Virgin Mobile Festival in Baltimore was one I had been wanting to check out for some time. Well at least since Craig sent in his review last year. I was hoping to meet Sir Richard Branson too but he skipped it this year so that wasnt going to happen.
We had been at Lollapalooza the previous weekend and I stopped by Brooklyn on the way back for the 88 drummers party in Williamsburg to sling a ton of cream. We didnt get outta Brooklyn til 10:30 on Friday night and needed to be loaded up on cream and at Pimilco Race Way in Baltimore around noon on Saturday. I was a bit concerned but Craig was on board to help with driving if need be and, as usual, things always seem to work out.
The best thing about Virgin was that they spent a TON of money to get a bunch of solid headliners to go up against All Points West in NYC (well.. technically Jersey) who had landed Radiohead for Friday AND Saturday. Im not sure who was the biggest act at Virgin but Bob Dylan, Foo Fighters, Kanye West, Nine Inch Nails, Stone Temple Pilots and Jack Johnson were all on the two day bill. If you wanted to see any of these bands and not deal with 40,000+ people, this was the place to be. Im guessing the attendance was around 25,000 which was a lot less than last year when The Police headlined.
The cream slinging backstage was an interesting setup. The whole area was on a parking lot and there werent that many familiar faces around. Apparently there had been some sort of mix up and some of the Artist Lounge wristbands had been sold as VIP passes. I knew something was a li’l weird when I saw close to half a dozen fans with Foo Fighters T-Shirts backstage and multiple people were bugging Jack Johnson for a picture. The good news was, thanks to Blue Bunny donating most of the cream on board, we had a ton of treats to give away and lots of takers.
The other thing I noticed about Virgin was that the Dance Tent was stacked with one of the best dance lineups since Coachella. Erol Alkan, Underworld, Armin Van Buuren, Moby, and Richie Hawtin were amongst the list and they kept the dance tent bumping until curfew hit at 10 PM. I stopped by a couple times while walking around and thought the same thing I had about the rock show, there were way less than half the amount of people that would have been crowding the big tent in Coachella.
I mentioned there were a lot of big name headliners there but the quality of music didnt stop there. Wilco, Chuck Berry, Iggy and the Stooges, Black Keys, Lil Wayne, were amongst the also stacked second tier. Meghann and Camino came out to help sling and shoot and we all chilled for the most part until Chuck Berry hit far stage. I had seen him a decade ago with Bo Diddley at the Long Beach Blues Festival so I chose to stay at the truck until they returned. Once they did I snuck away to catch some of the Wilco set. The was an empty blanket near the sound booth so I borrowed a spot of it and laid down for a while and soaked up some tunes. The set didnt move me as much as their Lollapalooza set the weekend before but Im a sucker for Wilco so I was happy. Toward the end of the set there was some sort of firemaker maybe a hundred yards behind the soundboard that was popping off flames from a tower that firecrackers going off. Everyone kept looking back to see what the distraction was and at the end of the song Jeff Tweedy asked if he was at Burning Man.
As much as we tried to get going early on Sunday and get to the fest on time, by the time I got there and ran to the far stage to see The Go! Team, I literally only caught the last minute of their set. Argh. I did catch a li’l Shudder to Think on the way back and wish I coulda hung out for a while longer to check them out. I was pretty big fan of their soundtrack work for First Love, Last Rites when I used to work at Fingerprints and had never seen them ’til now.
Since we had so much cream on board Meghann volunteered to take the cooler bag out to the stages to hit up all the crew working there. She came back with a big smile because she had given Zooey Deschanel, who was performing with M. Ward in She & Him, ice cream after their set. The crew headed out to see Iggy and got back with enough time for me to rock a few songs. Itd be tough to argue there is a better front man for a band than Iggy. Hes nuts and seems possessed when hes on stage. Or, more appropriately, when hes off the stage roaming through the pit or the crowd while singing. The crowd was cheering so loud when they left that they came back for a rare, midday encore. I (regretfully) stopped by their trailer afterwards to see if they needed cream and got a huge sweaty hug from Mike Watt which made me happy.
Camino had been talking to some of the roller derby girls who were performing there and he promised them some cream. I barely made it over in time with a box then stopped back to catch some Stone Temple Pilots. I was never a fan but there was something intriguing about them. I had a similar feeling to when I watched Velvet Revolver online during the Live 8 gig when I expected them to suck and they didnt (same with Keith Urban). It was bizarre that Bob Dylan was playing yet wasnt headlining. I didnt catch too much and instead headed back to the truck to lock up so we could see some NIN and Kanye.
NIN had enlisted some new crew for this tour. Josh Freese, a So Cal native was still destroying the kit but the bass player duties have been passed off to Justin Medal-Johnsen who had been a part of Becks band for forever. Things started out a big upbeat but then mellowed out for a while as the band utilized their complex stage lighting while playing some soundtrack style tunes on a large xylophone-like instrument. I had already seen Kanye at Bonnaroo and in Chicago the previous week but Crash and I decided to head over to see what was shaking. It was nice to stand in front of the soundboard where I could see everything. At Lollapalooza, I was on a hill on the side of the stage and couldnt tell there was a live band backing him. He hardly said at thing in Chicago but was gabbing up a storm here. Its funny to hear someone bitch about things when theyve worked so hard to create those situations. His set was great and about two-thirds of the way threw I finally let loose and danced my ass off for Stronger and Flashing Lights
I had a few beers so decided to let Crash man the controls of Newt and lead us back to our hotel which was about 15 minutes north. It was nice to relax a bit and get some good sleep before hitting Philly>Princeton>Philly then driving 3000 miles cross country for the 5th Annual Ice Cream Social.
Thanks to Maria for hooking everything up for us. Thanks also to Blue Bunny for the Ice Cream and Ernie at the Ice Cream Depot allowing us to pick up the cream and dry ice. If only I could find Yuengling in cans more places. Kudos to Baltimore.
