Virgin Free Fest returning to Merriweather

Seth sure has a winner on his hands with this the FreeFest at Merriweather, throughly enjoyed my day out there.  Best change had to be being able to get into the Pit if need be or a loge seat for the GA folks when a band was playing they wanted to see.  I also noticed an improvement in sound for the lawn, unlike the anemic sound to be had during Weezer.  Definitely a better distribution of people between the two stages this year.

I did what one is suppose to do at a festival, caught the full sets of the band I was most interested in seeing and sampled some of rest.  Hung out with some cool boardies to boot. 

Getting in and out was a breeze when I got there at noon.

Still think the dance forest is too close to the pavilion, sound carries a bit to far from it.

Thanks, Seth, Staph and Virgin/Richard Branson. You should be very proud of yourselves and each other. I love it when people figure out how to make things work well, and you did today.
The set-up was great, every staff person I encountered was pleasant and efficient. I never waited very long for anything, even mid-event when things seemed the most crowded.
Well done!

…their fans need a good punch in the face, too……awful band.

runwhiteyrun06 wrote:

Man, Edward Sharpe needs a good punch in the face. The whole drugged out messiah thing gets boring after a few songs.

sweetcell wrote:
Unannounced changed of rules: $60/$65 GA Pavilion are no longer General Admission.  Only $125 let down to first 16 rows or pavilion. $60 are limited to rows 17+.

Yeah. Even though the unannounced change of the rules in the middle of the day for the $60 ticket was a little off, I thought the $60 ticket was well worth the price.

Great Line-up this year. And aside from this change of rules, i thought the festival was very well organized.

Great Job.

i had a fantastic time today.  just about everything one could ask for was on offer: great music short lines, reasonably priced beverages, friendly people, even the weather was amazing (hope i'm not sun-burned).  my day:

- brite light brite: kinda awful.  as soon as they got a beat going it would be yanked away but some glitchy fx.
- temper trap: musical highlight of the day, IMO.  second half of set was epic.
- second half of JEW, enjoyed them more than i thought i would
- considered catching some of trombone shorty, but bailed b/c of the intense sun
- forum meet-up, under-attended as usual :)  tried ignoring edward sharp dude in the background.
- caught a little bit of yeasayer, then back for a bit of joan jett, then back again for some TC.  they sounded really good.
- matt & kim: what a great festival band.  pure, unbridled fun.  i totally have a thing for kim.
- pavement: first band i saw from the pit.  glad i saw them, but they weren't mind-blowing.
- lcdss: destroyed.  i'm only so-so on the new album but this show exceeded expectations.  danced up a storm.
left during lcdss' encore, drove out right away with no traffic to speak off.

only negative for me was the unannounced change that $60 GA pavilion tix were no longer allowed in the first 16 rows.  i had been going down there all day, then suddenly someone changed their minds.  would have been better if we were warned about this (at a minimum it would have saved staph from having to explain it a million times, and being put in an awkward situation that they were responsible for). 

can't wait for next year!  THANK YOU IMP, MPP, SETH, ALL STAPH, and anyone even remotely associated with this great gathering :)

Jesse wrote:
I thought the $60 ticket was well worth the price.

100% agreed.

did they start playing songs during the second half?

they were 7 minutes late then for the first song they did this boring instrumental piece that went on for another 7 minutes…

is the singer singing in English?

sweetcell wrote:

- temper trap: musical highlight of the day, IMO.  second half of set was epic.

Pavement was great.. that was like a dream set list..

LCD Soundsystem was amazing…really really good…

Managed to catch both from the pit….

Got there late for meetup but was at 932 twice…but later

hutch wrote:
Managed to catch both from the pit….

how did you pull that off?  didn't they clear out the pit after pavement, with a bzillion lcd fans already lined up to get in?

I got in the pit quite easily for LCD and got the sense that even after the line cleared that people got in… My only snafu of the evening was not getting in the LCD line earlier or taking a chance on getting in after Pavement's set, as I ended up around the corner and unable to really hear the end of their set.  Had a nice view of the fireworks though, including watching people dodging the some of the still falling debris.

What a great day.  Trombone Shorty was terrific.  I thought the crowd got into it after a bit.  Joan Jett looks hot.  People were nice.  I thought Edward Sharpe was really cute.  They didn't bother me with their Arcade Fire meets Polyphonic Spree songs.  Matt and Kim had good stage presence, but their songs were annoying.

Pavement and LCD were just fabulous.

I too was pissed about the sudden change of rules for the front.  My friend who only had a sponsor badge and a checkered wristband, couldn't sit in the front, even though we'd been sitting there all day.  So, he moved back with another group of friends.  It was not necessary and annoying.  There was no one up front for Pavement.  LCD, another story, but then they let everyone back.  Very disorganized on that front.

Did anyone see M.I.A.?  Looking back through twitter, people's reactions are pretty divided as to her performance, which started 30 minute late to begin with…

My husband did and said she was awful.

Overall, a pretty excellent day…

Pavement totally destroyed. Malkmus was absolutely on his game, both musically and personality-wise. That setlist was immense.

Missed the first 30 mins of LCDSS 'cos friends I was with wanted to see MIA, which was one of the shittiest sets I've experienced in recent memory. A lot of visual and auditory noise, soggy "hard" beats, and images of war and current events used for aesthetic gimmickry without saying anything worthwhile. Plus, she can't sing and she can't rap, so all she can do is lazily shout into the mic. What an absolute talentless whore. After starting late, she wasted the first 10 minutes with a dark stage and a DJ making some ominous noises and nothing going on. She is just the worst.

