memories from Virginfest from years past.

WARNING THIS BLOG ENTRY CONTAINS MATURE CONTENT-- And a snarky tude too. 



This my account of what happened during Virginfest 09

I went to VirginFest this weekend.  Richard Branson the owner of Virgin Music puts on these huge festivals.  This year it was free.  Totally free.  You paid $5 to have the tickets printed and mailed to you, which is VERY cheap for ticketmaster fees.  Anyway Jet, The Bravery, Public enemy, Weezer and Blink 182 among lots of other bands no one has heard of, were there. 

As great as the show was, the PEOPLE at the show were even better.   This one is color coded to help you with all the characters.

   In front of Hubby and I there was a group of college students.  The night started off with me just watching Gray Tank Top Girl hitting on Green Shirt Guy.  Gray Tank Top Girl was saying how she needs to dump her boyfriend because he's gotten all Pycho on her.  She leaning in very close to Green Shirt guy.  Green Shirt Guy listens very intently to everything she's saying, nodding along, smiling, and basically working  WAY too hard to get into Gray Tank Top's pants. BTW She's bl@wing him with every word that comes out of her mouth.  If they could find an excuse to get out of there, they would be having crazy car $ex. 
    The guy in front of them, but still in their group, isn't wearing a shirt, we'll call him No Shirt Guy.  A girl shows up from the crowd, says something to No Shirt Guy, dumps HIS beer on him and storms away.   Grey Tank Top girl jumps up to help No Shirt Guy,.  No Shirt Guy starts screaming at Grey Tank Top girl and Green Shirt guy jumps up to defend her honor (see he's working WAY too hard to get her to touch his dick)
Then Overly Concerned Girl calms everyone down and acts as the go between for NO Shirt Guy and Chick Who Poured Beer on him.   No Shirt Guy is SO upset he's crying ANGRY tears.   Then they all get up to get beer, a very logical choice and will clearly SOLVE all their problems.  They leave one guy, White Shirt Dude to defend their spot of invading concert goers.  White Shirt Guy hasn't moved the ENTIRE time of the event and it's a good possiblity he's dead, drunk or asleep sitting up.
Overly Concerned Girl and Gray Tank Top Girl vanish in  the crowd and these three girls step up camp in the open space.   White Shirt Guy tells them the space is taken and modestly defends the area. 
Green shirt guy starts chatting it up with the new girls and I was convinced there was going to be another fight between Gray Tank Top girl and Green Shirt guy, but alas,  she didn't see his flirty transgression.

After all the drama ended with that group a WHOLE NEW set of drama happened behind us.  The girl was crying and her boyfriend was attempting to make her feel better.  But she was yelling, "Stop talking you're only making it worse."   He keeps talking.  They're having this HUGE emotional talk (possibly a breakup) in the middle of the concert about 20 minutes before Weezer is supposed to go on.  Neither one of them make any motions to LEAVE the concert.

Look if you're going to have a fight with someone PLAN it out, you still have HOURS left of the show AND the drive home. 

When Weezer takes the stage, we find out WHY they didn't leave.  HE LOVES WEEZER.  He wants to marry them and have their babies.  I know this because he was singing IN HIS GIRLFRIEND'S FACE,  "If you want to distory my sweater..." Like the sweater was really a metaphor for their relationship.   By the end of the act, they're kissing.  Moral: Weezer will fix your relationship.

Lastly there was a guy who wanted to leave but he drove everyone.  No one wanted to leave,  and he "didn't even want to be there in the first place. He had to get up at 6 in the morning for work." For the record, Hubby gets up at 4 and I get up at 5:30.  This guy was SO pissed he started crying.   They left the same time Hubby and I did and he was STILL complaining about it.


Clearly there was very little Virginfest 10 could do to impress me as much as 09 did. 

VirginMobleFreeFest

Saturday I went to the VirginMobleFest--- two years ago they had Bob Dylan and The Police, this year it was free and it was sort of lame.

Hubby and I left our house at 11:30, the concert is about ten minutes away.  I won't talk about the asinine parking cluster frak at the mall.  But I will say that the planners VASTLY  overestimated the situation.

