Tuesday, July 30, 2013

Firefly Music Festival 2013 PART TWO

Day 2

River daaaaaaaay!  So I missed the 2nd day of the festival because I didn't want to pay for single day passes for all three days.  So I stayed at my friend’s river house while he went with our other travel companion, and I had two friends meet me for a day of docks and drinking. Which turned out to be an awesome break that I needed before heading back to the festival for Day 3.







Day 3


Unknown girl band
We got there when a band was on that apparently wasn’t very into self promotion.  There was no, “Hey we’re so-and-so and thanks for coming out!” or anything.  We could’ve looked at the board with the bands listed, but eh, we wanted to save a good spot for Matt & Kim…which turned out to be the best decision EVER.


Matt & Kim

Ok, I didn’t see this coming, but this was hands down my favorite performance of the entire festival.  They are such energetic positive people!!!  And I have never seen so many beach balls, balloons, and other inflatables in one place in my life. No exaggeration.

Plus, at this point in the day some storms were passing by the area (we only got one boom of thunder) and it kept raining on and off.  It kinda sucked at first, but when Matt and Kim went on, it turned into the most awesome concert experience I’ve ever had.  Hot day + cold water + great entertainers + great music + dancing = FUNTOWN.  They even messed with the crowd at one point by saying, “I can think of only way to bring the sun back” and started playing the opening of “Daylight”.  Everyone went nuts… and then they were like, “Just kidding we’re not gonna play that yet.” It was pretty funny :)  And inbetween a lot of songs, they would play hip hop or dup step songs and just dance on stage (or in Kim’s case, on her drum set) and the crowd would freak out and break it down.  I really can’t emphasize how awesome of a show it was, or even write all the little funny things they said or did….maybe I’ll give them their own post later.





Capital Cities

So it was pretty tough to follow up the experience I’d just had seeing Matt & Kim, but Capital Cities did an ok job, heh :) I’ll cut them some slack because they're semi-new and kind of breaking onto the scene now.  I had only heard maybe two songs by them before Firefly, and like a lot of other people I was there for “Safe and Sound”, but I really liked their other songs and intend to download their whole CD (Tidal Wave of Mystery).  They were really fun, (surprisingly) had choreography that was pretty cool, and definitely got the crowd into the show.  Side note:  the trumpet player (Spencer Ludwig) you hear in “Safe and Sound” is a permanent part of the band, and it was his birthday.  Made it that much more positive and fun :)



Passion Pit

So we had just seen Passion Pit in Richmond about two weeks before this, and the lead singer (Michael Angelakos) was having voice problems and by the end of that show was basically almost mute.  So I was worried about whether or not he had healed yet…. He had not.  He got about three songs into their set before he started throwing it out there that he was not 100%.  But they missed the festival in 2012 because he was sick in the hospital, so they were bent on getting there this year and putting on their show.  Kudos to you!  However, his voice continued to deteriorate song by song, and eventually he leveled with the audience and said they were going to have to cut the show short, BUT they would get out the songs everyone wanted to hear before they gave up.  The catch was they wanted the most crowd participation ever in helping sing the songs.  It worked a little bit, but the coolest part was Angelakos getting down off the stage and running up and down this path from the stage to the sound booth.  I could almost touch him! Even though he was reeaally sweaty I wanted to!  But yeah, then they ended their set and a mass of people started making their way to Vampire Weekend all at the same. damn. time.  It was awful. We literally couldn’t move for about 10 minutes, just trying to WALK.






Vampire Weekend

This has to be my least favorite show from that weekend.  Vampire Weekend already has a chill, relaxing sound, but their lead singer lacked any sort of energy on stage, making it almost a chore to stand there and watch them.  The most entertaining thing about this show was looking around at the crowd and seeing all the drunk and high people dance and throw stuff and be idiots J I would’ve gladly participated, but for some reason I passed on a joint that was handed to me and chose not to drink that day. Oh well.



Foster the People

I was surprised that they were chosen as the closing band for the entire festival.  Kudos to them, but when RHCP and Tom Petty closed the other two nights, I just expected a huge name.  Anyway, I’d already seen Foster in concert twice and knew we were in for a good show.  I love them because each show I’ve seen has been so different from the other as far as sets, lights, and theme go.  And this show followed suit.  It was a weird sci-fi feel with tower podiums with people in metallic looking suits dancing on them and other weird shit.  It was just interesting.  PLUS, most importantly, they debuted new songs that night.  I was so excited because I loved their first CD so much that I’ve been keeping tabs on them and waiting for a follow up.  And judging from the three new songs I heard that night, it’s going to deliver.  They sounded awesome.  Still kind of the same music from their first album, but you can tell how it’s starting to venture off into a new area.  It’s kind of setting the stage for a new musical direction and opening the door for them to experiment with different sounds. I’m excited!  They of course closed with “Pumped Up Kicks”, but nobody wanted to believe the show was over.  So after the band left the stage most of the crowd stayed put and started chanting “Encore!”… but we got none.   That was a little bit of bummer.  Not exactly the high note I wanted to leave the concert on, but still a great show overall.

(BTW Mark Foster was def on something, and was the only artist of the festival who was that obvious about it IMO)




Amazing experience…just not sure I’ll be doing it again anytime soon…or ever.

Tuesday, July 16, 2013

Firefly Music Festival 2013


This blog should be titled like an elementary school paper:  “My First Music Festival Experience”.

That’s right, despite being a mix between a hippie and stoner rocker all through high school and early college, I have never been to a music festival (unless you count one day at Oz Fest).