LCD were glorious, though. Came in as All My Friends was starting, which was perfect. Tribulations was the peak, though. Crowd was great as well.

Yeasayer were enjoyable as always, Chromeo caused madness and overcrowding in that forest (with good reason), Trombone Shorty was enjoyable. I didn't catch any sets besides MIA that I thought were offensively bad – Thievery, Matt + Kim, and even Edward Sharpe (who I hate) provided some decent entertainment.

Decided to avoid the hassle of entering the pavilion after i heard the rules had changed, so I chilled in the very front center of the lawn, which was perfect and pleasant. Sound + sightlines were ideal, spot had a real backyard vibe to it.

Other major plus was that Loft area… took a solid 40 minute nap sprawled on one of those bed mofes.

All in all: thanks a bunch Seth et al!

I found that, when leaving the pit for Pavement, far too many guards and people in line were distracted by the fireworks.  Made it pretty easy to sneak around them and casually insert oneself into the line :)  Normally, I wouldn't have, but I figured I was owed it with that last minute change of where I could get with my Livigin Social Ticket.

Great set-up, though.  Pavement and LCD were absolutely phenomenal, and I caught all of Joan Jett's set too.  She's still pretty amazing.  Caught a little of TC, and then most of Matt & Kim while sitting at 9:32.  Boy…that was annoyed.  FYI: if you're going to cover a song during your set as a gimmick, its pretty lazy to not even learn the verses. 

Good catching up with Kosmo, Joe and BookerT.

Oh, and PS, I think I was standing in that puddle of blood on the floor during Pavement.  Gross.

sweetcell wrote:

hutch wrote:
Managed to catch both from the pit….

how did you pull that off?  didn't they clear out the pit after pavement, with a bzillion lcd fans already lined up to get in?

Oh, and final PPS: thanks to the bro that threw glitter pretty much directly in my face during LCD.  My arms, hair and chest are STILL covered, so I'm now spending the day trying to convince my wife I was really at FreeFest and not Blow Off.

re: that puddle of blood, i was in the pit during joan jett's set when suddenly saw thatguy grabbing some dude from behind and slammed him to the floor really hard, obviously, the guy just stayed there with a bloody face, surrounded by guards and paramedics… i asked thatguy what happened but clearly it seemed he was worried that perhaps he used a little bit too much of power trying to calm the dude, so he didn't answer…what was this guy doing to deserve such punishment?

overall had a great time, yeasayer was pretty good, same thing with trombone shorty and chromeo, i stayed two minutes into MIA set and realized that i should avoid her completely, so i walked to the pavilion to check LCDSS, which were amazing, my girlfriend stayed in the west stage for MIA but shortly after she was by my side, complaining about how overrated she is…thanks Seth and everybody involved, it was a great day…

lagas wrote:
re: that puddle of blood, i was in the pit during joan jett's set when suddenly saw thatguy grabbing some dude from behind and slammed him to the floor really hard, obviously, the guy just stayed there with a bloody face, surrounded by guards and paramedics… i asked thatguy what happened but clearly it seemed he was worried that perhaps he used a little bit too much of power trying to calm the dude, so he didn't answer…what was this guy doing to deserve such punishment?

overall had a great time, yeasayer was pretty good, same thing with trombone shorty and chromeo, i stayed two minutes into MIA set and realized that i should avoid her completely, so i walked to the pavilion to check LCDSS, which were amazing, my girlfriend stayed in the west stage for MIA but shortly after she was by my side, complaining about how overrated she is…thanks Seth and everybody involved, it was a great day…

I was there in the pit for the guy acting out of hand and Josh.  Josh was trying to take him out of the pit because he was acting up in the pit.  The guy started kicking and hitting Josh, so Josh try to put him on the ground.  I guess all his weight went on the guy when he went to the ground.  Josh was doing his job, I mean that guy was flailing and kicking up a storm.  He was just trying to control the situation because his kicking almost hit some people in the pit.  I think Josh felt really bad as I could see it.  Of course he didn't want the guy to be hurt.  The bad thing about it is a lot of moron idiots were filming and taking pictures of the guy who was laying on the ground.  I mean come on idiots why do you want to tape that?

why do you think?  lawsuit.  this pussy generation we live in . . . its all they know how to do anymore.  sorry josh, but don't be surprised if you and merriweather soon will be in court.  and with all those "cameras" everywhere thanks to people's obsessions with phones, i'm sure the incident is all over youtube, and soon cnn by now.

I guess we shouldn't really talk about it until Josh talks about it or even if he wants to.

What WML said.  Joe and I were right behind it all, and the dude definitely started throwing punches and elbows back on Josh's head when he was being removed.

lagas wrote:
re: that puddle of blood, i was in the pit during joan jett's set when suddenly saw thatguy grabbing some dude from behind and slammed him to the floor really hard, obviously, the guy just stayed there with a bloody face, surrounded by guards and paramedics… i asked thatguy what happened but clearly it seemed he was worried that perhaps he used a little bit too much of power trying to calm the dude, so he didn't answer…what was this guy doing to deserve such punishment?

overall had a great time, yeasayer was pretty good, same thing with trombone shorty and chromeo, i stayed two minutes into MIA set and realized that i should avoid her completely, so i walked to the pavilion to check LCDSS, which were amazing, my girlfriend stayed in the west stage for MIA but shortly after she was by my side, complaining about how overrated she is…thanks Seth and everybody involved, it was a great day…