virgin mobile freefest 2011

Another year, another Virgin Mobile Freefest.

This was my second year in a row at the festival (both under the “Freefest” moniker), and my fifth year overall. It wasn't the best year I've been, but it wasn't the worst either. Pretty middling overall, with a couple great bands slightly dampened by a poor mood that covered most of the festival.

Any post about this festival needs to start with how fucking terrible Merriweather Post Pavilion is for shows of this nature. This is about as far from ideal festival territory as you can get. Aside from the very basic necessities (sound from the stages doesn't bleed together, etc.), it's just a horrific experience going anywhere or trying to get anything, to the point that it really does interfere with the general experience and even the individual bands themselves.

Just like last year, Merriweather was fucking PACKED. Filled to the brim with people. Absurd crowds everywhere you went—even wandering around mid-day. Any food stands, bars, or bathrooms were completely swamped after noon, to insane levels. One area to the right of the pavilion that encompassed all three amenities was simply a massive swarm of people virtually the entire day. All paths moving from stage to stage were slow-moving, tight, and uncomfortable, all day. One path in between the dance forest and festival stage worked as a walking path, an area for food lines, and a route for port-a-potty trucks—simultaneously.

Any and all attempts at fostering a “festival” atmosphere of any kind were completely lost. The kind of activities, events and special areas that make festivals like Coacella or Bonnaroo unique acted purely as corporate advertising, with no attempt to hide it at all. The degree to which you were bombarded with advertising, plugs, and freebies throughout the day was simply exhausting. I don't think I'm alone in saying I would GLADLY pay some money for my “Free” ticket if it meant actually being able to walk around in peace for a little.

I can't speak to the setup at the pavilion stage (I didn't see a single band there), but the pavilion setup was atrocious. Just like last year, the process of emptying out the pit after every band was a joke. It turned the event into a series of concerts as opposed to any kind of “festival.” And while last year's setup allowed two different lines to form along the outside stairs—one for the current band, one for the upcoming one—fans waiting for the next band were forced to line up outside of the pavilion altogether, resulting in long, winding lines stretching out into the masses of people wandering around. In the case of the Black Keys, that line probably ended up right in the middle of that aforementioned amenities sea—at best.

Even people sitting inside the pavilion—which seemed to be made entirely free, a welcome change from last year—were subject to the same shitty treatment. Pavilion seating was locked down after the band started to play, with workers forbidding people from both entering AND re-entering the seating area. The only problem was, they didn't tell anyone who went to leave. If you wanted to get a beer during TV on the Radio or you really had to piss during the Black Keys, you were allowed to leave, then told when you returned that you would have to wait with the rest of the people trying to get in. The result was an incredible number of empty pavilion seats toward the end of the major bands, and an insane rush of people trying to get back to their seats AND find new ones. It's a wonder no violence broke out as a result.

I think I'm almost running out of shit to bitch about. $8.50 beers are always horrible, but that's been the case at Merriweather and just about every other venue for so long, it's not even worth talking about anymore. The parking was atrocious, apparently leading most concertgoers to park at rented lots outside of the actual grounds, but that was most likely a result of the Biblical amount of rain Maryland had had that week. I imagine the main parking grounds were just completely washed out.

So, now to the bands.

The first band we saw was Okkervil River. I was running off a brilliant drunk high at this point, so my judgment may be somewhat cloudy. But I absolutely love them. I've been a fan for about five years, and their music has gotten me through a lot of shit, so it was an emotional experience to be sure. I definitely teared up during “A Girl in Port.” Singer Will Sheff is just as uniquely powerful onstage as he is on his albums, with his imperfect vocals still absolutely radiating with emotion throughout the show. His physical presence took me by surprise, especially when he started to get almost violent towards the end of the performance, adding yet another level of power to his stage presence. His backing band was also fantastic, though I was admittedly staring almost exclusively at guitarist Lauren Gurgiolo, who introduced me to my new favorite fetish: women who can rock a pedalboard. Quite possibly the sexiest thing I've ever seen. Just an amazing performance by the whole band, coupled with some excellent song choices, including personal faves “Black” and “For Real.”