But after realizing that my dreams of going to Governor’s Ball in New York would never come to fruition, I couldn’t say no to the amazing line-up of bands and artists that Firefly offered this year.  The festival took place in Dover, Delaware from June 21st to the 23rd at The Woodlands of Dover International Speedway, and hosted the likes of Red Hot Chili Peppers, Tom Petty, Foster the People, Vampire Weekend, Passion Pit, Capital Cities, Ellie Goulding, Calvin Harris, The Avett Brothers, and MANY MORE.

And the detail that sealed my commitment to this music festival was the “housing arrangements”.  My main problem with weekend-long festivals is that it’s like camping, but with 1,000s of strangers and no clean place to use the bathroom or shower.  To my delight, a friend of mine informed me that his childhood home is on a river in Maryland 30 minutes away from the festival and his parents were out of town. Hooray!  AC, showers, toilets, AND a dock on the river – sign me up.

There’s a lot to type about when you go to a music festival that spans over 3 days and has 20+ bands.  So let’s break it up into more than one blog by day, shall we?


Day 1
Ok, so a very important note to begin this post with is at the beginning of day one THE TRAFFIC was an experience in itself.  Just to get into the parking lot of the raceway, traffic was backed up down the one main street (that everyone had to use) for MILES.  I heard a rumor that last year about 20,000 people came to Firefly, but this year it more than doubled with about 70,000 coming over the course of the three days, and apparently festival planners were not prepared to deal with the influx.  My buddies and I ended up finding a free parking lot about a mile from the speedway and just walked it.  And you know what?...It was actually the best decision of the day (especially at the end of the night when we were leaving and saw the line to get out of the speedway parking lot).  Anyway, by the time we actually got to the festival, we were beyond ready for some music.

Some people just made the best of it :)

Atlast Genius 

I actually hadn’t heard of them before.  Two of my friends were pretty bent on seeing them, and they were on the first stage we saw when we walked in (thank you very much traffic) so we figured we’d stay.  It was actually a pretty cool set bc for some reason the band had to set up a lot of their stuff (usually there’s a crew to do that? Nope for some reason the actual band was tinkering around…for awhile).  So their start time came and went and the whole band still wasn’t ready, so the lead singer simply took his electric guitar (which apparently was good to go) and started playing/singing a few songs solo.  He’s a pretty talented guy…with a delightful accent :D. 
The rest of the band eventually got their instruments squared away and it was a cool set.  Their last song was their big hit “Trojans” and I must say that I see why it’s a hit.  Pretty cool song.


 Ellie Goulding

It’s hard to be a one woman act at a music festival composed primarily of bands and DJ’s/dance groups.  She was definitely one of the more known artists there, but a lot of her music is slower paced and her only “gimmick” (for lack of a better word, bc her distinct voice is the only gimmick she needs IMO) is hitting a single drum in the middle of the stage with a single drumstick every now and then.  Plus, towards the beginning of her set, I’m pretty sure I heard her say to the crowd that she’s pretty shy.  So there wasn’t a lot of dancing or showmanship or anything like that, but, she was obviously putting her all emotionally into a lot of the songs.  Which I appreciate…but c’mon, we’re here to get pumped and have fun. So thank goodness for “Anything Can Happen” and “I Need Your Love”. They were aaaawesome! So much jumping! lol


Avett Brothers

We kinda caught them by accident.  By this point in the day, it had become obvious that I made a big mistake by wearing slip-on shoes as I had 6 blisters on both feet and the backs of both heels were torn open.  So we decided to stop by the medical tent to get some stuff for my feet, get some drinks, and grab dinner.  Luckily, all these things were within 10 feet of each other.  We grabbed a spot on the lawn in front of the main stage and started munching on pizza as the Avett Brothers were playing.  They were cool.  That’s about all I can say.  I haven’t heard too many songs by them, and it’s not like they have a high energy show (in the rock/dance/adrenaline sense), but they sounded good and put out a really positive, relaxing energy.


Calvin Harris

Then after food and relaxing energy, it was time to DANCE.  This was the nuts part of Day 1.  Somehow the grassy field in front of the stage we first stood at had turned into a muddy swamp by this point.  The crowd had gathered early for him and we were decently far back, but who cares when it’s Calvin Harris? Even if it’s a cool light/visual show, you’re there to hear the music and get down.  And he was pretty awesome.  Lots of mash ups.  Lots of cool lights.  And that’s about it haha. It was like being at a club, except you were outside with 1,000s of strangers.  We left that set a little early than the previous ones bc we wanted to get over to the main stage to get a semi decent spot for the closing band that night:  the Red Hot Chili Peppers.


Red Hot Chili Peppers

Now my friends were shocked before this set  to learn that I’m not the biggest fan of RHCP.  I’m sorry, I know, some people think it’s terrible. I dated a guy from Cali and he literally looked at me differently from the moment I made that confession to him.  I don’t think they suck by any means, I’m just not that into their music. That. Being. Said.  They know how to put on a show and are great performers.  Everything from their banter on stage to the video/light shows during their songs was really well done.  And the banter on stage was obviously genuine. Flea is a really appreciative guy. It came across so much on stage.  And he accidentally kicked Anthony in the face at one point and that was pretty funny.  After the song was done it eventually turned into Anthony begging Flea to slap him or punch him lol.  But another good thing about RHCP is they have been big radio hits, so at least everyone knows most of their songs, making for good crowd comraderie.  It was actually a really fun show; a lot more fun than I thought it’d be.  And two of my friends are HUGE fans of them, and just seeing their faces and hearing how excited they were made it that much better.  Def ended the first day on a high note.



And exciting side story:  we look up at one point to the sound booth/tower next to us, and a random guy from the crowd had started climbing it! He got to the top where he was greeted by the face of a crew member, so his response was to turn around, start climbing down, but then crawl up on one of the skinny beams and hang from it upside down!  Danger zone! Lol The crew member just kept shining a flashlight on him as he talked into a walkie talkie.  I wonder if the guy ever got caught…