Here's the thing. 
Two years ago the headliners were the Police, The Killers and generally HUGE names.
Last year the headliners were Public Enemy, Weezer, Blink 182--- again huge and recognizable names
This year.... drumroll please.... LCD Soundsystem.

WHAT?
You went from THE POLICE ( a reunion tour- BTW that was NEVER EVER going to happen)  to LCD soundsystem.   Really?

Here's the thing.  I know music.  I know more about it then most 31 year old mom living in suburbia and yes while I know LCD Soundsystem and yes, I know a few of their songs and I know they've been around for years, they are NOT main stage closers.  Sorry.

You can see the line up here --- BTW Ludacris wasn't even the closer for the second stage,  WHAT?  They put MIA there.  WHAT? HUH?  REALLY?  

Jimmy Eat World played at 1:30.

Jimmy Eat World created an entire genre of music and has had muptile hits on every CD they've put out since Bleed American (renamed after 9-11 to Jimmy Eat World).

Yeah.  Needless to say, Hubby and I saw Jimmy Eat World, walked around and left.  It was a free concert afterall.

I know I should be complaining about a free concert, because you know it's free and virginmoblefest is designed to be a charity event.  But I'm predicting that this year will be the last year it's free, if they do it again next year.

Since we left early we didn't get too much people watching in.  But we did see "Orange Shirt Guy, who was a HUGE Jimmy Eat World fan, he had hand gestures to the songs.  He was the kind of guy who drives around with the stereo blasting, banging on the steering wheel for the drum solos.   He rocked the  hell out during EVERY radio hit... the instant they  played something obscure he sat down.  Watching him I knew EXACTLY which albums he had and how often he listened to them.

He was highly entertaining.

I think he left a few minutes after we did.

When we walked out, the cops stopped us to help us get across the street to our car.  "You guys are leaving so soon?"

I didn't have the heart to tell him, "Dude like 90% of the people are going to be gone by 8:30."

Anyway what I did see that was SUPER nice.  It was 90 degrees and a guy working dropped a create of bottle water, people swarmed and HELPED pick up every bottle.  Not a single bottle was stolen.  I cheered LOUDLY for the people who helped.



Very cool contests going on at Adventures in Children's Literature.    It's a Giveaway for NEW BOOKS coming out this week!!!!  <--I just read a post about the awesomeness of explanation marks so I had to post it,

YAY!

Confessions: you'll resepct me less after this blog

Confession1:  I haven't been writing.

Confession2: I haven't been editing.

Confession 3: I love Phineas and Ferb.  Seriously I watch at LEAST an hour of the show a day.  I bought a Perry the Platypus for myself-- not my two year old daughter-- and I hide him around my classroom so I can hear my students say, "Where's Perry?"

Confession 4:  I read 8 books in the month of September.  That's almost as much as I read all summer.
When I finish reading this blog I will continue reading Candor.

DEEP DARK CONFESSION:  Due to my lack of writing/editing or doing anything creative, my brain did something terribly humiliating...

It came up with an idea for Phineas and Ferb Fan Fiction.
It blended all the YA books I've been reading and Phineas and Ferb.

It flashes forward 6 years and now the boys are teenagers, Candace is home from college.  Phineas discovers that Isabella is a girl and really wants to touch her, but after Vajgeets accidental touching of a girl resulting in 16 hours of meeting with the guidance councilor and sexual harassment training, Phineas opts to keep his hands to himself.

Ferb is devastated because despite finding dark matter and doing the impossible time and time again, the pesky age of consent law is keeping him away from Vanessa.   Vanessa decides she doesn't want to wait another two years for Ferb (after all she might be a little bit evil but some laws can't be broken because it's just creepy) she opts to marry Carl the Intern.   Ferb is horrified.  Carl has been an intern for six years, how can anyone work somewhere for college credits for six years and not get hired or get a degree.  Beside Ferb is British and that's way cooler than being American.

There's a whole subplot with Doof and Perry teaming up to stop the wedding.
Comedy ensues.

***hangs my head in shame***

I'm SUCH A LOSER--- this was BY FAR my geekiest moment on this blog ever. 

I REALLY NEED TO START WRITING.


In other news I'm going to the  Virgin Mobile Fest on Saturday.  Mostly because it's free and 10 minutes from my house.  There's really NO excuse not to go.  Jimmy Eat Work will be there.  That's all I care about.

