a few random musings on APW before they fade from my mind.
APW 2009 was, in one word, MUDDY. several days of rain transformed liberty state park in to a huge field of thick mud (occasionally topped off with a big puddle). this sludge transformed the nature of the festival for me: usually, i'm stage-hopping all day and walking mile after mile as i bounce from one peformance to the next. at APW, the mud made getting around a daunting task and you had to *really* want to see someone on another stage to make the trek worthwhile. no more taking a chance on a band "just to hear what they sound like". i think i bounced between stages 2 times all weekend, otherwise i'd stay put on whatever semblance of dry land i was on and waited for the next act to come on. once the act hit the stage, everyone would lose their fear of mud and you'd be pushed forward into 2 inches of yuck... spent the jay-z set unable to dance, the mud was so thick it was really hard to lift my feet out of it with any semblance of grace or speed. oh, and did i mention that at times the mud stank like manure? yup, the festival occasionally stank like a barn.
right then, on to the music. got there late on friday, as thedirector and i swung through NYC to catch the silversun pickups' "secret" radio gig. unfortunately we got there too late but i did get to meet the band... what a great bunch of people. this was arguably my highlight of the weekend. made it to the festival in time to catch the YYYs who were predictably excellent. karen o is such a kick-ass front-woman. considered bouncing over to q-tip but didn't. next up was jay-z: fun times. he started off with a cover of the beasties' "no sleep 'til brooklyn" which went over exceptionally well. his band was ridiculously tight. the man is a great showman. heard mstrkrft on our way out but were too muddy/wet/tired to trek in to the tent to check them out. friday was such a disaster because of the mud that the organizers let people with a friday ticket come back on saturday or sunday for free. nice move.
weather on saturday was relatively nice, warm and cloudy, but that did nothing to change the muddy conditions. st. vincent was down-right impressive, neko case was really good too (amazing pipes!). MBV met expectations, which were pretty high. they played at high volume and there was no one competing against them on the second stage (wise move, i suspect that MBV would have drown them out anyways). vocals were annoyingly absent - i know they're supposed to be low, but you couldn't hear them at all. between the hype, the build-up in my mind, and my general aversion to all things "noise", i thought i was going to hate the holocaust section - but it turned out to be surprisingly enjoyable. you really do start to hear things in the noise, "brain massage" is an apt description. i was shocked at how suddenyl and tightly they emerged from the holocaust into the refrain. where we were, there appeared to be as many hating tool fans (giving the band the middle finger) as MBV lovers (two-finger peace sign or thumbs-up in the air). MBV really don't belong in this type of festival, they don't click with the average music fan. tool was really fun and they light and lazer show was beyond cool. again meant to check out the late-night dance tent (the ting tings) but didn't.
woke up sunday to rain, so we hung out in the hotel waiting for it to clear up. good thing we did: gates didn't open until 4 pm. some poor saps were invariably there before noon, spending 4 hours in line under a downpour must have been delightful. by the time we made it there, the sky cleared up and we had a beautiful sunny afternoon/evening. due to the late opening, there was a backlog of several thousand people trying to get in when we arrived. would have taken an hour to get in, luckily some crafty moves through the VIP entrance got us inside in under 15 mins. the late start meant that the bands at the bottom of the line-up lost their slots - must have pissed them off. silversun pickups were awesome. new songs sounded GREAT live. during "lazy eye" some kids started to do the roll-in-the-mud thing - funny. elbow was downright delightful, perfect "lazy sunday afternoon" listening with funny crowd banter to boot. echo and the bunnymen were a surprise, i didn't expect them to rawk as much as they did. coldplay did as coldplay does. their set was a "biggest hits" compilation - played all their singles and any songs that have ever gotten any airplay. we had a spot on the rail in front of the side-stage where the band played twice, so got some pretty ridiculous pix. chris martin's solo cover of "fight for your right to party" was interesting. they had another "side-stage" set up behind the soundboard at the back of the crowd and popped up back there for a segment which included a cover of "billie jean" which sounded good but the band didn't know how to end it, so it dragged on a little too long.
organizationally, APW fixed a lot of issues. i had ZERO transpo problems on the light rail even when we left immediately after the headliner finished. no idea how the ferries fared. the beer-per-person-per-day limit was upped to 7 this year, which is fine with me (given the difficulty of getting around this year, i had exactly one beer at the festival all weekend. back at the hotel, tho...). i saw some long lines to get your ID checked, but otherwise things seemed to be operating smoothly. the fact that you're confined to enclosed "beer gardens" sucked, on the upside they had several of them throughout the festival.
APW is a festival in search of an identity. the location and backdrop aren't cutting it like they do for coachella. it doesn't have the history of lolla. the line-up is sorta all over the place. it still hasn't developed any sort of vibe, it's just a big rock concert.
for me, APW is a festival of convenience: i'll go to it as long as i'm close by. i can't say that i hated the festival, but didn't love it either. my main problem this year wasn't something the organizers could have done much about: the weather. here's to hoping that next year's APW has better luck with mother nature.
too many pix:
http://picasaweb.google.com/sweetcell/APW2009
mo' pix... and yes, i know: TL;DR. that's why i included the pix
