VIRGIN FEST

After going to Coachella and Paleo this year, I think I’m a bit spoiled on what constitutes a well-organized music festival. Though excited to see the Police, as the last time I’d seen them was at a Day On The Green show at the Oakland Coliseum 1983 (with The Fixx, Madness, Oingo Boingo, and The Thompson Twins!), I hadn’t given too much about Virgin Fest while I was in Europe, and when I returned realized I had an extra ticket. Not much into doing this alone, I asked my old co-worker from Avalon Justine if she wanted to go a couple days before the show.

Getting there was something of an ordeal in itself. A three-hour bus ride took us from NYC to Baltimore and dropped us off around 1pm near an incredible ratty and depressing bus depot where we had to catch a cab to the Metro station downtown. From there we caught the subway (a rather small one-line city system) and rode until a designated event rendezvous where a shuttle bus took us to the event site at Plimico racetrack. Calculations were necessary for the return bus that was to pick us up at 11:30. I figured we’d have to leave the show a little before 10pm, right before it ended.

It was hovering in the 90s by the time we got there with atrocious humidity. The grounds were a mix of spotty earth and large patches of dead lawn that as the day progressed gave off a dusty residue that permeated the air and turned snot black. Immediately I noticed that vendor food stalls lacked any sort of individual personality. In fact, the entire event with inundated with a lame, poorly designed graphic identity that had all the charm of a strip mall. People were allowed to drink overpriced libations freely on the grounds and those that chose water were given a handful of fountains where lines of up to a 100 people had to wait to fill up. As hot is was there were only a couple of tents for shade that were filled to capacity, while a handful of tents with cooling mist were set up for relief, with only one having actual fans and showers inside to help prevent people from overheating or getting sun stroke. It was to put in mildly, brutal.

A few performance artists dotted the landscape with little fanfare as opposed to the incredible array of work and value put towards it I’d seen at Coachella. We started off watching Amy Winehouse put on a rather disconnected performance and found the young women wandering around emulating her beehive two-tone coif far more interesting. Hungry, we sampled some of the food, settling on burgers and a sausage sandwich, Justine having beer, her drink of choice and me trying to get as much ice tea and lemonade in my system.

We spent the afternoon wandering from stage to stage, watching Peter Bjorn and John’s set for a bit, checking out the dance tent, standing in lines for drinks, stopping at some random booth where I got a stick-on tattoo on my ass from a rather attractive young girls-gone-wild type, checking out some performance art and watching LCD Soundsystem’s kick-ass set on the small stage with James Murphy making a rather amusing comment about the race track stands that loomed in the distance.

“Anyone know what that building is? Is that the future in there?"

The Beastie Boys picked things up, but the throng was so huge we watched the big screens. Night fell and the landscape become noticeably more agreeable so by the time The Police came on, people’s energy was either peaking or totally wiped out by the day’s inferno. We stayed for about half of a great set, then hurried over to watch Modest Mouse for the remainder, still kind of blown away that Johnny Marr is in the band and reminding myself to actually just go see this band do their own gig.

We left before the throng grew too big, making it through the shuttle/subway/taxi gauntlet to reach the bus rendezvous at the ratty depot. A van pulled up at about the time our bus should be there and I decided to make an inquiry. Yes, this was our bus, operated by Double-Happiness bus lines, which serves primarily Asian clientele. We waited in the back seats while the driver gathered up more people outside, a radio station in Cantonese (I guess) broadcasting at an incredibly uncomfortable volume what sounded like the last transmissions from an ill-fated plane disaster. Informed that this was actually a shuttle to the actual bus we left and drove for awhile to a parking lot where a larger bus arrived and we boarded, actually getting two seats together right next to the bathroom. The bus reeked of fish sauce and something had gone horribly awry in the bathroom, emitting pungent ammonia piss odor that initiated gagging and coughing. The bus left, making more stops, allowing those without seating reservations to sit on stools in the aisle.

“Can you believe this shit?” a man sitting next to me said. “They don’t care about anything.”

The trip was long and uncomfortable, odors and all. We made it back in NYC at around 3am, Justine left for Brooklyn and rather that suffer the subway I paid through the teeth for a cab ride home. The lackluster Virgin Fest was fun in most regards but definitely my last festival venture this year.

THE PALEO MUSIC FEST EXPERIENCE

My friend Maria has been telling me for years about all the music festivals in Switzerland during the summer. I really had no idea until I saw one of the half-dozen beautifully designed and free brochures they have all over the city. She mentioned my visit coincided with the Paleo Music Festival in Nyon, about 15 minutes from Geneva. It was sold out but they were releasing tickets the day of show, and with !!! and the Artic Monkeys on the bill it sound liked a great way to spend Tuesday evening since I’m somewhat in this festival mode right now, going to Maryland in August to see The Police and all.

I spent the day goofing off and checking out the local contemporary art museum before my swim. Located in an old garage it was a bit chaotic and haphazard, but seeing art is always like nourishment for me regardless of the venue and as long as it’s challenging, which some of it actually was.

Ended up she scored tix and we left after she got off work, taking the train where I had a brief conversation with some guy commuting who thought I’d come all the way from NYC to see the show.

It was raining when we left and the hopes were that it’d stop by the time we got there around 6:30, but it was pretty much pouring when we got there it time for the second half of !!!’s set. We had a pretty good view since the crowd wasn’t too bad, the band had a back up singer with them this time and she was showing tits and ass in this really lewd interplay with the crowd that was somewhat poking fun at the number of white people filling the joint. Fucking great set all the way and though I was getting soaked in the rain I was pretty fired up. We left after to go the merch tent where I thought they’d have some nice shirts, but the collars were huge so I settled on a red raincoat, which they seemed to be selling hand over fist by this point.

By now the grounds—farm land the rest of the year—were a total mess and as we walked around it became more and more like the front lines trenches during the Great War, with this thick chocolaty mud that was slippery and difficult to navigate without falling on your ass. My shoes were caked and a fucking mess and I was glad I wore shorts since pants would have been almost pointless even if it was a bit chilly.

We cruised a seemingly endless amount of fair food stalls that sold everything from fresh fruit to crepes and this strange Swiss concoction of potatoes, bacon and cheese that was like potatoes au gratin with a sausage on top that when I cut it up looked a whole lot like a dick with a foreskin. It was delicious, and along with that there was a coffee tent serving espresso right next to a Marlboro cigarette booth with sexy women selling fags like candy.

The drinking age is 16 for beer and wine and it was bizarre to see people walking around all over with open containers given that they’ve learned crowd control in the states by keeping the imbibers corralled in special pens during shows. Lots of people were fucked up and it seemed like everyone was smoking. We walked around to the section called North Africa but were too early for a show there, so we sloshed our way back to the main stage for the Artic Monkey set, stopping for iced milk and a scrumptious chocolate waffle.

The crowd was huge when they took the stage and we watched most if from a safe distance leaving afterwards to skip the headliners Muse (which are huge here but I’ve never listened to) to see this Cambodian circus that was a bit sloppy and was only saved from mediocrity by some amazing balancing, contortionism acrobatics. By this time, soaked and not getting any drier we headed back. It wasn’t even raining in Geneva and I was thought it was rather amazing to get the chance in this lifetime to actually go see something like this out of the states. The kind of real experience I was craving when I got here.