If
I could use one word to describe my Governor’s Ball experience it would have to
be….
MUD.
Your Governor’s Ball experience in 2013 was dictated by how
well you could deal with the mud you had to walk through. You had no way to get
around it or avoid it. It was there at the beginning on Friday and it was the
last thing that greeted us on Sunday. The mud which was at its worst on
Saturday was the result of what can be described as no less than a monsoon that
hit the New York area on Friday the first day of the festival. It created this
thick mud that was six to eight inches deep and it covered the entire festival
venue. So every step you took you were getting your foot buried in this thick
mud that created a suction on your boots that made every step a tiring,
exhausting Bataan death march from one stage to the other. And with four stages
it leads to a lot of walking. The mud really did change the entire complexion
of the whole weekend. It went from being a festival to celebrate music to just
surviving the experience.
But
I take it like a badge of honor that a fellow festival attendee who has
apparently been to many festivals including Glastonbury which is notorious for
horrible weather said that this was (referring to Friday’s monsoon) the worst
weather he had ever seen at a festival he had attended. He said if you could
survive this you could survive anything. And survive the Chef and I did.
Barely…
The
seeds for this had been planted many moons ago. As you know the Chef and I are
frequent concert goers. And we had always wanted to go to a festival whether it
be Lollapalooza, Coachella, Electric Zoo, or any other weekend long festival.
So when they announced the lineup for this year’s Governor’s Ball we made the
decision to go for it. We plunked down our $240 per ticket for a chance to
spend three days of fun, food, and music. And with the added convenience of it
only being a 30 minute drive from our houses it was the perfect opportunity to
finally go to a festival. I personally was excited as all heck to finally see a
festival in person. Having read stories about other festivals I was excited to
be finally attending one in person. Ironically at the end I was more excited
for the experience then any musical act I saw. Not to say I didn’t enjoy some
of the music. But I just wound up liking it a lot less then I thought I would.
Again not because it was bad but just because of the atmosphere of the festival
itself.
But here is my view of
our festival experience by day as well as all the artists I saw on each day.
Understand that expect for maybe three or four acts I saw none of the artists
sets in there entirety. As I learned very early on sacrifices have to be made
in order to catch every act you want to see. It results in leaving some sets
early in order to get a good spot and also to beat the crowds to whomever you
wanted to catch.
Day 1
Setlist
1.
St.
Lucia
2.
The
Knocks
3.
Holy
Ghost
4.
Best
Coast
5.
Of
Monsters & Men
The first day was ruled
by the forecast which said it was not going to rain but to poor all day long. And
it was relentless. Now I am a big fan of the rain. I’m not like a lot of people
in that when it rains I take out my umbrella or run for cover. I’ll gladly walk
and enjoy the raindrops that fall on my head. But knowing this was going to be
the Chef and I in the elements for 12 straight hours I figured it would be best
to keep the rain off of us as long as possible. So I got some ponchos from my
parents and thank God I did. It rained the entire day we were their except for
maybe a half hour total. Between the mud and the relentless downpour it was an
extremely miserable and pretty depressing beginning to the weekend. As I
mentioned after you walked into the main gate the first thing that greeted you
was mud. It wasn’t a little tract of mud but a huge expansive field of mud. You
had no way of walking around it or by it on the sides. To get to either of the
two main festival areas you had to walk through this. Now I had came with my
Tim boots on ready for whatever might have awaited me. The Chef unfortunately
wore sneakers and I felt so bad for her. Cause I knew the first step she took
she would spend the rest of the day there with wet shoes, socks and feet. Sure
enough she took her first steps in the mud and her sneakers were destroyed. I
felt horrible for her.
 |
| Felt horrible for her. She wore sneakers. |
One of the worst pieces
of news was who the beer sponsor was for the weekend. Now the food was some of
New Yorks best food vendors. Crif Dogs. Bauhaus. Rickshaw Dumpling. Arancini
Bros. It was a collection of great food options. So it was with great excitement
that I could not wait to hear who was the beer I would be buying for the
weekend. Maybe Brooklyn Brewery. Some microbrew from the island.
