this weekend was the new american music festival... hands down the best concert i've ever been too and possibly one of the best moments of my life. at the very least, one of the most interesting.
friday started off with the tiny masters of the universe, who i actually skipped to get my free tee shirt / water bottle and check out the set up of rest of the festival. from what i hear, i didn't miss much. next up was NASA, who I had never heard of but really impressed me. they kind of reminded me of a toned-down version of girl talk, and did a great job of getting the audience pumped. their mixing was accompanied by "martians" in bathing suits and break dancing "astronauts."
the black keys, in my opinion, really stole the show on friday night. their set was ridiculously high energy and i think dan auerbach started channeling hendrix on some of the songs. the roots put on a great performance as well, but seemed slightly anticlimactic after the black keys.
saturday started with the duke spirit, whose lead singer liela moss reminds me of a blonde, slightly less psychotic version of karen o. they played for a relatively small crowd since it was only like 3 in the afternoon and they were the first band. still, it was a pretty BA performance. during black mountain (the next band), lily and i grabbed dinner and water, since we made a pact to get as close as possible to the stage for the rest of the bands and knew that meant no chance for a water / food break.
making our way towards the stage for gnarls barkley we ran into costanza. i forgot how much i miss that kid! after gnarls though, lily and i descended further into the sea of people to get closer to the stage. by the time spoon took stage we were about 10-15 rows of people back and dead center.
during spoon, the kid in front of me fell back on me. at first, i thought it was just someone in the crowd pushing to move forward, but then i realized the kids eyes were only half-way open, he had lost all color in his face, and was sweating like crazy. so, next thing i know, i am holding up this 17 or 18 year old kid trying to ask him if he is okay. he said he was fine, stood up, but then fell back onto me again and when i told him i was going to go take him to get help he just kept saying "i can't hear anything." finally, his friends he was with realized there was something seriously wrong with him and took him to the paramedics. i know the kid was smoking pot a little while earlier (like 50% of the people there), so i am not sure if it was just extreme dehydration or if what he was smoking was laced with something else. so, spoon's set was really good, but needless to say, i was a little distracted during it.
after spoon, the raconteurs played. i don't really listen to them that much, but holy crap. they are fantastic live. we kept making our way more forward until we were probably no more than 10 rows from the front. at the end of their set, the drummer tossed his drum sticks into the audience and the kid THREE people away from me caught it. i was soo close to catching it... and pretty close to getting crushed to death.
lastly, dylan played. he played some new stuff but some old stuff like rainy day women, tangled up in blue, and it ain't me babe. however, he stuck on the keys and harmonica the whole time (he didn't pick up a guitar) and played new versions of his old songs that were more reminiscent of early rock of the 1950s with a touch of swing than 60s rock. but you know, if dylan had played the popular versions of his hit songs, i really would have been disappointed. that just doesn't seem like a dylan thing to do. his voice was more of a growl on the low notes (a bit garbled sounding even for dylan), but the guy still kicked ass for being 67.
at the end of his set, dylan came back out for an encore. as he came out, the lights turned out bright and a huge backdrop came down, and "like a rolling stone" started. i seriously got the chills. as the chorus started, it felt so surreal as the whole crowd (10,000 people) began singing along. definitely a moment i will remember the rest of my life.
i got home, completely exhausted, and found out my parents locked me out. they also didn't wake up when i rang the doorbell or called the house 3 times. so, i got to sleep in the garage until my brother came to my rescue, haha.
this weekend was $25 well spent.
