Tuesday, October 31, 2006
Vegoose = Halloween in Vegas
Friday after work I took a TRAIN to O'Hare and caught a PLANE to Las Vegas where my friend Jeremey picked me up in his AUTOMOBILE.
We went down to Jean, NV where he used to work at a place called Nevada Landing, picked up his fiance Rebecca and they dropped me off at the Luxor, where I was meeting my Michigan friends whom I would attend the Vegoose Festival with.
My friends had been in Vegas for days, I was the "in late and out early" cat of our gang. They were all having fun at the Keller Williams show at Mandalay Bay so I wandered around playing the slot machines waiting for the show to end.
It's always 420 somewhere.. see?
I saw this and thought of Sarah Y. so I had to take a pic...
I hooked up with them and we wandered around a little bit. I didn't stay out long, I was wiped out already and we had 2 long days at the festival in the hot desert sun to deal with the next morning.
Saturday started off with Gomez playing the Jokers Wild Stage just after noon. I love me some Gomez. The singers voice is high, yet raspy and the other guys are really tight. I have seem them a few times, yet I don't own any albums. They were a perfect beginning to usher in this years Vegoose.
After Gomez, I opted to stay at the stage because we weren't far back and people always move after the show. I got up right up at the center of the front rail and camped out waiting for Medeski Martin and Wood to come on.
OK, I didn't camp out, I passed out. It was shady although the black metal left some mark on my face that my crew was making fun of me about for the rest of the day... I didn't care, that little bit of sleep was worth it.
The crew from the 313...I met Mark and Mark online in the early 1990s when we used to use BBSes to talk to people.. ON THE COMPUTER!! Now we travel the country together... who knew you could meet such cool folks online?
Medeski Martin and Wood had a special treat, they were playing with legendary Sax player Maceo Parker.. of Parliment and James Brown fame!
MMW are always awesome, this is about the 10th time I have seen them and every time it's just legendary.
After the jazz boys, it was time for some Rock N Roll with Jack White and his Raconteurs. I love me some Jack. I've been told he's been to my loft a few times, but it was long before I lived there. I hope he comes back to hang out damnit.
Up next I saw my first performance at the main stage, The Keller Williams Incident, which is of course, Keller Williams and The String Cheese Incident playing together. It's cool to see Keller with a backing band and even cooler when they are a great band!
..src="http://www.visualnoiz.com/images/Pals/Vegoose2006/Vegas_Vegoose_MarkGeralds.jpg">
We grooved to them for a while but then Mark Samp and I went to see Damian Marley. I don't have pics of Damian, but I danced a bit.
The Mars Volta were next. They did not impress me. I watched them for about half an hour and then went to see Jurassic 5.
It was a bit too crowded in that tent so we decided to go meet up with Mark G and Sarah who were watching the Black Crowes. I have seen the Crowes before so I thought I'd check out new bands, so when I ended up at their set, I was very happy because well.. they rule and I love them. I'm not sure why I thought Jurassic 5 would be more fun. I dig J5 and all but I have liked the Crowes since the early 90s... even after hiatus they sound phenomenal!!!
Saturday night ended with a great performance by Tom Petty. I had a blast watching him, but I will admit he was better at Bonnaroo, mostly because of Refugee, 'cause he brought out Stevie Nicks that night.
Sunday I took off on my own early, I was meeting an old Detroit film friend for breakfast/coffee. We had a great time catching up and she actually dropped me off at the festival so I could see my first set on time.
She's cute, but she's evil, check out her license plate.
My festival friends at the Luxor were oversleeping, etc. so if I hadn't of met Doris at New York New York I would have MISSED one of the best sets of the weekend... Band of Horses...
I had first heard about these guys earlier this year from Kim at UI. She knows good music.. I hung out with her at a bunch of shows.. she has pretty darn good taste. This band just impressed me over and over.. the album and the live performance must be experienced.. I highly recommend them.
The Snake Eyes stage next to where Band of Horses had finished was gearing up for Built To Spill to play. They started early so they couldn't use vocals or bass but once the actual start time came on they got the green light. I guess Jamie Lidell needed some piece and quiet to start his set in the nearby tent.. even though within 20 minutes they were rocking so loud I'm sure everyone in his tent left to come check out this stage!!
I left during the set to make sure I could get right up close for Galactic at the nearby Snake Eyes stage. My friends still hadn't arrived yet so it was very easy for met to get right up on that front rail again... I can get used to that! Front row center at shows may not SOUND the best but you can't beat the photo ops!
I had an awesome moment where they announced there were problems with the keyboard and it would take a few minutes to fix. I yelled "DRUM SOLO" to Stanton Moore and he shrugged and the guys in the band were like "oh yea.. drum solo??" and turned to him "he looked at me and laughed and went right into some freeform drumming that was just incredible.
