what a weekend! festivals always seem to bring an abundance of good music, fun times, odd synchronicities, coincidences and other strange thing. this year's all good fest was no different. one thing all good has become known for is freakish weather and God delivered on that this year as well. i do have say that while the weather was the only bad thing about the weekend it also caused the coolest moment of the weekend to happen. the nasty storm that basically cancelled brother's past's set, waterlogged my tent and sleeping bag(as with countless others) also led us to inadvertently finding our way backstage and to a chance encounter with the man, the myth, the legend...WAYNE COYNE! he was happy to chat it up with us and graciously posed for some pictures. he was unbelievably cool it was by far the highlight of my weekend. here's a rundown on the first day of music, i'll probably update with with sat/sun within the next day or but i'm really beat from the weekend right now.
friday
brother's past- after meeting wayne we were stoked and ready to throw down. brother's past help us get down for about ten minutes when suddenly a stage rig fell down almost hitting a girl, cancelling the BP set and putting major delays on the rest of the day's music.
john brown's body- there was a two hour wait between the rig crash the time JBB made it onstage. i tried my best to make it through the set but i ended up falling asleep on the hillside about two songs into the set. the two songs i heard were good though.
lake trout- awake and refreshed, i headed to the front to rock out to some baltimore angst rock. lake trout delivered hard and heavy. it was awesome seeing kuroda do lights for this set, i was surprised his style meshed so well with the heavy music but it did and it was pretty awesome. it was also awesome seeing all the flaming lips sidestage rocking out to our local favs for the whole set...lake trout is going places people!
rose hill drive- the best part about this set were the two slices of pizza i ate during it.
jason bell- i need to be in the mood for southern rock and this evening i was not.
gabby lala- i'm glad this was only a half an hour. i enjoyed her sitar playing but i wasn't feeling her other songs about things like "chicken and butter". alot of people were booing her.
les claypool- this rocked!!! the band consisted of les, mike dillon skerik, jay lane(3 of my most favorite, long time claypool collaborators) and gabby lala. i was really digging the heavy grooves mixed with dark jazz they were putting out.
flaming lips- best set of the weekend IMO! they didn't hit the stage until 2am but that made it that much more fun. this was my second time seeing them and while the show didn't vary much from my first time two years this time i was better prepared for what was about to go down. their shows really encompass alot of ground and stand for everything i love about music, they also have some of the best fans out there hands down. i woke up saturday morning still riding high from the experince.
particle- why are bands like this on major labels and playing with the likes of mickey hart? i sill don't get the hype with these guys. they are ok as background music so that's what i took them as while i watched the live kaiju big battle and finally the fog roll through the valley from my campsite. they did play to 7am though and that gets them a couple points in my book.
all good festival (partial review)
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