I Saw You First, It Was in a Dream

Kaliméra friends, happy long weekend.
Here's what we were doing last year this time.

Sasquatch 2010

After a long, arduous debate, which btw is how I make the vast majority of all decisions, we opted to not go to Sasquatch this year. It is a little bit painful now that the time is upon us. Back in the fall, we were watching the streaming video and twitter obsessively to get the word on who would be playing.

On the pro-side we had:

GIVERS - I saw you first

Sidenote: There was another version of this song on youtube, which was nausea-inducing and the sound was worse BUT it showed the band pulling balloons out of big trash bags. Priceless. It reminded me of poorman's this feat by AF @ Coachella.

We watched Arcade Fire's Coachella performance live on youtube - it was fantastic and to be honest, I *almost* felt like I was there. Actually, we got better views and closeups, with none of the portapotties and sweat. Kind of nice. Anyway - on the encore, these big balls dropped down, hundreds of them, and they were somehow synchronized and controlled to turn patterns of different colors. I love it. Chris Milk (of Wilderness Downtown video fame), fun stuff. So what I am saying is, GIVERS, hang in! Pretty soon you could go from 800 youtube views and filling up Glad bags with balloons you blew up yourselves, to multimedia art collaborations and headlining Coachella, it could happen!

Back to the point: This band played at the WOW with Ra Ra Riot (also awesome and Sasquatch alums) and we didn't go because we are too tired and old. Big mistake.
Other pluses of 2011 lineup: Wilco, Head and the Heart, Iron and Wine (although I don't think that a festival is ideal for this at all, hence we'll see him at Crystal on Tuesday instead), Yeasayer, Cold War Kids (although we just saw them, and one member of this unit (the male member) is not so interested), Beach House(!!!), Sharon Jones and Dap-Kings, Local Natives, Matt & Kim, Deerhunter, Sleigh Bells (who would be perfect at a festival I think), Cotton Jones... Plus the couple dozen I have never heard of that would probably go on to become next year's favorites.

You'd think that would be enough to do the trick. But I am greedy. And unreasonable.

I wanted Arcade Fire. I wanted Black Keys. I wanted Ween again.

The first indication that we might not go this year came with the announcement of headliner Foo Fighters. Not really in the same class as Ween ('10) - for me anyway. Meh. Then the big names kept coming and and more meh.
Death Cab. Decemberists. Bright Eyes. Modest mouse. These bands do not excite me.
Then there was the portapotties, the trash, the lack of any vegan food, the field mice...

Oh wait, then we thought about the fact that technically - I am a student. On the quarter system.

That means next week is exam week.

And how I have COMPREHENSIVE exams in two weeks. For the (blissfully) unaware, these are tests where you are expected to demonstrate everything that you learned in the first 2 years of your PhD education and you need to pass if you want to continue in the program. you have 96 hours to complete a set of four questions. You have 10 pages to answer each question. The dreaded comps are looming large.

Then I need to get ready to teach a brand spanking new class.

It's going to be intense.

So, yeah, if you were wondering, we aren't going to the festival this year. Does this mean I am a (kind of) grown up?

Probably not, since we decided to binge locally on the Sasquatch ripple effect. Cotton Jones tonight. Maybe Cotton Jones again Saturday. Back up to Portland for Head and the Heart and Iron & Wine (aforementioned).

And stay tuned for another post this weekend about last weekend. We went to the Ms. Whiteaker pageant! And we played poker! We stayed up til 4am listening to records! Who says I am grown up?