Galactic was stellar as usual. We hippies love to dance ya know...
Mark Samp & Dan Boujoulian = BFF!
Jeremy Samp & The EVIL PUMPKIN!
The Samps are great, even if they get annoyed when I take pictures every 2 seconds.
We hit up the main stage again to catch the end tail of The Rhythm Devils w/ Mike Gordon.
The Rhythm Devils were the backbone of the Grateful Dead, so it was pretty much GD covers, with Phish's bassist Mike Gordon filling in the low end.
Then came Phil and Trey, which actually included John Medeski on keys and Mike Gordon on banjo and he also used Trey's guitar for some Back on the Train action.
Sarah was getting goofy by this point...
After the Devils, we went to the Snake Eyes stage to wait for the Roots to start. We got to listen to Ben Folds play the Jokers Wild stage while we waited.
I had to leave The Roots because the bass was vibrating my back, which was making my nerve thing get a whole lot worse. I wanted to go lie down in back but when I got there I could hear Jim James voice coming from the nearby Caberet Clubs tent and I had to go see him for a bit.
He played my favorite two My Morning Jacket songs just as I got there... I love this guys voice
At this point, the festival was done for us. The headliner, Widespread Panic aren't very good, so we left. It's kind of handy actually, they headline a few of the festivals and it makes it great for us to get out without much traffic.
We went back to the Luxor and then wandered to New York New York and then MGM. I went in early because I was gonna go hiking the next day and didn't want to be out till 5am.
Monday I woke up, took the rented van back with Jeremy Samp and we had a great breakfast at New York New York at a place called AMERICA. They have really good french toast, check it out sometime.
I was going to go swimming and wait for Jeremy Keenoy to pick me up to go on our adventure. He called WAY earlier than I was expecting and said he could grab me in a few minutes.. not a few hours.. because he was already on this side of town. So I nixed my swimming plans and he took me to the desert...
It's breathtaking to be around so much beauty. I am a big fan of geology.. had there not been so much chemistry involved, I would be a geologist today, but I hated all that mathmatics about crystal structures so I studied Journalism instead.. (which somehow changed to film.. they are both communications... ya know.)
My friends out on the west coast can not beleive I still live in the midwest. I understand why... yet I love the seasons too much to leave.
After our mountain adventure he took me to the airport and I fly back at midnight, getting into Chicago at about 8am, plenty of time to reboot my brain and get ready for work.
I can't wait to go back. I love me some VEGAS BABY!!!
We went down to Jean, NV where he used to work at a place called Nevada Landing, picked up his fiance Rebecca and they dropped me off at the Luxor, where I was meeting my Michigan friends whom I would attend the Vegoose Festival with.
My friends had been in Vegas for days, I was the "in late and out early" cat of our gang. They were all having fun at the Keller Williams show at Mandalay Bay so I wandered around playing the slot machines waiting for the show to end.
It's always 420 somewhere.. see?
I saw this and thought of Sarah Y. so I had to take a pic...
I hooked up with them and we wandered around a little bit. I didn't stay out long, I was wiped out already and we had 2 long days at the festival in the hot desert sun to deal with the next morning.
Saturday started off with Gomez playing the Jokers Wild Stage just after noon. I love me some Gomez. The singers voice is high, yet raspy and the other guys are really tight. I have seem them a few times, yet I don't own any albums. They were a perfect beginning to usher in this years Vegoose.
After Gomez, I opted to stay at the stage because we weren't far back and people always move after the show. I got up right up at the center of the front rail and camped out waiting for Medeski Martin and Wood to come on.
OK, I didn't camp out, I passed out. It was shady although the black metal left some mark on my face that my crew was making fun of me about for the rest of the day... I didn't care, that little bit of sleep was worth it.
The crew from the 313...I met Mark and Mark online in the early 1990s when we used to use BBSes to talk to people.. ON THE COMPUTER!! Now we travel the country together... who knew you could meet such cool folks online?
Medeski Martin and Wood had a special treat, they were playing with legendary Sax player Maceo Parker.. of Parliment and James Brown fame!
MMW are always awesome, this is about the 10th time I have seen them and every time it's just legendary.
After the jazz boys, it was time for some Rock N Roll with Jack White and his Raconteurs. I love me some Jack. I've been told he's been to my loft a few times, but it was long before I lived there. I hope he comes back to hang out damnit.
Up next I saw my first performance at the main stage, The Keller Williams Incident, which is of course, Keller Williams and The String Cheese Incident playing together. It's cool to see Keller with a backing band and even cooler when they are a great band!
..src="http://www.visualnoiz.com/images/Pals/Vegoose2006/Vegas_Vegoose_MarkGeralds.jpg">
We grooved to them for a while but then Mark Samp and I went to see Damian Marley. I don't have pics of Damian, but I danced a bit.
