Virgin Freefest 2012

[sweetcell]

quick reminder: forum meet-up at the 932 at 2:00 pm.  i'll be wearing my traditional orange Atari logo t-shirt.  swing by and put a face to the online personae.  we don't bite (except for joe, but i believe he's had his shots recently).

Isn't that when Portugal the Man is playing?

in fact it is, then again there is someone playing at all times... so can't please everyone.

swing by at 2:00, say hi, and still catch 90% of p.tm's set. 

[Jesse]

A friend of mine just gave me 2 tickets he couldn't use at the last minute. If someone is still looking, e-mail me

bquietndrive87@gmail.com

UPDATE: I now have 1 extra ticket.

[kosmo vinyl]

So short attention span review..

D-Plan were in tip top form, need to go see them in a club soon.
From what I heard of Ben Folds Five they sounded great if a little tentative.
Allen Stone and Alabama Shakes far to blah for may tastes
Would have like to have heard more pre Eliminator ZZ Top songs, but the new material harken back to that nicely.
Other than the honky tonky version of "Hotel Yorba" I found the first part of Jack White's show tedious.... Far to much I'm Jack White hear me roar and the tendency to over blow the arrangements.  However, the second half of the show was one of the most satisfying sets of music I've heard in a long time.  He and the band much more relaxed and much more subtle.

Perfect weather, great venue, always fun to catch with with friends.  Only disappointment was if anyone could cattle back on stage during the ZZ Top's set, Seth could have pulled it off.   Sadly that did not come to past...

[James Ford]

At one point (it was 8pm and we were actually leaving), a drunken teenage girl sneered at us "Why do you have her here?", in reference to our five year old....who actually enjoyed herself, in the relatively short time we were there.

Unfortunately (to me) it seemed like this music festival was more about drunk teenagers in slutty costumes than anything else. Whereas Bumbershoot in Seattle (always my comparison point since it's the only music fest I have gone to on a somewhat regular basis) seems to be somewhat more subdued and family friendly.

As far as the music went, the one hour car ride took us 2.5 hours, and we missed half of Ben Folds. Agree with Kosmo, he sounded a little tentative, though did sound very good. Alabama Shakes were very boring. ZZ Top were pretty one note. I noticed they follow their setlist song for song every night, so it appears like we missed the string of hits at the end by opting to see M83....who we knew we didn't like after one song, and given that the Ferris Wheel line was too long and it was our daughter's bedtime...we opted to head home.

[kosmo vinyl]

I play no mind to the teenagers at these things anymore, but Nici and I actually left 932 after being appalled/embarrassed by the women who decided to grind/dry hump/pole dance the guy she was with for an extended period of time.  It was pretty tragic...

Have to say it was pretty funny when Travis of D-Plan  got the audience to wave to people on the ferris wheel.

It's clear Alabama Shakes and Allen Stone have bright futures playing the large festival circuit for years to come.  Their competent  but entirely bland take on blues/soul/country did very little for me, and I  can just as easily see similar acts almost any year at the Greenbelt Blues festival.

[Yada]

At one point (it was 8pm and we were actually leaving), a drunken teenage girl sneered at us "Why do you have her here?", in reference to our five year old....who actually enjoyed herself, in the relatively short time we were there.

Unfortunately (to me) it seemed like this music festival was more about drunk teenagers in slutty costumes than anything else. Whereas Bumbershoot in Seattle (always my comparison point since it's the only music fest I have gone to on a somewhat regular basis) seems to be somewhat more subdued and family friendly.

As far as the music went, the one hour car ride took us 2.5 hours, and we missed half of Ben Folds. Agree with Kosmo, he sounded a little tentative, though did sound very good. Alabama Shakes were very boring. ZZ Top were pretty one note. I noticed they follow their setlist song for song every night, so it appears like we missed the string of hits at the end by opting to see M83....who we knew we didn't like after one song, and given that the Ferris Wheel line was too long and it was our daughter's bedtime...we opted to head home.

Sounds like a craptacular time...

[hutch]

geez James, after all that....

 

[atomicfront]

I will have to say the festival was the worst run one I have attended.  First off parking.  Little Patuxent Parkway was closed and pushing all traffic towards the entrance next to the dinner theater.  Ok at 12:30 this entrance was already full.  Why have all trafic go toward an entrance that is closed.   And why shut down little patuxent parkway. So forced on 29 south get off the next exit and the other entrance is closed rude police officers there don't provide any information about parking.  Why have the cops there if they are just going to hang out and bullshit.  Park north of little patuxent parkway at some building parking lot.

Ok so Future Islands and Portugal the Man are good.  Ben Folds is awful as usual.   Maybe worst live performer.  Wait in line for ferris wheel while person after person just pisses right next to the ferris wheel taking their pants down in the process. chicks included.  What does the festival have no security.  Pissing with your pants down in front of children is a sex offence in maryland.  So turns out it costs 5 bucks to go on ride. then get in line for funnel cakes for like 30 minutes. turns out their are no funnel cakes in the line that is only marked funnel cakes.

