’t live in the desert. It’s boring. There aren’t any trees, it’s flat, and it’s dusty. We drive through a huge wind farm shortly after leaving Indio. We also had to drive over a mountain or something. Indio’s elevation is 13 feet below sea level. We drive over a mountain that was about 4,000 feet above sea level. I’ve driven over mountains before, but that was pretty neat. I had never had the elevation rise that much on a drive. In fact, the tallest mountains in the east are under 7,000 feet so you’re never really driving over 4,000 feet.

The only stop we made was in Primm, the first town we hit after crossing the border into Nevada. It’s a pretty lame town with a casino or two and a small amusement park. It looks like a tourist trap and reminded me a bit of South of the Border in South Carolina. I took some pictures and bought a drink to help rehydrate myself after spending a few days in the desert not drinking enough water. We weren’t far from Vegas at that point and just trucked on through.

Upon arrival in Las Vegas, I was dropped off with Matt and Max at a hotel to pick up a cab to the airport. After a short wait, we found a cab and made it to the airport. The trip was just about complete. Max and I were both flying Southwest and grabbed lunch and a recharge of our iPhones together while we waited for our flights. We then said our goodbyes and were on our way.

Shortly after landing in Providence, someone saw my new hat and asked what I thought of the festival. I was surprised to have someone on my flight from Vegas who was there. Nevermind the fact that RI is pretty small, but Vegas is about 5 hours from Indio. I wasn’t expecting anyone to be on my flight who was at the festival. We chatted a bit while we walked to the baggage claim. I found my bag, grabbed a taxi and headed home. The trip was officially over.

Festival 8: Day 3

Published on November 7, 2009 in Music and Phish. 1 Comment Tags: .

This is the fourth in a 6 part series on my trip to Indio, CA for Phish’s Festival 8 at the Empire Polo Grounds. I’m only separating them out because it would be one long post to put it all together. They’ll be posted immediately as I finish them. I’ll link to my pictures from the festival in my final post. My other posts about Festival 8 can be found using the fest8 tag.

Sunday started with me waking up suffering from dehydration. Apparently, you shouldn’t drink a lot, among other things, while in the desert if you’re not also drinking a lot of water. So I woke up with tunnel vision and was barely able to move. I honestly thought I was tripping, having never tripped before, but I hadn’t taken any hallucinogens. After drinking about a gallon of water in a 2 hour period, I managed to pull myself together and headed to the concert field with the others for the acoustic set at noon. We were a few rows back on the Fishman side of the stage, but it turned out that they had swapped the stage setup. So we still ended up Page side, where we had been for all the other sets.

The band came out and Trey managed to talk everyone into sitting down (the power of Trey). They played a bunch of mellow songs and then busted out “The Curtain With”. This was the highlight of the set for me. The intricate composition played perfectly on acoustic instruments couldn’t have been easy. At one point (I don’t really remember when, having not listened to it over again), Mike asked if we were sitting because we wanted to or because we were told to. They played with some more mellow songs, and then Trey started up a rocking “Wilson”. The crowd was going nuts. During the break before the end of the song, he said how someone asked him to suggest that people sit down, but that he had ADHD and couldn’t sit anymore. They finished “Wilson” and immediately started “McGrupp”, another intricate song. This ended the set, but they came back for an encore (though it’s not officially listed as that because this was only the first set of the show) and played “Driver”, “Talk”, and “Secret Smile” before finishing up. It was a long set, but it was nice and relaxing. They really need to play more acoustic sets like that. It really shows off some of their abilities better than the electric sets. They also have a ton of music that is far more suited for acoustic sets. I think this was the highlight of the weekend for me.

We now had a lot of time to do hang out before the sets that night. I stopped by a Dry Goods tent to pick up a hat. For some reason, they have switched all their shirts from Gildan brand to American Apparel. While I understand the quality, softness, and ethics behind the brand, American Apparel only makes fitted shirts. They don’t fit people with broad shoulders, like myself. Even if I didn’t have a gut, I couldn’t wear them because of the shoulder issue. The sleeves are also tighter on someone built like me. So I bought a hat, mainly because they actually had a Festival 8 hat. I had wanted a poster, but they were selling for $50 and I really didn’t think they were worth that much. We then headed back to the RV and hung out there while we waited for the night sets. During this time, Nick, Laura, and Steve recorded an episode of This Week on Lot while we were all there, chiming in when we wanted.

