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…
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