Put that in your Pipe

Mandy and I just got back from a 4 day music festival called Bonnaroo down in Tennessee last night. We saw so many great bands in such a short period of time it was almost too much to fully take in. The list of bands that we saw are as follows (in order)

The Motet
Cat Empire
Andrew Bird
Ben Folds
Mike Gordon
Oysterhead
Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers
My Morning Jacket
Buddy Guy
Elvis Costello
Beck
Radiohead
Bela Fleck and the Flecktones
Matisyahu

There were tons more to choose from, but those were all of the bands that we got to see. There were over 80,000 people there, it was outdoors and extremely hot.

During Tom Petty my friend Sean got a big bug in his eye which caused him irritation. So he reached for a nearby bottle of water to wash it out, only to realize that what he had grabbed was a bottle that contained vodka, not water. He discovered this AFTER he had poured it down his eye socket. Several times during the festival I was just handed drugs out of the blue. I didn't know the person offering, I didn't ask for any, they just went out of their way to try to bring the drugs my way. Turning them down was also funny b/c you could tell they weren't used to that response. I'd say about 90% of the people in there were using on some level during the shows. it might heighten their experience, but it doesn't have the same effect on people with clear heads. It's another case of etiquitte, but this time it's watching a concert. and guess what, I don't like distractions. I came there to see Radiohead, not the stoned guy behind me yelling "Go Kanes!" randomly at the top of his lungs during quiet parts of their songs.

How will these kinds of problems ever go away? First, we need to be the ones who aren't the offenders of these crimes. Once that is taken care of, we need to keep all of our friends in check. If it was one of my friends yelling out, it would be my job to either spank him or escort him out of the facility like a crying baby in church. They do these kinds of things b/c most people laugh at their shout outs, instead of clubbing them between the buttocks which should be standard practice for this sort of behavior. It's just like in kindergarden, we don't want to encourage the bully to pick on the dweeb, well we are the dweeb. So let's stand up for art and not let it be ravaged and plundered by people who will take everything wonderful out of it and try to roll it up in their doobie.