Nope. I walk in and see
Miller Lite plastered in front of my face. MILLER LITE. Just the most trashiest
of white trash beers. Needless to say beyond my one hard apple cider I had
while watching St. Lucia I did not have another alcoholic drink all weekend. I
drank water for the rest of the weekend.
So not much to say about
the musical acts on this day. St. Lucia was the first act we saw and they were
the best thing thing I heard as they played a fun rock sound. But mostly the
weather dictated what we saw and more so how long we watched anyone. Even the
artists playing didn’t want to be their as the lead singer of Best Coast said.
Most of the time people
spent the day trying to get away from the rain. The Chef and I wound up
spending the majority of our day in the silent disco tent drying off and just
finding a place we weren’t getting soaked. For those of you who don’t know
silent disco is a place where a dj plays music and you can only hear he or she
by wearing headphones tuned to his or her music. It is actually pretty cool as
you have a bunch of people dancing but if you are just walking by you see a
bunch of crazy people dancing with no music at all. It is actually a really
awesome visual especially when the dj plays a song like Naughty By Nature’s
‘O.P.P.’ and you have people singing the chorus and people walking by just hear
people singing the hook “You down with O.P.P., yeah you know me…”
 |
| Enjoy the silence... |
It was also the place
where I saw what was the funniest moment for me at the feastival. They had
these giant balloons that were lit to give people some light in the dark so
they could see where they were walking. At the time they turned them on the
temperature was about 60 degrees and most people had been outside in the rain
for the better part of six hours already. You saw a dozen people go up to the
ball raising their hands for warmth in a desperate attempt to stay warm. It’s hard
to describe how funny I found this so I think the picture really helps.
 |
| Warmth! |
I had desperately wanted
to catch Beach House who was one of the bands I really wanted to catch when I
first heard the lineup. The Chef had really wanted to see Kings of Leon who were
headlining the first night. But around 8:30 about a half hour after Beach House
was supposed to be onstage I conferred with the Chef and we decided that we had
had enough of being miserable. So we decided to leave early. As it turned out
Beach House came on a couple of minutes later and played a paltry three songs
before being ushered offstage and Kings of Leon was cancelled due to inclement
weather. I really felt ripped off that by the promoters that they didn’t ask
these bands back the next day but at that point I was soaking wet and didn’t
care. I just wanted to get us in my car and leave.
Ah, but that is where the
story gets dicey. We get back to my car which the people had me park in the
grass. But it had rained all day and the water table was saturated. So what if
my car got stuck in the ground because it was too wet. Sure enough we get back
to the parking lot and there is car after car stuck in the mud. Virtually every
exit path blocked by a stuck car that had drove itself into the mud by gunning
the engine and just getting bogged down in the now soft, muddy ground. I helped
push one car out and then began looking for a possible way out. I walked around
for a good five to ten minutes getting drenched by the even heavier rain when I
finally came upon a way out. The only trick was making sure I gave it enough
gas without getting stuck and ripping up the ground too badly and not having an
option other then waiting for the tow truck to pull me out. But I saw a path
that lead to some concrete around a stuck car and decided it was my chance to
get us away from this hell. I jumped in my car and turned it on and put it in
drive. I got right up to the lip where concrete met grass (nee mud) and at the
last minute felt my car slipping. My traction light came on telling me my car
was spinning in place so I decided to give it some extra gas and at the last
second MEGAMI (that is the license plate on my car. Look it up if you want to
know what the word means) pulled herself out of the mud/grass and onto dry
land. The Chef and I took two of the deepest sighs ever and we were blissfully
on our way home to a shower and away from a horrible first day of Governor’s
Ball 2013.
 |
| This grass became a football field of mud. Fun. |
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