We made it back for the night sets just in time. They were just starting “AC/DC Bag” as we were walking in. The first set had a lot of firsts for me that I had always wanted to hear live since I first started seeing them in 1997 – “Rift”, “Reba”, “Guelah Papyrus”, “The Wedge”, and “Undermind”. I was especially excited for “Undermind” as it’s my favorite song off that album and they had really funked it up the couple times they played it since returning. They finished the set with a strong “Split Open and Melt”. The setbreak was extra long. It felt like it was over an hour before they actually came back (during a normal show, they’re about 30-45 min, and the previous two nights, they were about 45 min). Because of my lack of sleep, I was extra tired and just wanted them to come back and finish up.

They finally came back for their last set. They started out strong with “Tweezer” segued into “Maze”. They followed this with a very strong “Free” and then “Sugar Shack”, one of the few songs off the new album that I had yet to hear up until that point. In fact, I think the only songs from the new album that were not played this weekend were “I Been Around” and “Twenty Years Later”, the only two I have not seen live now. The last big hurrah of the set started with “Mike’s Song”, which segued into “2001″ segued into “Light” segued into “Slave to the Traffic Light” to close what I consider the strongest set of the weekend (acoustic set aside). They came back for the final encore of the weekend with “Grind”. They then started up “Esther” the one Phish song I have been dying to hear live since I first heard the song. They ended the weekend with a very strong “Tweezer Reprise”. This set is of note because they played “Mike’s Song” without a “Weekapaug Groove”, something that is rarely done and something that makes stats junkies wet their pants.

Everyone headed back to their campsites glowing after that set. We decided to come up with a plan to get our stuff together and get going in the morning, but we were going to party it up a bit. I don’t know if everyone partied or not because I fell asleep sitting upright on the couch in the RV. I woke up, kicked Matt in the head and wondered where I was. I laid down at that point and passed out for the night.

Festival 8: Day 2

Published on November 6, 2009 in Music and Phish. Closed Tags: .

This is the third in a 6 part series on my trip to Indio, CA for Phish’s Festival 8 at the Empire Polo Grounds. I’m only separating them out because it would be one long post to put it all together. They’ll be posted immediately as I finish them. I’ll link to my pictures from the festival in my final post. My other posts about Festival 8 can be found using the fest8 tag.

Luckily, I had gotten about 9 hours of sleep on Friday night. Halloween was here. Nick, again, made bacon and eggs. We took it easy during the day and headed to the venue for a massive Phish Twibe tweetup that had been planned. After Laura chased down an over-zealous cleaning person who stole our sign, we were ready to go. We had about 25 or so people show up for what would be the biggest Twibe meetup we had ever had. I met the following people aside from those I had met the previous day:

I think I’m missing 1 or 2 people. I can’t remember who they were, unfortunately. It was great to meet some of these folks I had been tweeting with for a long time. We spent some time chatting for a bit and then we went our separate ways and headed to the first set, which started at 3:00 pm. Here’s a pic of the tweetup.

Photo by @motorbikematt

The first daytime set of the weekend was stronger musically than the first night. They played a bunch of fan favorites, including the highlight (for me) of “Runaway Jim” – the first one I’ve seen since before the first hiatus (which started in October 2000). They ended the set with a great “Run Like an Antelope”. The set ended and we headed out to do our own thing for a couple hours before the Halloween set. We had found out, upon entering the venue, that the band would be playing Exile on Main Street from the Rolling Stones. They had handed us “Phishbills” (that looked like Broadway Playbills), which showed the album cover and had a story about the album and some fun stuff inside.

Upon return, we found the wooden towers to have their flames lit and the jumbotrons had a video mashup of music and footage from the 99 albums and artists that were on the website Phish had put together to determine the album they would play.

Eclectic Method Goes Phish from Eclectic Method on Vimeo.

