2006-09-20 - 1:24

A trip and a half

As mentioned in my last update, I attended the Virgin Festival in Toronto two weekends back. That was a series of misadventures, the most notable of which was me forgetting the tickets and not realizing it until we were an hour and a half out of Ottawa. D'oh!

Once we finally arrived, though, things went quite smoothly on our end. With five of us going (me, Laurie, Aaron, Loralei, and Nick), our best bet ended up being renting a hotel suite, so it was like being roommates again.

Oddly enough, we picked the same hotel as The Dears, who we saw in the lobby, checking in. I didn't want to bug them too much (or have them think that I'm stalking them), so I just said hi to George, who remembered me from past shows.

The festival itself was a mixed bag. Unfortunately, while the ferry schedule seemed fine, the band schedule wasn't. The main stage ran late on the Saturday, so a lot of people were quite upset when the Flaming Lips were cut to a forty-minute set. I had already seen my main bands for the day (The Dears and Buck 65 were excellent, while Gnarls Barkley was just okay), so I wasn't too upset but it was still a sour note.

Speaking of Buck, I got to talk to him after his set. He smoothed over my forgotten ticket fiasco by relating a similar tale of accidently throwing an envelope of cash in the garbage when he was young and not realizing until he was an hour away.

On Sunday, the main stage was running twenty minutes early, a fact that I only discovered by hearing Wolfmother playing when I thought that I was moving to that stage plenty early. At any rate, theirs was the most fun set of the weekend. I found a spot almost against the railing, where all the kids in the crowd were being good to each other and having a great time.

The big turnaround was The Strokes, who were ridiculously late for no apparent reason (their roadie only taped setlists down 50 minutes after the previous band had finished). I think that they showed a lot of disrespect for the remaining bands on the bill, as their full-length set meant that the headliner's time was cut again; but I guess you can pull off that move when you're supposed to be Big Rock Stars.

Then again, I've never really liked those guys and the terrible crowd behaviour turned me against them even more. It was hard to believe that it was the same festival where everyone had been so cool for Wolfmother. (If you like the band, though, read just about any other festival review, as it seems that my opinion is in the minority on this one.)

At any rate, The Raconteurs were stellar and Broken Social Scene were very good, as well, capping a worthwhile weekend trip. The rest of the crew (including James, who was with us both days) split up to see different bands (or to knit by the tree, as the case may be) but I think that everyone had a good time.

The festival schedule didn't leave a lot of downtime but Laurie and I did get to meet up with Stacy for a pre-show meal on Sunday, which was cool.

My real review for the festival has been up for a while on my other site. Check it out here, if you're interested.

On a smaller scale, I saw Controller.Controller at Zaphod's last Friday, with You Say Party! We Say Die! and The D'Urbervilles, which was an excellent show, as I recapped here.

Apart from the concerts, there hasn't been too much happening lately, although I did take advantage of the sunny weekend to finally paint the garage door. (Don't ask how long that took me to get around to.)

J.