People people people... all I can say is thank god that we have gone to a lot of festival and shows so we can learn to work our way through crowds.
Pam and I woke up @ 6 o'clock and got on the road @ 7:30 and got their to catch the 8:50 train from Lansdale to Philadelphia. Let me just say, this was the greatest idea ever!! Neither Pam nor I had ever ridden the train before so it was an adventure in itself. It cost us $8 dollars for round trip ticket and saved us a huge hassle of trying to drive into Philly. Once we got off the train @ the suburban station, it was a short walk around the block to the parkway.
Intially, we got there at like 10:30-ish and the crowds were not huge, so we just kept going up toward the front eventually having to stop about a 1/2 block from the main stage. We tried to work our way inside to the middle, but we retreated the side. Will Smith MC'd and the first act was Black eyed Peas... who I wasn't exactly crazy about, but whatever. The sun was beating down with nooo shade and I really started cooking. Bon Jovi came on the streets rejoiced (which was really weird and it made me feel like I was back at the skating rink when I was in middle school; can you shag??). Toward the end of his set, I've had enough of cooking and we made a retreat to try and find some shade. This was the start of the chaos...
Their were waaaaayyy tooo many people with no set path ways (ie one going in and one going out). Very clausterphobic and stop and go and basically fighting to get through. After about a 1/2 hour walk, (mean while Destiny's Child came on... whoop-de-dooo) to go 1 block, we found a nice shady spot and chilled out for a while. The place we got to was right by a speaker but there were no screens around so we didn't get to see, but whatever. At this time a bunch of people came on, can't remember all of them, but the only one's I "cared" about were DMB and Will Smith w/DJ Jazzy Jeff (busting out old school). It was around this time, roughly 4 o'clock, Pam wanted to go back up, mostly cause some of the crowd had started thin out. We moved a little faster this time and eventually made our way to about 70-100yds (really rough gestimates) from the stage. We saw Linkin Park and with them out comes Jay-Z... which was ok.. We then moved to the right of the stage and got there just in time to see... oooh... wait for it...
DEF LEPARD!! They even did "pour some sugar on me"...... anyway... after that... Maroon 5, who weren't actually that bad (except the guy let out this really effeminant "yeah")... Then Jars of Clay came on, which if your not familar with them, they are a Christian Band, but their really good (I used to own a couple of their cd's till they were stolen, ironic yes...) Then on comes Sarah McCloughlin, she was great... these may be out of order, but then again, I don't really remember.. look it up if your worried.. Anyway... Then the whole reason that Pam wanted to go in the first place.. Keith Urban... He's a country artist whom she learned about through her own co-worker. To tell you the truth though, he put on a damn good show and it was obvious... although, I wasn't crazy about the music, really made me start to wonder who Pam was thinking of when we were intimate...
Rob thomas came on stage and we started moving so we could start to catch our train we didn't get to see him, but it was really good.... Then finally, Stevie wonder came on, we didn't see him, except for on the screen, but his set was really good. Details are sketchy, but it was good...
Then we left just barely made the train (other we would had to wait an hour) and got back to allentown at 9:30 to go to Cracker Barrell...
Pro's
It's nice to think that we made a difference and that the G-8 summit will pass the bill to eliminate Africa's debt and to open trade
the interactions with all the people
the music wasn't all that bad... it was pretty cool...
it was free...
the weather was gorgeous...
we got to ride the train for the 1st time and it was really cool...
and many more....
Cons
The trash left behind, the place looked like a giant landfill, it was disgusting
way too many people with way too many road blocks and obstructions that lead to back ups and chaos... everytime I saw someone (other than a cop) try to go through the masses with bike.. I wanted to punch them in the face... it's hard enough to swim through this sea of people let alone with a big object...
Pam and I smelled sooo much shwag it was unbelievable, it was only till the end of the day that we actually smelled something of quality.
Pushy vendors... given, thier just trying to make a buck...
The sunburns that we both acquired, although, I'll say that Pam got it a lot worse than I did, her shoulders and back are a bright crispy red...
In our minds, the Pro's outway the con's and we had a great time... now as we are celebrating our anniversary getting ready to go to the drive in we're so happy we went...