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2001-07-11 / 11:52 p.m. ~Area:One Festival - This is LONG~
I have so many thoughts about today. It will be hard to whittle them down to just one little entry before I go to bed, but I'm a dedicated diarist so I will try. First, my ears are ringing. Second, it's great to have Wednesday off, no one should have to work on Wednesday. Okay, it was hot today, like really, really, hot, maybe not too much above 90 degrees, but the air was thick and white, so it was nasty. Just getting in my closed car, rolling down the windows and driving away today was hell. No a/c, but I managed. Nelly Furtado played first at Area:One, and my seat was really good, perfect actually, center stage, far enough back for good perspective. A Bass ale and I was relaxed and comfortable and happy to finally be there. Area:One Fest. I was there to experience new music, new music to me, and to be at an eclectic music fest once again, like in the days of Lollapallooza. I liked Nelly Furtado - she's sort of hip hop, sort of rap, sort of pop, but she was good, a good performer, even though not many people were there to see her. The Roots were next, and I knew I liked them already, have heard their music before - really a combo of reggae and hip hop/rap. Very talented people too, their music is actually musical. They had some woman come out and sing/rap and she was wild, huge hair piled on top of her head - her song had this one line she repeated/screamed over and over: "I hate you so much right now!!!". Wow. After my beer I switched to water for the rest of the day, and got to check out the nasty Amphitheatre bathrooms a few times. Why don't the hand dryers work? Really. None of them. Why no paper towels? Early in the day too.....it was a puzzle. Thing which bothered me most, I think, well, one of the things, was that I paid a lot of money for that most excellent seat and lots of kids sat next to me, around me, etc., who didn't have tickets for any seats - their seats were supposed to be general admission on the lawn. No ushers. No one to check. Hmmm.... Okay, here's another thing: the youth of this country are addicted to nicotine! So many young kids smoking cigarettes, lots and lots of cigarettes. This is so horrible. Or is it? People need to die of something, I guess lung cancer is just one way to go, and that will take years. Still, the second hand smoke was horrible. I actually realized that cigarette smoke makes me nauseous. That was a harsh realization. So I simply tried not to breathe. It was cooler and nicer than walking around, in my most amazing seat, so I stayed there, mostly. Incubus. What's the deal with them? Everyone seemed to just love them, but I thought they sounded like so many other people, music going back to my high school days, even Pearl Jam, etc. Very derivative. But....the lead singer had a nice body, no shirt of course, and he could sing! He belted out song after song after song, while everyone sang along. One girl said, "Now I KNOW you've heard THIS song!" to me, but I shook my head, and said, "Uh, nope. I don't listen to commercial radio. It's college or public radio for me." I've heard OF Incubus, know they're popular, and was willing to listen and see for myself, but I don't care for them, sorry. Finally I headed to the "tent", sort of a rave kind of place, with a/c! DJs from around the country spinning all day long. I went in and was overcome with the need to move, and danced for a while. I love techno, I love to dance, but a lot of people were just standing around. How weird is that? Outkast - okay, I've heard of them, a lot, they're from this very town, and they've gotten rave reviews in Entertainment Weekly and elsewhere, but I'd not heard their music. Again, no commercial radio for me. MTV sometimes, sure, but they never play videos when I'm watching. Funny thing is I read all about popular music every week in Entertainment Weekly, but reading about it is not like listening at all. They were LOUD, and they were good. Very charismatic, very talented. Cool backup singers, one with a HUGE 'fro! The crowd, 99.9% white kids, ALL sang along, bounced around pointing their fingers in the air. How ironic, especially when they sang the one song about being at the back of the bus (Rosa Parks reference). Ironic as hell. What is it with white kids and black rap music? Puzzlement. I sat, observing, and I'm afraid the woman/girl next to me thought I was having a miserable time, asked me if I'd heard of THEM. "Outkast? Sure, just never heard their music.", and I was beginning to really concern myself with her opinion of me. She smoked about 4 or 5 packs of cigarettes and couldn't stop dancing, and she was cute as a button. Finally, after sitting a seat or two away from her cigarette waving arm for a couple hours or more, we began to talk. Her name is Susannah and she is from Bosnia, a refugee. She came her two years ago, probably about the time I was marching on Washington to protest the NATO bombings. I told her I marched, asked if she thought the bombing helped, and she said yes, but she thought the U.S. involvement was a ploy to defer attention from the sordid Lewinsky mess, a la "Wag the Dog", which she'd seen. She began to smoke "weed" in Bosnia because there was a war going on, and she didn't know if she'd live or die. She said a man would be shot down on the street just for the cigarette behind his ear. She can't get financial aid now because she has no parents to help her, something about having to have parents to sign something. I didn't ask if they died in the war. Moby was amazing! What a wild show, crazy lights, lasers, all that good arena-rock stuff, and he was really aware of it, made fun of the whole concept of "arena rock". This music I jumped out of my seat and danced to, couldn't help myself, and I realized techno is my music. There is no set way to move to it, no hand gestures accompanying it, no fingers pointed in the air, no uniform bounce with hands overhead, no, it's free form. That's me. Sweat, loud, bright lights shining on the audience (that, I could have done without), and dancing, fast, then it was over, with Moby atop his keyboard (he plays keyboard, single drums, like congas, and the guitar). Major traffic and I made it home. Ears ringing. Cost of the War in Iraq
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