All the lines for the spot a pots are like 30 minutes. the food lines are at least 45 minutes.  Who is running this?  This was the same scenario at florence and the machine.  I have never experienced this is all the years of going to MPP.  Santigold was awesome and so were M83.  Though I don't know why everyone has to be so rude.  If you see me and my wife holding hand why would you walk between us?  And then try again and then look i am the bad one when i shove you.  So many rude people.  I have been to 5 lollapaloozas in chicago several new port folk festivals. tons of other various festivals across north america and nowhere were people rude like they are here in maryland.  the constant shoving into people. Pushing people out of the way. 

I say this will be my last virgin fest.  I would much rather play a couple hundred dollars to go to a well run festival. 

[HoyaSaxa03]

Unfortunately (to me) it seemed like this music festival was more about drunk teenagers in slutty costumes than anything else.

this is par for the course lately at MPP, festival or not

[Yada]

Seth melt coming soon.

[Thousand Made-Up Loves]

Unfortunately (to me) it seemed like this music festival was more about drunk teenagers in slutty costumes than anything else.

Who cares? You might be the the only person in the world complaining about chicks wearing revealing clothing. I hate to break it to you, but "rock" music festivals, by nature, aren't very family friendly.

[eros]

The lack of available food lines/parking/bathrooms was certainly an issue.  It just felt like there were too many people packed in there for the amount of services that were available.

As far as drunken teenagers, well, you're going to a rock festival.  Not sure what else to expect.

Was nice to see sweetcell and meet kosmo and miss p as well.  One of the things I said during our chat - "Am I the only one who liked it more when it was at Pimlico?"

Still, a good time was had by all!

[serpent boy]

I enjoyed the show. I had no problems with massive lines unless I elected to wait in one. I was able to get into the main stage pit for any band I wanted. The music was good. What else could I ask for at a free festival?

Das Racist cancelling was lame.

Justin Jones was a great opener for the day. I thought the Fading Light material translated well live.

Future Islands is not my cup of tea, but it's nice that the singer has enthusiasm.

Allen Stone rocked. He's not an exceptional artist, but he's definitely talented. The crowd in the pit had a fun time.

Portugal the Man sounded fine but my buddy hated them so we left after a few songs.

Trampled By Turtles did not impress me, and I reluctantly skipped Dismemberment Plan to get in line for Ben Folds Five's pit.

Ben Folds Five was solid but not spectacular. The set was full of a lot of new songs that sound a lot like his solo material. Eh.

Santigold was fun. Alabama Shakes were OK. Nas was good at what he does.

ZZ Top was a good time. It felt like a fun way to connect between generations as I saw teenage girls, old dudes, and everyone in between dancing. Plus the seats were 1/3 empty so there were plenty of places to chill out.

I skipped M83 and Skrillex.

Jack White was predictably wild and somewhat weird. A lot of the songs sounded like Jack White covering himself. The new arrangements were awkward at times. I loved "Ball and Biscuit" though and I almost yearned for new arrangements again during a forced-feeling "Steady As She Goes." Good set, but strangely I almost liked the predictable Black Keys set more last year. Jack White couldn't really get a rhythm with his audience.

[kosmo vinyl]

I'll agree that the new version of "Steady As She Goes" sounded like a work in progress, although I liked the 60s cool vibe he was going for with it.  It would be interesting to hear that would in the future...

[sweetcell]

i had a great time at freefest.  t'was nice to see a few old faces at the meet-up but once again it was very under-attended.  i realize this makes me old but i enjoyed trampled by turtles.   d-plan was good, but i preferred their last shows at the 930.  santigold was visually interesting but the music left me rather indifferent.  i walked over to the pavilion for alabama shakes but based on what i heard i didn't bother going in... ended up wandering around for food.  zz top are kinda one note, but what gawddam fun note it is. i really liked their set.  caught some of M83 and it was up and down.  to be fair i was pretty far back and i met up with a good buddy so spent more time talking with him than listening to the music.  the 40  minutes of JW that i did catch were interesting but i wouldn't have paid to see him.  i quite liked the early songs that he played on an acoustic, it got too noodly whenever he went electric.  i caught about 1 minutes of skrillex as i walked towards the western stage, once within earshot i decided that was enough, turned around and left.  folks were obviously having a great time but i can't stand dubstep.

parking was more problematic this year than in the past but i must have lucked out because it wasn't horrible for me (we arrived at 1:30).  coming from the north it us took 15 mins to crawl from 32 to a parking lot on the other side of the library, then a 10 minute walk to the venue.  parking at the mall right across from the north entrance, as i've done in past years, would have been faster but i suspect the decision to not allow that this year wasn't up to freefest/IMP/etc.  it was still better than any parking experience i've had at bristow!  listen, there is no easy way to pack 25,000 people and all their cars into such a small space and when mall owners, the police, the city, fire inspectors etc get into the mix there are bound to be delays.  yeah, i wish it would have taken me 5 minutes instead of 25.  boohoo. 

there definitely was a shortage of bathrooms for the number of people there.  i certainly hope this is addressed in the future. 

sounds like some folks had a much worse experience that i did, and that was too bad.  freefest remains one of the highlights of late summer for me.  a sincere thank you to everyone who made this festival happen!  here's to hoping that freefest comes back next year!