Sasquatch 2010 thoughts
By vidiot 5 Comments
It's always strange to get back from a vacation. Granted, I seemed to have needed one desperately and I'm happy to report that even after losing my glasses on this trip in particular, a good time was enjoyed by all. The Sasquatch music festival is a three day, all day, event. The location of the festival is at an area best described as "the middle of nowhere." Thus, the controlled environment of such an event has overlapping social ticks not appropriate to every day life. Casually head bobbing to muzak subconsciously in an elevator is a bit odd. If last year was any indication, such strange knee-jerk reactions should slowly pass.
Or not.
At this point you are probably wondering why such an event is held out here, until you take a look at it. The word vista doesn't give justice to how beautiful the area is. It simply is. The first time you lay eyes on the gorge is something, that at least for me personally, can't be properly described with photo's or word's. It truly is a sight to see.
We didn't camp at the main camp site. Sometimes you get quick glances at the main campsite, a reoccurring joke was that the place looks like Mogadishu. For a few dollars more you can stay at a place with proper showers, food and coffee, the latter is something severely lacking at Sasquatch.
Weather was perfect. A drizzle of showers here and there, but overall I think it stayed between 70-80 degrees which is a big step up from last year's sun scorcher. The technicalities surrounding the venue feel like they have gotten worse. Alcohol is strictly forbidden, people pat you down, check your bags at the gate, and make you drain any water bottles of liquid prior to entering. "Beverage enforcers" roam the venue with blue shirts and ear-pieces. They look for alcohol not sold at the gorge and make you drain any you have sneaked in. I doubt any actual repercussions happen to the individuals who smuggle beer in. More imminently confusing is the amount of blatant drug use in the gorge. No "Pot Enforcers" roaming the venue that's for sure.
That's because they don't sell pot at the gorge. They sell beer though, and at nine dollars...yes....nine dollars...you can get yourself a can. This year more alcohol seemed to have appeared including.....*ahem*....ten dollar shots....and......*ahem*.....seventeen dollar margaritas....
Make pot legal and you'll have your nickle bag for twenty bucks sold there, complete with bouncer-wannabees in green shirts I can assure you. The whole thing is a racket.
(At this point I would like to point out I am not a pot-head, nor do I smoke pot. I'm just completely indifferent when it comes to people who smoke it.)
Favorite show during the three days was LCD Soundsystem. The energy that the group expelled was toxic, I was in the front and people were just losing their minds, including myself. Although, admittedly that's not hard to do. :P
Vampire Weekend had an excellent performance on the first day. Bought myself a green VW hoodie. Wearing that, and my Atari hat makes me into some super-hipster of somesort. Props also to a white albino rapper named Brother Ali. Last year the Murder City Devils made speeches...or drunken tirades...so whenever a group stops to say something I kinda cringe. Not so with this guy. He actually made a pretty damn excellent speech about accepting who you are, which sounds cliche as fuck but I can assure you it wasn't. He also pulled off a legitimately hilarious sequence with his friend who went by the name "DJ Snuggles". I hope more video of this thing is posted because the whole damn thing is hilarious.
Then I saw Deamau5........
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Pavement has apparently reunited, although the set they played had a reoccurring problem for many sets at the festival. Rampant technical problems. Things completely broke down and they actually stopped playing for several minutes. They looked legitimately annoyed, felt very sorry for them.
MGMT also played. Didn't got to that, not a fan of their new stuff. I went to see New Pornographers, which played their set at the same time and I considered were a much better band. They were actually surprised at the amount of people who came to see them, as was I. They opened for DeathCab about a year back and immediately got my attention. They made some pretty funny comments about their situation.
There was also The XX...Caribou...Passion Pit...God, I can't remember all of them! GAH!
Well, that was my weekend. I'm back, ready to roll. E3 is only in a few days?! Crap, gotta catch up....On everything!!!!!!!!!!!! GAH!
Thanks to the people I went with.