Wakarusa redux

Well, I survived the invasion of the hippies at Wakarusa. It wasn’t that bad. In fact, it was a much better festival than anyone would expect out of a place like Lawrence. Great bands, decent camping facilities, located close enough to get a hotel room if the thought of camping is repulsive. As one guy said to me, “It’s like a really small Bonnaroo”. That’s not exactly a bad thing. Here are some quick thoughts.

The setup was very nice. Two main stages that were maybe a ten minute walk from each other. My single day parking was theoretically a half mile away from the festival site. Which may be true if it takes me twenty minutes to walk half a mile (which it doesn’t) but that was only a minor problem. A small number of food vendors, more than enough beverage vendors, and absolutely no shade in the entire place. That was a bit of a problem since it was high 80’s and sunny for the entire weekend so I am burnt to a crisp right now. This is what happens when your lineage hails from places like Prague and Dublin, you’re just not expected to spend eight hours in the sun. That said, I have to admit that everything was really well run. Shows started on time, no security complaints, everything went really well.

I’ll breakdown some of the more memorable sets. Started off on Friday with The Gourds, a great band that I’ve wanted to see for a long time. You’ve got to respect any band that covers “Gin and Juice” and still finds a way to figure out how to fit a mandolin solo into the mix. Son Volt came out to a great reaction to the point that Jay Farrar went, “Thanks a lot. How are all of you doing today.” Which made three of us in the front row immediately say the same thing, “Jay is really stoked right now. He just said a full sentence.” They mainly played material from their new album, which does sound interesting. A lot of hard rocking stuff, much harder edged than Jay’s recent solo stuff. He threw in a few early Son Volt songs (thanks for playing Windfall, it made my year) but it was still a painfully short fifty minute set. Still, it was a thrill to be in the front row.

Ok, I technically wasn’t in the front row. I was about 15-20 yards from the stage behind a security fence. Which made sense when I was watching Neko Case because, well, that’s about what it says on the restraining order, but it was really due to the VIP section. Yes, they cordoned off this huge area for VIPs, who typically sat on lawn chairs while row after row of people were straining against these metal fences trying to just get a little but closer to the stage. Nice idea, bad execution.

One set I saw that was criminally unattended was Carbon Leaf. This is the second time that I’ve seen them this year and I am continually impressed. Which is really weird because both times I really expected them to just be bad, so basically I am going to tell you to listen to these guys because they don’t suck nearly as much as you think. That’s harsh but it is because from the outside these guy’s look like a WB band. I’m serious, they should be on a One Tree Hill soundtrack or something. But they just put on a great show, have a ton of energy, have a little Jump, Little Children alternative vibe going, and they just hit on all cylinders. Plus, they did a cover of Uncle Tupelo’s “Screen Door”, which marked the only time an Uncle Tupelo song was played the entire weekend.

Tomorrow I’ll write up my impressions on Neko Case and Wilco. Plus, some general comments on the state of Deadhead nation and the thrill of being able to finally look around and go “Get a job you hippie.”

The 5 random CDs of the week:
1) U2 “War”
2) Various Artists “New Orleans Party Classics”
3) Nirvana “MTV Unplugged in New York”
4) Scott Miller and the Commonwealth “Upside Downside”
5) Jack Johnson “In Between Dreams”