AVB
Jesus of Cool, I'm bad, I'm nationwide
Damn, 2 days out in the sun at Pimlico Race Track walking back and forth to catch all the sights and sounds can flat wear your ass out. The weather was so much better then last year when both days were record high temperatures in the upper 90's. This year had a nice breeze and highs of only 85 both days. As before, the "extras" were predictably expensive. $30 Tshirts, $4 bottled water, $10 for 10 minutes of flavored pure oxygen?! Early standouts were Rodrigo y Gabriela
The Mexican guitar duo who were mesmerizing. and K.T. Tunstall who did a better set then I expected. Chuck Berry, still going strong at 81! took a while to get going but he still had the chops for some of his classics like Sweet Little Sixteen and Roll Over Beethoven. The big guns for Saturday night were The Offspring, Jack Johnson and the Foo Fighters. The Offspring set was workmanlike and had the pit and body surfers going but not as much as Lupe Fiasco (whom I never even heard of before) did on the south stage. Jack Johnson also played on the south stage and since I wanted to see the Foos on the north stage I have no idea how he was. Dave Grohl & company did not disappoint at all. They blew the place down promising a long set right off the bat. Dave started by saying, "I bet I can play longer than you can drink, we'll play 15 songs, we'll play until they tell us to stop." And then launched into The Pretender followed by Times Like These. Foo Fighters Greatest Hits Live essentially. It was 1:30AM by the time we got home and we left for day 2 at 10 on Sunday.
Sunday was pull between the two stages and even the dance tent. Got to see Moby spin and weave some truly amazing rhythms. Lil' Wayne was late but we didn't care since we were watching the guys at the skate park fly and crash on the half pipe. We had less interest about the daytime acts but did see parts of She & Him, Taking Back Sunday, Paramore and a host of others that played. Calling Iggy and the Stooges a warm up for STP or NIN is missing the whole point. Probably the most energetic of any act we saw play Iggy looked better at 61 then I did at 40. The guy must work out 2 hours a day to stay that ripped. Ripped is the way to describe his set too. Classic OLD SCHOOL punk got the body surfers out in droves and some of them almost made it to the stage before being stopped by security. Not exactly what Iggy wanted so he went down to the barricade to meet them instead. Little Electric Chair was the highlight for me but I Gotta Right was close. STP took the stage for their set of hits. Scott sang just fine but I didn't have a clue what he was talking about between songs. He would be in the middle of saying something and the next song would start and he then had something to focus on and was OK again. The set list was was heavy from the Core and Purple albums and was supposed to be 1:15 long but I think it was cut back to an hour. It just didn't seem too long. After STP we ran over to the other stage to catch the rest of Bob Dylan's set, always worth it to see how he rephrases the classics sometimes although, he stuck pretty close to the originals this time. Run back to the North Stage to see NIN came up next and for me was really the headline act since I don't give a crap about Kanye West. Trent looked completely different then I had seen him previously. About 20 lbs heavier, clean cut and looking pretty healthy, something you just don't expect but it didn't change the industrial rampage that is NIN. Again the hits are there but so are some things from Ghosts and a solid 20 minute sonic attack which could have been anything but reminded me of Piggy from The Downward Spiral....who knows.
All in all a a rather good weekend, hope yours was too.
The Mexican guitar duo who were mesmerizing. and K.T. Tunstall who did a better set then I expected. Chuck Berry, still going strong at 81! took a while to get going but he still had the chops for some of his classics like Sweet Little Sixteen and Roll Over Beethoven. The big guns for Saturday night were The Offspring, Jack Johnson and the Foo Fighters. The Offspring set was workmanlike and had the pit and body surfers going but not as much as Lupe Fiasco (whom I never even heard of before) did on the south stage. Jack Johnson also played on the south stage and since I wanted to see the Foos on the north stage I have no idea how he was. Dave Grohl & company did not disappoint at all. They blew the place down promising a long set right off the bat. Dave started by saying, "I bet I can play longer than you can drink, we'll play 15 songs, we'll play until they tell us to stop." And then launched into The Pretender followed by Times Like These. Foo Fighters Greatest Hits Live essentially. It was 1:30AM by the time we got home and we left for day 2 at 10 on Sunday.
Sunday was pull between the two stages and even the dance tent. Got to see Moby spin and weave some truly amazing rhythms. Lil' Wayne was late but we didn't care since we were watching the guys at the skate park fly and crash on the half pipe. We had less interest about the daytime acts but did see parts of She & Him, Taking Back Sunday, Paramore and a host of others that played. Calling Iggy and the Stooges a warm up for STP or NIN is missing the whole point. Probably the most energetic of any act we saw play Iggy looked better at 61 then I did at 40. The guy must work out 2 hours a day to stay that ripped. Ripped is the way to describe his set too. Classic OLD SCHOOL punk got the body surfers out in droves and some of them almost made it to the stage before being stopped by security. Not exactly what Iggy wanted so he went down to the barricade to meet them instead. Little Electric Chair was the highlight for me but I Gotta Right was close. STP took the stage for their set of hits. Scott sang just fine but I didn't have a clue what he was talking about between songs. He would be in the middle of saying something and the next song would start and he then had something to focus on and was OK again. The set list was was heavy from the Core and Purple albums and was supposed to be 1:15 long but I think it was cut back to an hour. It just didn't seem too long. After STP we ran over to the other stage to catch the rest of Bob Dylan's set, always worth it to see how he rephrases the classics sometimes although, he stuck pretty close to the originals this time. Run back to the North Stage to see NIN came up next and for me was really the headline act since I don't give a crap about Kanye West. Trent looked completely different then I had seen him previously. About 20 lbs heavier, clean cut and looking pretty healthy, something you just don't expect but it didn't change the industrial rampage that is NIN. Again the hits are there but so are some things from Ghosts and a solid 20 minute sonic attack which could have been anything but reminded me of Piggy from The Downward Spiral....who knows.
All in all a a rather good weekend, hope yours was too.
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