2000-08-14 - 11:54

Up the side and straight down the middle

As far as full-out hardcore musical experiences go, it was going to be hard to top sitting on Greg's couch, witnessing his heartfelt lipsynching performance of the Misfits' "Dig Up Her Bones," but I took a shot at Summersault yesterday, anyway. I was iffy on this festival, since A Perfect Circle was the only good band; but I'm glad that I went. I had a fun time hanging out with Richard and mixing it up in the crowd.

We got together at my place first; and deliberately skipped the first few bands on the bill. We arrived during The Catherine Wheel's set, to which I paid little attention. After that, it got very fun: A Perfect Circle took the stage and I made sure to inject myself into the mix.

APC definitely gave the best performance of the acts that I saw. They delivered a very solid set with no breaks in the action. The music was met with full force crowd surfing and moshing. The moshing during Circle was a different experience for me. Instead of the usual crowd of bodies, a large open area formed, with only a handful of crazies in the mix.

This set-up is a little troublesome, because it means (a) lots of room for people to build up momentum and (b) lots of room for you to go flying after somebody hits you. It's like playing hockey: the best way to take a hit is to be close to the boards, so that the force transfers through you, instead of launching you.

I was also a little bit out of my weight class; but I still had fun getting into the fray. I got knocked to the ground once; but no harm was done. It was definitely a lot of fun, although I thought that some people were a little too aggressive. (I'm a fairly low-key mosher. Unlike some of the others, I don't believe in blindsiding someone with a running slam.)

I don't mean to shift the focus from A Perfect Circle, who were great, onto the crowd; but that is my stronger impression of the festival, as a whole. I wasn't psyched for the other bands on the bill, so I looked at the whole experience as more of a chance to get in the crowd and have some fun, rather than a pure musical event. That said, though, A Perfect Circle was great. For the rest of the night, I was content to work into the crowd and pogo and headbang.

The Foo Fighters followed APC's set with a spirited but somewhat short performance of their own. Frontman Dave Grohl stepped into the crowd for one song; and openly encouraged the fans to throw frisbees at him. Instead, the main projectile was mud, which made for quite a scene. I was impressed with the Foo's energy level. They kept the crowd moving all the time.

I sat on the lawn for Our Lady Peace's set, getting back into the thick of things for the Smashing Pumpkins' closer. The Pumpkins gave a fairly uninspired performance that was derailed by technical difficulties. An amp problem ground the show to a halt after a few songs. The band wasn't able to handle the situation very well, although they tried to fill the time.

The real problem was that, sometime after the amp was fixed, Billy Corgan announced that because of the technical difficulties, they only had time for two more songs. Anyone who was there to see the Pumpkins was ripped off by losing 15 minutes of the concert. I tried to go through the motions during the Pumpkins' set; but I didn't get into very much until those last two songs, when some space opened up for me to headbang.

In any event, it was a better way to spend a Sunday than I usually come up with; and the two of us had fun. Also, I got some positive comments about my Decepticons shirt; but, unfortunately, I never crossed paths with the guy Richard saw wearing the Autobots shirt . . . A golden comic opportunity wasted. Maybe someday.

After Richard dropped me off, I spent the rest of the night chilling with Aaron, his friend, and (predominately) her dog. Not a bad Sunday, at all.

J.