voodoo day 2

last night was the big night, lil wayne, thievery corporation, mars volta and nin….

we get there and people are just flowing in, no one is getting pat down or anything. which considering i have a flask and other things, is a huge relief to me. once we get in and get setup for lil wayne i tell wes i’m a little concerned of the lack of security…i mean yeah im sneaking a flask in, only going to do harm to myself and maybe some other people but i just can imagine people sneaking in a lot things that are a lot more harmful…

anyway

lil wayne was okay, im convinced studio rap music just doesn’t work in festival situations, just doesn’t work….

after lil wayne i went backstage for a while, ate dinner and watched thievery corp on the jumo screen…wes and i decided to get as close to the stage as possible for mars volta, got pretty close…it was funny seeing a band like mars volta, who’s songs usually tend to be in the double digit minute wise, so they basically played like 4 songs…including a version of the goliath that seemed to go on forever…it was insane, cedric was climbing into the crowd, wrapping the microphone cord around a fan…after he climbed up back onto the stage he continued to toss things around, ruled.

after mars volta i went back to the vip area….i snuck back into the tent i got kicked out of last night, grabbed a plastic cup and fill it with ice and walk out. i run into another client who is standing a table with his girlfriend…this guy always sees me when i’m at my worst…anyway, i walk up and make small talk with him when i notice a unopened bottle of tonic water, just sitting on the table. i ask if it is theirs, they say no…it was there when came up…it’s sealed but they keep joking about it being GHB…i think it’s too good of concidence and i take it and mix it with my gin and the stolen ice and cup.  i always look at music festivals like MMO’s…you walk around stealing, finding and sometimes killing.

now in the VIP area there are all these tents as i mentioned before, all of them ‘private’…i go into the axe body spray tent which is pretty much open to the public…i sit down on one of the couches, i take out my flask, camera, sunglasses and a empty orange pill bottle. i lay it all out on the coffee table and i ask the only male in the room if he will take a picture of me. he gets furious, says no and that i need to get out immediately. so funny, collecting my stuff, like “fine i see how it is, this just fucking racism”, i grab a brownie off the table and walk out, brownie crumbs falling into my beer as i proudly eat it in front of them.

i rejoin wes and get ready for NIN…it’s hard to put into words how incredible his set was…it was a great mixture of old stuff, stuff from ghosts and the slip, combined with the most amazing light show ever. they had these LED curtains that put on a crazy light show. i really couldn’t believe how great it was to hear stuff of ghosts live…i listen to that album religiously and hearing it live was just incredible…

other highlights were when they played the great destroyer and the good soldier…i just can’t get over how ive been listening/seeing nine inch nails for a little over a decade and each show is better then the last….i had very low expectations for some reason…