The Mars Volta were next. They did not impress me. I watched them for about half an hour and then went to see Jurassic 5.
It was a bit too crowded in that tent so we decided to go meet up with Mark G and Sarah who were watching the Black Crowes. I have seen the Crowes before so I thought I'd check out new bands, so when I ended up at their set, I was very happy because well.. they rule and I love them. I'm not sure why I thought Jurassic 5 would be more fun. I dig J5 and all but I have liked the Crowes since the early 90s... even after hiatus they sound phenomenal!!!
Saturday night ended with a great performance by Tom Petty. I had a blast watching him, but I will admit he was better at Bonnaroo, mostly because of Refugee, 'cause he brought out Stevie Nicks that night.
Sunday I took off on my own early, I was meeting an old Detroit film friend for breakfast/coffee. We had a great time catching up and she actually dropped me off at the festival so I could see my first set on time.
She's cute, but she's evil, check out her license plate.
My festival friends at the Luxor were oversleeping, etc. so if I hadn't of met Doris at New York New York I would have MISSED one of the best sets of the weekend... Band of Horses...
I had first heard about these guys earlier this year from Kim at UI. She knows good music.. I hung out with her at a bunch of shows.. she has pretty darn good taste. This band just impressed me over and over.. the album and the live performance must be experienced.. I highly recommend them.
The Snake Eyes stage next to where Band of Horses had finished was gearing up for Built To Spill to play. They started early so they couldn't use vocals or bass but once the actual start time came on they got the green light. I guess Jamie Lidell needed some piece and quiet to start his set in the nearby tent.. even though within 20 minutes they were rocking so loud I'm sure everyone in his tent left to come check out this stage!!
I left during the set to make sure I could get right up close for Galactic at the nearby Snake Eyes stage. My friends still hadn't arrived yet so it was very easy for met to get right up on that front rail again... I can get used to that! Front row center at shows may not SOUND the best but you can't beat the photo ops!
I had an awesome moment where they announced there were problems with the keyboard and it would take a few minutes to fix. I yelled "DRUM SOLO" to Stanton Moore and he shrugged and the guys in the band were like "oh yea.. drum solo??" and turned to him "he looked at me and laughed and went right into some freeform drumming that was just incredible.
Galactic was stellar as usual. We hippies love to dance ya know...
Mark Samp & Dan Boujoulian = BFF!
Jeremy Samp & The EVIL PUMPKIN!
The Samps are great, even if they get annoyed when I take pictures every 2 seconds.
We hit up the main stage again to catch the end tail of The Rhythm Devils w/ Mike Gordon.
The Rhythm Devils were the backbone of the Grateful Dead, so it was pretty much GD covers, with Phish's bassist Mike Gordon filling in the low end.
Then came Phil and Trey, which actually included John Medeski on keys and Mike Gordon on banjo and he also used Trey's guitar for some Back on the Train action.
Sarah was getting goofy by this point...
After the Devils, we went to the Snake Eyes stage to wait for the Roots to start. We got to listen to Ben Folds play the Jokers Wild stage while we waited.
I had to leave The Roots because the bass was vibrating my back, which was making my nerve thing get a whole lot worse. I wanted to go lie down in back but when I got there I could hear Jim James voice coming from the nearby Caberet Clubs tent and I had to go see him for a bit.
He played my favorite two My Morning Jacket songs just as I got there... I love this guys voice
At this point, the festival was done for us. The headliner, Widespread Panic aren't very good, so we left. It's kind of handy actually, they headline a few of the festivals and it makes it great for us to get out without much traffic.
We went back to the Luxor and then wandered to New York New York and then MGM. I went in early because I was gonna go hiking the next day and didn't want to be out till 5am.
Monday I woke up, took the rented van back with Jeremy Samp and we had a great breakfast at New York New York at a place called AMERICA. They have really good french toast, check it out sometime.
I was going to go swimming and wait for Jeremy Keenoy to pick me up to go on our adventure. He called WAY earlier than I was expecting and said he could grab me in a few minutes.. not a few hours.. because he was already on this side of town. So I nixed my swimming plans and he took me to the desert...
It's breathtaking to be around so much beauty. I am a big fan of geology.. had there not been so much chemistry involved, I would be a geologist today, but I hated all that mathmatics about crystal structures so I studied Journalism instead.. (which somehow changed to film.. they are both communications... ya know.)
My friends out on the west coast can not beleive I still live in the midwest. I understand why... yet I love the seasons too much to leave.
After our mountain adventure he took me to the airport and I fly back at midnight, getting into Chicago at about 8am, plenty of time to reboot my brain and get ready for work.
I can't wait to go back. I love me some VEGAS BABY!!!
