vfest tidbits

Thought is was a good show. Still think prices (for everything) were too high. Nine dollar beers?? I moved between both stages throughout the day but mostly stuck to the smaller stage. Scissor Sisters and Flaming Lips were great to end the night and both really had crowd going. Saw about 1/2 of Who (they overlapped with Scissor Sisters, unfortunately) and was really impressed. New Pornographers were very good - I'd never seen them before. Missed Driveby Truckers and RJD2 becaused they were on so early. I really wanted to see them.
I was really surprised that they only sold 2/3 of tickets because there were alot of people. Getting close to the bigger stage was a pain. I can't imagine how it would have been with 20,000 more people.
If they have it again next year I hope they keep the lineup respectable and (please) lower the price of a cup of beer.

I had a good time. The weirdest part of my day was looking up to see Richard Branson and Seth walk by with a big group of people following.

Not a bad show for their first go in the US. I expect bigger and better things next year.

Upset that I had to miss it, but I did have fun at the Black Cat last night.
Did Neko play with NP?
Also, setlists would be great, especially for RHCP. I'd be interested to see what they chose to play.

no neko.

but the NP's were good as always, but being so early and they looked pretty tired, i've seen them better. Carl is just one not funny dude! but he tries!
Clap your hands was ok, boy are they ugly. still cant figure out which band they sound just like.

from then we hung in the middle area, checking out 2manyDJs, though not many mashups like i thought i'd hear and caught (by accident) Gnarls and they were just as boring as they were at Lollapalooza. :(

we got close to the killers and i really did like them, but sooooo many johnny-come-latelys barging, tripping and spilling beverages on us the entire time made us want to head out of there.

saw the who from way too far since we were with so many people we didnt figure we'd get too close, so they didnt impress me. it was my only regret…for like 20 minutes, til the scissor sisters came on. awesome, i love them and me and my friends were dancing like crazy.

the flaming lips….well, i dont know. i've seen them before and liked them. and these guys in front of us were smoking some weed, offered me some and i took it. havent done that in like 6 years and man….the lips got waaaay cooler, lol.

Yoshimi and Yeah Yeah Yeah song were my highlights. great way to end the night, though, the stage was sorta small for them….but i would rather have them on a small stage at night than at 4pm on the big one.

overall it was a blast…saw LOTS of friends, hung out with many people and saw a handful of great bands…and spent $300 for me and my fiancee altogether!! not bad for a day of rocking out!

for next year….more bathrooms, more sound for the main stage , more ATMS and those handwashing stations outside of the portapots are a godsend, though i did have some sanitizer with me.

oh yeah, and make it two days next year.

oh, and scrap the DJS, put a 3rd stage of bands in that tent!!!!


but mainly, thanks to seth and all for bringing this event here!

V-fest: not bad if you don't mind huge crowds and standing for hours in a field full of garbage, but all day festivals are always a test of endurance and tolerance. Pimlico not a good venue for music – too flat – sound going everywhere. New Pornographers played a good, if efficient, set. Pleasant suprises, for me, were Clap Your Hands and Thievery as I had never seen either. But the highlights were definitely Townshend's windmill (even though he was a tiny ant from where I was standing) and Wayne Coyne's plastic bubble!

I was also a bit disconcerted about not being able to wash my hands and it would have been nice if there had been another drinking fountain setup by the second stage.

Personally if the show had been sold out, I would have been miserable. It would have been a nightmare for traffic and getting back and forth between both stages.

My ideal festival would have been to lop off the top three acts and redistribute the rest between two medium sized stages. Get 20 to 25K of my closest friends together to hang out, enjoy, bounce around to great hour long sets from the likes of Brazilian Girls, Thievery Corp, New Pronos, etc… Having to deal with that mass of humanity tripping over each to cram in front or cranking their necks to see the stage just isn't my idea of a good time.