This was followed by vintage footage of the Rolling Stones from the 70′s and then Phish came on with horns and backup singers. Phish killed the album, playing it perfectly (though some of the vocals could’ve been better, but no one sounds like Mick Jagger). The horns and backup vocals added an awesome dimension to the music. They performed the best “Loving Cup” ever during this set and probably added a couple new songs to their repertoire as well, particular “Torn and Frayed”. Being a long album, the set was pretty long. After the break, they came back with “Backwards Down the Number Line” off their latest album. This kicked off a great set. That was followed by an awesome “Fluffhead” and a rocking “Ghost”. They slowed it down briefly with “When the Circus Comes” and ended the set with a great “You Enjoy Myself” that had a great vocal jam which included the lighting of torches at the top of the towers. We were sitting in the back of the audience to give us a lot of room to dance and enjoy ourselves, right near the towers. When they went up, we could feel the heat and the sound scared us a bit.

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The band came back with the horns and backup singers to encore with the best “Suzy Greenberg” they’ve ever done. It included a reprise jam after pausing. The horns and backup vocalists added a kind of gospel feel to it. Thus ended an awesome night of music.

Following the music, Nick and I hung out with a few beers and found a great band playing in our camping area. We hung out there, chatted with some people, and found Noah and Seth (@seisenstein) there. After hanging out there for a while, I went back to Annie and Greg’s trailer and hung out with the folks there, met Glowstick Man, left some voicemails for This Week on Lot (419-NOWOOKS), and wandered around until sunrise when I went to bed.

Festival 8: Day 1

Published on November 6, 2009 in Music and Phish. 2 Comments Tags: .

This is the second in a 6 part series on my trip to Indio, CA for Phish’s Festival 8 at the Empire Polo Grounds. I’m only separating them out because it would be one long post to put it all together. They’ll be posted immediately as I finish them. I’ll link to my pictures from the festival in my final post. My other posts about Festival 8 can be found using the fest8 tag.

The first full day of the festival was Friday, October 30. The band was scheduled to play 2 sets of music, a full concert, starting at 7:30 pm. I woke up around 8:30 am along with the rest of the crew. A few of them had gone out to meet up with some people. Nick and I decided to check out the farmers market they had on site. Unfortunately, unlike most farmers markets, this one was a bit pricey. We both bought some strawberries and picked up a water bottle that we could use for free refills throughout the site. We then headed back to the RV for breakfast that consisted of bacon and eggs and our strawberries.

While hanging outside the RV, a guy we had never seen before came out of Max’s tent. We thought he had been wook’d (in this case, having a random wook decide to crash in your tent). Luckily, it was a friend of his.

After checking out what was in our little area, we took a pedi-cab over to another campsite to meet up with the rest of our crew and some other friends from Twitter at Annie and Greg’s trailer (@stringcheesemom and @gratefuldad5600). We met up with TJ (@tenacioustij) and Kat (@ChinaKatSunflwr) there along with Noah (@noah_s) and Kelli (@kt913). We chatted for a while and then decided to head back. On our way, Matt, Nick and I decided to check out the concert venue. The field was still closed off as final preparations were being made to the art installations, but we checked out the other vendors and I tried the FOAM, a pilsner brewed by Sierra Nevada just for the festival (it all sold out that one day). We also checked out the ferris wheel they had on site. The views of the festival grounds were awesome, as was the site itself in the middle of the desert surrounded by mountains. We then headed back to the RV to prepare for the concert that night.

The band came on about 15-20 minutes late and opened up with “Party Time”, a very fitting start to the festival. The highlights of this show for me were a rocking “Chalkdust Torture”, a great “NICU”, Page’s “Beauty of a Broken Heart”, an awesome “Wolfman’s Brother” segued into “Piper” segued into “Joy”, and the Burble that came out during “Harry Hood”. The Burble was a jelly bean shaped object with many white balloons that had lights inside of them that changed color to the music. It came out during the jam.

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After the show, we went back to the RV and hung out for a while. I passed out around midnight and apparently, people were having a power hour about 3 feet from my head. I snored through the whole thing.