You had to be there really...

I have returned from my first ever music festival alive and well. By well, I mean sleep deprived and worn out. There’s nothing I can say that can describe just what a music festival is all about. There’s music (obviously), food, and people that just want to talk to you. Experiences are just that, experiences. To fully understand just what makes a music festival what it is you have to experience one. Although 10k wasn’t all of what I thought it would be and still ended up being a time I won’t soon forget, at least the parts that I remember.

Since I don’t want to disclose all of the happenings of the festival I will have a Best Of style of post. Here’s to the Best Of....10,000 Lakes Festival 2009

Best Conversation...Eric

Our camping site was very basic; we had a car, a tent, and ourselves. Pretty standard. We were surrounded by trailers and radio station vehicles. Being that our campsite was so bare, it attracted people to pretend that we were not in fact camping and walk through our said campsite. One way that we got people to stop by our site and hang out of a bit were the trip wires that were unintentionally set up throughout our site (our tent had some strings that anchored the roof of it down and they were hard to see at night). Anyway, one night we reeled our self in a doozy of a character. Eric was his name, and backstage working was his game. Eric was a typical roadie/hick/whatever else you can imagine (white trash?) and loved to have a beer every now and then. On Thursday night Eric tripped over our string and decided that it would be the perfect time to come and ask for a light for his cigarette. Since we were well stocked with lighters, we summoned Eric to come join us. Our conversation started off light with many laughs sprinkled throughout. Eric was the kind of talker (translation: very messed up) that would laugh after everything he said, no matter what the subject matter was. There were even a handful of times where Ben, Chase, Christina and I were not laughing with his story but more at his laughter and caused us pain from laughing uncontrollably for so long. The convo went from talking about Eric and his friend that he refers to as a sloth (Eric “This guy is asleep half of the time.” Me “What does he do with the other half of the time?” Chase “He naps”) to murders (Eric “You really don’t know how to feel until you have a dead person in your front yard”) and basically everything in between. Good talk Eric, see ya out there.

Best Concert...Trampled/ Atmosphere

This would be a no-brainer of a pick for best concert but two things happened. One, Atmosphere played before a storm and half of his set got cancelled and two, Trampled by Turtles sprinted for over an hour and rocked. Atmosphere was on track to put on a great show. I’ve never seen Atmosphere in concert before and his was the show I was looking forward too the most. For that one hour that he played, he did not disappoint and it’s too bad that the one time that it rained all weekend had to be while he performed. The other concert that was very good was the show put on by Trampled by Turtles. I won’t lie and say that I’m a big listener of the group because in reality I had never heard one song that they have played (I have heard of the band name before and heard that it was a good show). For those who are not familiar with Trampled by Turtles, they are a bluegrass/ folk band and are from Duluth. When I say that these guys sprinting for an hour, that’s just what they did. They played and played hard for at least 60 minutes and put the crowd into a frenzy. Everyone that I could see was having a blast and the topper was the surprise guest for part of the show. His name was unknown but he was by far the star of the show. The fiddler’s toddler son wondered onto the stage at one point of the show and sat by his dad and prepared to rock out with pops and his band. The little guy sat around for awhile until a pint sized beach ball found its way onto the main stage. I don’t know if you know this but if you enter a ball in a toddler’s field of vision they are going to play with it. The child took the ball and stood in front of the stage, almost taunting the rest of the crowd as people screamed for the little guy to give the ball a toss. Well he is a toddler and doesn’t have the best dexterity so when the ball was “thrown” it was really dropped and rolled off stage. Definitely one of the better sights of the weekend.

