Spur of the moment, J the 13 year old and I took off for the Virgin Free Fest yesterday afternoon. It’s the latest iteration of the Virgin Festival that’s been tearing it up the past few summers, and yesterday was no exception. And I give Virgin huge props for making it free, due to the economy, but still scoring absolutely top-notch talent.
The lineup included The Bravery, Public Enemy, Weezer, Blink-182, and Franz Ferdinand, as well as many, many other bands.
But I’ll confess, I abandoned my usual rabid festival-goer must see attitude and figured we’d get there when we got there, and see whoever we saw- as long as we saw Weezer.
I’m an old school Weezer fan from pre-sweater song days, and have never seen them live. So to take my kid, who really only knows them from “Beverly Hills”, was a treat. Only surpassed by my joy at mortifying him by singing loudly and doing a dorky mom dance during “Buddy Holly”.
One of the coolest things was, as we waited for Weezer to take the stage, watching two dudes hurtle out of a helicopter and do some crazy combo of skydive/jetpacking down to the crowd, in a coordinated stunt which ended with Sir Richard Brason spraying the crowd with water.
No, I did not make that up. Seriously,
Dude In the Sky
Preparing to land
And, one of my favorite people from the day: Free Hug Guy. Sometimes maligned, occasionally tackled by drunk frat boy types, but basically in it for the love.
A lovely hugger!
The crowd right before Weezer:
This turned into a singalong quite quickly
Weezer opened with Black Sabbath’s “The Wizard”, which really showcased what I’ve always known: those dudes are heavy. They’re seriously tight musicians, and sounded stellar.
The bassline from “Hashpipe” was just as amazing live as I’d always imagined it. That’s the song that caused me to coin the term “Chuggy Bassline”. Hey, it may not be technical, but think of that riff: Does it not chug?
And, speaking of Weezer’s bass player, his wife is a pretty awesome writer and observer of the world, as well as a mama to a lovely little fellow: Check out her blog, at www.jillianlauren.com . You will be smarter. (Or, at least, I always kind of feel smarter after reading Jillian’s insights. And less coordinated. But that is totally not her fault.)
And J now has some new career ambitions, that involve skydiving and maybe owning an airline and getting a bunch of rock bands to play for him.
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