Hubby and I went last year... we saw a fight between drunk preppy people---awesome.  We saw a couple breaking up in the middle of the concert but stuck it out because they needed to ride home together and he was REALLY REALLY into Weezer.

Maybe I'll post the exploits from last year on the blog next week and compare it with this years activities..

The Airborne Toxic Event

A few days ago I listed the famous people I've met in my life. On that list was The Airborne Toxic Event. And since Blue Lipstick Samurai asked about it I will tell the story.

There is only 1 song I remember exactly where I was the first time I heard it. My husband and I were driving into Baltimore for our Anniversary dinner. Sometime Around Midnight came on my Sirius Radio, I told my hubby to shut up, so I can listen. I wrote down the name of the band. A few weeks later Hubby, Daughter and I were going to John Hopkins Hospital because something was "wrong" with daughter. My daughter was six months old. The last song I heard before walking in was Sometime Around Midnight. We got daughter's diagnosis, and in the scheme of things, it wasn't that bad. Really not big deal. But at the time I was devastated. Sometime Around Midnight came on as we were pulling out of the parking lot. I realized that lots of people come out of John Hopkins with much worse news and this was pretty minor. Six months later she was perfectly fine.

I wanted the CD but when I went to Amazon I couldn't buy it, mostly because it wasn't out yet. I wrote down the release date and waited for it to come out. I was a complete idiot. The CD was already out and I looked at the LP release date. *shakes head in shame*

The CD is amazing, the songs all sweeping and epic, catchy and poetic. There's a freaking viola in the band. Come on! Amazing isn't the right word but I'm a crappy speller so that's what I'm going to have to go with. The CD is a little depressing but for good reason, the lead singer was writing a novel (I love him already) and in one week he found out he was very sick, his mother was sick and his girlfriend dumped him. One of these things seems like it could have been delayed for a few weeks or so.

I listen to them and I was pretty sure I was the only one who did. Mommihood put a damper on my concert going experiences. Until one day I saw they were doing a free show with The Gaslight Anthem (I LOVE THEM) and the Bravery (meh) in Boston. Boston-- that's pretty far away from Baltimore but it's also where my friends live.

I did my first truly selfish thing as a mother, I bought a plane ticket and flew to Boston for a free show, abandoning my child and husband for 72 hours. My flight got delayed like 5 hours I didn't get to sleep until 3 am. It was still one of the best weekends of my life.
I won't go into the details of hanging out with my friends but it was like I had known them my whole life.

Then the concert. It was in a plaza and everyone was hanging out on one side, the other half of the stage was empty. We pushed our way up to the second row.

I watched the bands get ready back stage, I saw Brian Fallon of Gaslight Anthem and I thought, "Oh my god, he has a backpack, I have a backpack too. We're so cool." <-- I was 30 when I had this thought. I also took the most Rock and Roll picture EVER. It does look better when it's viewed the right direction.




Then The Airborne Toxic Event came on the stage. No. Words. In. The. English. Language. Can. Do. It. Justice. Mikel Jollett climbed the towers holding up the stage, Anna crowd surffed, it was sweaty and loud and art and perfect. AND THEY WERE DOING A SIGNING! I geekishly got in line afterward. Geeked out with all the fans, "You've met them before. OH My GOD are they cool?" I asked that of the 19 year old girl behind me who was debating if she should pee before or after seeing them again. I watched the joy ooze out of a the guy who just got his CD signed, he was on the verge of tears. Then It was my turn. I had be practicing what I would say, "I flew up from Baltimore to see you." Mikel stared at me, "But just played DC a few days ago." "I know, but it was at the 9:30 Club and I didn't want to get shot... somehow I thought going to a strange city would be safer." Their manager asked if I wanted a picture. I said, "I screw up (I used a different word) every picture I'm in." "I'm sure you'll be fine." She took the picture. She looked down at the screen and frowned. "YOU look excellent, its everyone else that, um." Anyway I moved down the line, got my signature on my CD, told the rest of the band about the story about my daughter and thanked them for being such amazing artists. They seemed genuinely moved by this.


Anyway that was my brush with fame. Awesome. They have a new CD coming out soon. I'm super excited for it and they wrote a song for Nada Speaks.