After Okkervil, we wandered for a good deal, getting our drunk on and not really settling anywhere until !!!, who we had originally planned on merely stopping to catch a glimpse of before moving on to Patti Smith, Cut Copy, Cee Lo Green, and James Murphy. (If that sounds ambitious, it's because it clearly was.) !!! grew more and more addictive with each passing minute, to the point that we decided we couldn't be fucked to see any of those other assholes and stayed for the whole show. It's hard to pinpoint why !!! is better than your average dance-rock band. Maybe it's the full-blown instrumentation, with virtually every note and effect being played right in front of your face, as opposed to bland, synth/drum-machine dominated live acts. Maybe it's the songs, which are just brutally catchy and funky to the extreme. Or maybe it's how fascinatingly gay Nic Offer is.

Clad in short-short-short-shorts (two “shorts” just isn't enough), climbing all corners of the stage, showing off his best Travolta impressions, and barking out effect-heavy, echoing vocal orders to the crowd, Nic was simply mesmerizing to watch. I'd rank it up there with my top-five favorite frontman experiences ever. (The other four, in no particular order: Iggy Pop, Alex Ebert, Kanye West, Eric Paul.) He took the show from a catchy, danceable live band to a full-blown spectacle. And that entire crowd joined right in. There were some pot fumes floating around, to be sure, but for the most part it seemed a far cry from the drug-induced mania you would expect from a band like !!!. It just seemed like a bunch of people who wanted to have fun and dance badly for an hour or so.

After !!!, we briefly stopped by Patti Smith, only to leave immediately after hearing her dedicate a song to Amy Winehouse. (In hindsight, I probably overreacted a bit, but at the time I was absolutely devastated.) From there we checked out James Murphy for a few minutes, only to leave after realizing it was just a DJ set. (After seeing the full-blown movement of !!!, watching a guy turn a few knobs and push a few buttons is just boring as hell.)

At that point we decided to implement our master plan: Get in line for the Black Keys, and watch TV on the Radio from the steps while we waited. Unfortunately, we were not alone in this plan.

We headed for the steps, only to find a line of people stretching well outside of the pavilion. At the time, we thought the system was still the same as last year, so to us, we were looking at a line of people stretching from the stage clear back to the food stands. It was impenetrable, to say the least, and we weren't excited about the notion of standing with horrible views at the back of the pit. Looking back, of course, our spots would have been fine, since was really only 20-30 feet long. But what can you do.

So instead, we grabbed mediocre side seats and waited on TV on the Radio. A few songs into TV on the Radio, my friend unknowingly left to get food. To her surprise, there was no food left in all of Merriweather (a good 3-4 hours before the end of the festival), and she was not allowed back in until the band was finished. As for the band itself... I always considered myself a pretty big TVOTR fan, but I was not impressed. In fact, I nodded off a couple times in the middle of the set. They rely solely on the music to provide a captivating live show, but it just wasn't good, in my opinion. It probably didn't help that I was very drunk, but still.

After they finished, a hoard of people re-entered the pavilion, a mixture of people trying to get back to their seats and people desperately trying to find new ones. Across the pavilion, we watched a surge of people fill the pit line for the Black Keys. People were running down the stairs, cramming into the pit area one by one, and eventually filling the entire stairwell with bodies. It was insanity, and it's fucking miracle no one got hurt. The estimated attendance was 50k people, and the pavilion area itself has a capacity of roughly 20k. The math alone is terrifying, and the real-life experience was just as scary.

We didn't stay for the entire Black Keys performance, mainly because we were tired, hungry, and too drunk. They opened with a series of older songs just between Dan and Patrick, which were tremendous. We left shortly after they opened up the stage to a couple other musicians, giving them the instrumentation to play their new songs. I'm sure it was great, but I honestly don't know. We were ready to get the fuck out of there.

This festival needs to stop being held at Merriweather, but I know it won't, because you could practically see the fucking dollar signs everywhere you went. Promoters are raking in bucketloads of cash, so there's no end to this in sight. And as much as I want to take some kind of moral stand and say I'm never going to another Virgin Fest again, I know I'll be back next year, because it's the only major festival in Maryland (unless you count HFStival, which is a joke), because they always bring in bands I want to see, and because it's free. Each year makes me miss the Pimlico days more and more, when the festival actually felt like a goddamn festival, when you actually had room to breathe and walk around and enjoy yourself, and when you could actually stand at the front of the main stage for more than one fucking band in a row. But those days are long gone, for this festival at least, and since the chances of another festival coming in to compete with Virgin are slim to none, we have no choice but to suck it up or miss out altogether.