a few thoughts on vegoose, before they fade away along with a weekend's worth of alcohol haze...
festival location was decent - grass fields outside of UNLV's stadium (not in the stadium). stages were relatively close, but the PA from any given stage was loud enough to drown out bleed from other two stages, as long as you were in front of it. speaking of the PAs, this was probably the best-sounding festival i've ever been to. not too loud (etymotics got minimal use) and distorsion-free - these two facts are very closely related, no doubt. it was my third time seeing QOTSA and i've never had it so clear - almost sounded like a different band. food selection was OK, comparable to lolla, inferior to coachella. shuttle service between the strip to venue was surprisingly efficient. personally, i thought the crowd was genrally on the tamer side. maybe i'm misinterpreting here, but seems to me several artists (most notably daft punk) were wondering where the noise was...
quick run-down of some of the acts i saw:
- thievery (friday night at HOB): TC doing what TC does, space lounge that is groovy, hypnotizing... and a tad predictable. i love TC, they have great moments, but their shows are indistinguishable. i heard maybe 2 tracks i didn't recognize. HOB, as a venue, sucks. interior looks chintzy, sight lines in the balcony were weird and slightly obstructed.
- blond redhead: enjoyed once again, rapidly approaching don't-miss status in my book.
- mastodon: blew chunks. un-inspiring generic metal. had high hopes, left after 4-5 songs.
- atmosphere: unremarkable, don't remember much. spent their set chatting with callat703 and thedirector.
- cypress hill: still deliver. the festival equivalent of a cheech and chong movie: a guilty un-cerebral pleasure. per the words of thedirector, "there is no such thing as a bad cypress hill show". 15 years later, "hits from the bong" still makes me (or makes me try to) reach for the funk. dude.
- MIA: still don't get her. she moves sexy, but her music just plain bugs. at best it's passable (she doesn't have much of a voice), at worse it's pure cheese. some of those trumpet-synth lines should have stayed in turn-of-the-century rave anthems. we were very close to the front for this one, even the energy of the fans didn't convince me. said it once, say it again: meh. the legs and azz on her backup/secondary singer, however, are to die for.
- QOTSA: simply stellar. in better form then when i saw them in philly or NYC. as mentioned about, mix was especially clear. only caught 20 minutes before taking off for iggy, in hindsight might have been a mistake. maybe.
- iggy: pure fun. stooges sounded great, mike watt looked ridiculous. iggy wanted to do naughty things like take his pants off, 20 years ago he might have, instead he restrained himself and just stuck his hands down his pants. continuously. only downside to the show: GODDAM MOSHERS. some pretty violent shit going down. stupid, and distracting.
- daft punk: best show on earth today. the robots played with a diminished light show, the light-tube structure was a lot smaller than at lolla. music was on a few occasionas harder and more techno'y than lolla, the robots have obviously been working some of their tunes since i last heard them. had a crazy breakbeat part at one point, and a distorted hard-trance kick during another. worth the price of admission alone.
Originally posted by lily1:
so was vegoose worth it? please give your pros and cons for those of us that might be planning for next year. overall cost-ease of getting to venues-distance between stages-scheduling of acts
sorry hon, answer will have to come tomorrow. i have a lot more to say but it's late and this sweetie gots ta get up at the butt-crack of dawn. my pictures are still on the camera so I can't offer them up yet, so in the meantime enjoy
http://www.vegoose.com/gallery/