To the ones who saw Brazilian Girls, what was Sabina wearing? :)

Originally posted by kosmo vinyl:


My ideal festival would have been to lop off the top three acts and redistribute the rest between two medium sized stages. Get 20 to 25K of my closest friends together to hang out, enjoy, bounce around to great hour long sets from the likes of Brazilian Girls, Thievery Corp, New Pronos, etc… Having to deal with that mass of humanity tripping over each to cram in front or cranking their necks to see the stage just isn't my idea of a good time.

You would have liked the Osheaga festival in Montreal last month. That was the most user friendly big show I'd ever been to. Big space and probably only 20k or so in attendance. Instead of one main stage, they had two side by side so that one act could directly follow another with no overlap or downtime. It wasn't so crowded that you couldn't get decent position for every band, but you could also get great position on either stage if you wanted to scope out a spot early.

There was also a third stage a short walk away sequestered in the trees, so you always had a few choices.

Did no one see DBT? I realize this wasn't really their kind of crowd, but I figured at least a couple of the diehards would have paid $97.50 to see them.

my 2 cents:

Wolfmother - only heard a little bit of their record and wasn't too impressed going in, but good energy, and I'm glad I caught a little of it.

2 Many DJ's - best live DJ's I've ever seen, holy crap, but it also helped that it was at the beginning of the day and I wasn't tired yet… no, they really were that good.

Raconteurs - boring.

Clap Your Hands Say Yeah - still one of my fav records, saw them the first time at Black Cat and was entertained but felt they needed to work on their live act, they haven't.

Gnarls Barkley - stage/crowd seemed to big for them, would have probably worked better in a smaller indoor venue or at least at night, but enjoyed it for the most part.

Killers - even more boring, I'm not really into them to begin with, and their show didn't change anything

The Who - better than I expected, but still old

VHS or BETA DJ's - no crowd, nobody dancing, but these guys are great DJ's, although I'm a little biased since I'm buds with them, put on a rockin set afterwards at R&R Hotel

Scissor Sisters - was looking forward to this as I hadn't seen them before, lot's of fun even though by this time I was tired, smelly, and wanting to go home, new songs sounded great

Flaming Lips - always great live, this was no exception, great way to end the night, they got all the freaks from the freakshow tent up on stage + the usual psychedelic shenanigans from Wayne & Co

Overall: not really worth it, too much effort to drive up there, park, deal with the crowd. Half the time it just feels like you're watching a live DVD. I guess I'm just spoiled by small intimate venue shows.

I wish I saw DBT. That was a band me and my friends were looking forward to seeing. We missed them and most of NP though because we were stuck on the OnTap bus for so long. So I'd say the bus was my only true gripe, which is not a VFest problem. I thought the festival was good. It was kind of strange being on the field for something other than the foulness of Preakness. Everything was relatively accessible, food/beer prices were what I expected (meaning expensive), but the place was very chill from what I saw. I wish there were more water refill stations though. Suprisingly, I didn't see any fights, but I saw a few too many people in need of EMT services. Thievery took the cake for me. What a great set. Lips were solid too.

The story with the bus was that we left DC shortly after 11:00 am. It didn't take long to realize that we'd be missing the Truckers. When it started getting into the Porno's set, people were getting antsy on the bus. We saw folks from the same trip walking down the street to the field, meaning that they were allowed off the bus. We unfortunately were not allowed to get off. So that kind of sucked. The ride home was long, but I'd rather sit on a bus for a few hours than have to drive. All in all, good first effort for a festival.

Originally posted by thegazelle:
We saw folks from the same trip walking down the street to the field, meaning that they were allowed off the bus. We unfortunately were not allowed to get off. So that kind of sucked.

I had friends on the On Tap bus that let them get off – they walked the last 2.5 miles. Got to the racetrack around 2:30? Sounded insane, and is exactly the reason I didn't go – imagine if it had sold out.

SxSW is my kind of festival – tons of shows in small venues. Just what I'm used to. While I would have loved to catch the Who, most of the other bands (that I want to see) I have or will be able to see at smaller places.

Anyone have any idea if the sales figures are enough to make the event profitable? I'd think 40,000 was a pretty good number. But at only two-thirds capacity, I could be wrong.