Best Food...Wok Noodles/ Cajun trail mix

Chase and I were set up in VIP camping for the weekend. At least we thought it was VIP. Not really wanting to get into the story, I will just say that there was some miscommunication and we were finally VIP ready by 4pm Saturday. With this VIP camping you were to receive a meal/ drink ticket (again didn’t get this until Saturday) and Chase and I prepared as if we were to receive it. Well the check in came and went and we didn’t get any passes. Which means no real food. Which means that we were to survive on only the snacks that we brought (PB &J, granola bars and cheese crackers) and food that we would buy inside the venue. By Thursday night we were so ready for something of substance in our stomach that we broke down and decided to get something good. We got Wok Noodles and they were most definitely worth the $7 we paid for them. Just getting something warm and of nutritious value in your stomach is worth the $7 we paid. The other spot hitter of the weekend was a bag of Cajun trail mix that we picked up at Wal-mart on Friday morning. Nothing really to report other then they mysteriously vanished later that night.

Best One-liner (in concert/out concert)...Are you serious?/ Do you guys have a trailer?

“Are you serious” cannot really be explained. I don’t know how or why it started but for those who were there, you will understand. “Do you guys have a trailer?” is a different story. That is what we were asked upon entering the V.I.P. campground, because we were placed in radio row. So our campground was directly behind the main stage. It was good and bad. That’s all I really want to say about that

Best Concert Venue...Blue Ox

Blue Ox gets the nod here because it’s where I had the most fun seeing shows. We saw The Johnson Family Band instead of Dave Matthews (worth it) and A Night in the Box instead of Widespread Panic (again very worth it). Barn Stage was also pretty cool if you were to see a smaller band. Worst stage of the weekend? Field stage. I didn’t understand the setup. Didn’t make any sense.

Most Awkward Moment...Chase staring at violinist

This was pretty funny to see play out. It was a Friday night, Chase was looking to creep, and creep he did. He literately stared at the violin player of A Night in the Box for a good 30 minutes. Classic.

Worst Advice...Atmosphere “make babies”

Because Atmosphere’s set got cancelled he decided that “making fucking babies” would be a good alternative. It served as a good running joke for the rest of the weekend with lines such as, “I don’t think I’m financially ready for something like that. But I have to do what he says.” Bad advice for this economy Sean.

Best Mascot...all of them, Greg, chief, frank

This space goes out to Greg the broken rapper, Chief 8-pack, and Frank the Parrott. Good times with all of you. Except for you Greg, I’m glad someone else took you.

Best New Friend...Christina

Christina is someone that we met on Wednesday and hung out with until Saturday night. She was from Portland, OR and looked like Pink (the singer). She was a good soul that was a lot of fun to be around. It’s sad that I don’t know her last night and know that I will never see her again. However, the nap that I took after we got home on Sunday included Christina so maybe I will see her that way.

Craziest Story...Kelly

You had to be there

Best Idea...Skipping Dave/ Getting shade tent

The shade tent is pretty easy to understand. It was hot. We had no cover. Wal-mart saves the day again. The skipping of the Dave Matthews Band concert is something that most won’t understand but it’s pretty understandable if you were in our shoes. The crowd for Dave came in just for that show (something that hardcore 10k’ers were not too pleased about I hear) and they sucked (most of them). Since my only obligation of the weekend was to take pictures of the Dave show, I skipped out after Umphrey's McGee and went to retrieve my camera. Well, Dave was soooo popular that we were not allowed backstage to snap pictures. After that I decided to find Chase and Z in the middle of the Dave crowd. Bad idea. Not only were people not letting me pass by them, it was like I was public enemy #1. I finally got to about four people behind my group, which was the closest I would get. Chase was next to someone that was not too keen on my joining up with my friends and let him know about it, multiple times. So with a simple text Chase and I were on our way out of the show and onto the Blue Ox stage to see the Johnson Family Band and it was the best idea we had during the weekend.

Biggest Regret...Not tripping balls on acid...just kidding, I did that...(if you don't sense the sarcasm, shame on you)

Thanks Cheeto (tent) AJ (chair) Ben (blanket), without you, 10k would not have been as manageable. Thanks Chase for going along for the ride as well.