Originally posted by Joe M.:
To the ones who saw Brazilian Girls, what was Sabina wearing? :)

only thing i remember is that she was wearing white face paint and some sort of body-hugging lycra suit with colorful bits. they didn't impress me much, didn't stick around for too long.

other thoughts:

late departure for ontap bus was indeed annoying. i was willing to show up earlier and leave earlier. bummed that i missed kasabian and wolfmother.

thumbs up:
new pronos
thievery
killers
rhcp (from fairly close up we got good sound, and my god is john a talented musician)
(… and the fact that the rain held out!)

only so-so:
cyhsy
brazilian girls
the who

boring:
raconteurs
gnarls

painful:
the sound in the DJ tent. i went to check out RJD2, and the high end was distorting while the bass was anemic. hurt my ears. maybe it improved later, but i didn't want to risk that experience again :)

festival pet peeves:
- trash everywhere
- crowd-surfers. not only is this retarded activity dangerous to non-surfers (getting kicked in the head), it has obvious taken a toll on the IQ of those who practice it: idiots asked for a lift up in areas where the crowd wasn't dense enough to support them. predictable effect: their asses got dropped, and hard.
- real estate hogs: folks who threw down a blanket and think they have a god-given right to that space for *the rest of the day*. if i show up when the doors open, run to the front rail and throw down a blanket at the front row by the stage, can i expect to have that spot all day? of course not. the look of indignation on people's face when crowds got thicker and started stepping on their blankets (but refused to budge) was hillarious.

there was some serious drinking going down. i wonder how many people's drinking got in the way of them enjoying and/or remembering the festival… what's the point?

despite the above kvetching, i had a great time. definitely hope there is another edition next year.

Originally posted by You go, Judge Alito:
Did no one see DBT? I realize this wasn't really their kind of crowd, but I figured at least a couple of the diehards would have paid $97.50 to see them.

I saw a couple of songs toward the end of their set, and I thought they sounded great, especially considering they had pretty much just woken up. They closed with Jim Carroll's "People Who Died" just like their last show at the club and rocked it out. There was a fairly good-size and enthusiastic crowd for them too. They gave a really nice shout-out to Rodney Henry & his Dangerously Delicious Pies. The Truckers love Baltimore.

Thanks, Twangirl. Just like the dedication of Heathens to Rodney at the Recher a couple years back.

Originally posted by sweetcell:
i wonder how many people's drinking got in the way of them enjoying … the festival

yeah, that's always the problem i have when i get really drunk, i just don't enjoy things :roll:

my two cents = thank god i didn't go to this thing

Originally posted by HoyaSaxa08:
yeah, that's always the problem i have when i get really drunk, i just don't enjoy things

my two cents = thank god i didn't go to this thing

hoya, i hope that i'm missing your sarcasm/humor. i'm sure you can drink responsibly, i.e. have alcohol increase your enjoyment, not impede it. that's the case with most people.

however, my original comment wasn't about happy drunks - i commenting about the minority of passed-out wasted, bordeline alcohol poisoned and catatonic drunk. i don't think that's a good time, it's certainly never worked for me. maybe i'm being closed-minded or maybe i just have a low tolerance for the blind drunk.

maybe there is a philosophical argument here - if you have a good time but can't remember it, was it still a good time? :) (probably not to those around you…)

and while you did miss out on a few drunks, you missed out on a lot of great music :)

Originally posted by sweetcell:
passed-out wasted, bordeline alcohol poisoned and catatonic drunk.

Baltimore – Get In On It!!!

Originally posted by ggwâ?¢:

Originally posted by sweetcell:
passed-out wasted, bordeline alcohol poisoned and catatonic drunk.

Baltimore – Get In On It!!!

yeah, i saw a LOT of passed out folks with Steelers hats on, lets not forget our friendly neighbors to the north (and NO i dont mean Canada!!)

Originally posted by HoyaSaxa08:

my two cents = thank god i didn't go to this thing

seriously? why? i can understand not wanting to go, but thanking god?