Great Falcon Ridge Recap 2007
Jul. 31st, 2007 01:34 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
jianantonicTrying to recap all that was great and wonderful about Falcon Ridge Folk Festival 2007 will be quite an undertaking, but I'm going to do my very best.
It all started with a detour through Philly to see Slaid Cleaves on Wednesday night. The show was great, the venue was pretty rad, and the parking ticket we got was a slap in the face. We'd asked in a restaurant how late they monitored the parking meters and we were told until 8pm. We paid the thing through 8 o'clock and went in to enjoy some sad songs. When we came back, we'd been ticked, with a time stamp on the ticket of 8:08. Bastards. The only way to contest the thing is to set up a court date, which would certainly cost more than the $26 ticket, so it won't be done, but I am annoyed at this. Bastard coated bastards with bastard filling.
But it was just a wee damper on an otherwise totally bitchin' vacation. We stopped over in Jersey for the night at what has got to be the dumpiest hotel in the history of the world. Camping for the next three nights was a total breeze compared to that place.![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
mczen's former roommate and heteromanlover Dave was in Jersey on business, so we took a slight detour to join him for breakfast on Thursday. He seemed cool and I can see why Z is so crazy about the guy. On our way out, Z showed me his feminine side and cried all the way out of Jersey to leave his friend. Please note I am not mocking him for this. There are plenty of things I do mock him for, but this, this is sweet, and that is why I mention it.
We arrived at the fest with a few hours before festivities officially began, so we set up our tent and other things and then took a short walk around the site. We were out and about in the sun for no more than one hour, and by the time we got back to camp, I was redder than an embarrassed tomato (cause you know, it'd be even redder then). This was annoying, because I've spent a lot of time outdoors this summer already, and I've always been white as a frightened ghost (same concept as the tomato). Last year at FRFF, I was outdoors the whole week without a drop of sunscreen and neither tanned nor burned. This year, I spend 45 unprotected minutes in the sun and get totally fried. I was in a good deal of pain from this for the rest of the weekend, which was obnoxious, but I've got a bitchin' tan now, which is something I haven't been able to accomplish since I was about 13. Not sure it was worth the pain, though.
On Thursday, Z and I spent most of our time just hanging out, catching up with people at camp, and browsing the various vendors in town. (Shantytown(e)=our collection of tents; town=where all the vendors are on the site; the big city=Great Barrington, the nearest sign of civilization away from the farm.) We moseyed past the mainstage as the Glengarry Bhoys were rocking the bagpipes and decided to stay for the rest of their set, which kicked ass. They were Discovery #1 of the festival this year for me.
Oh I skipped the Budgiedome. So...I went for the first time this year. I'm not much of a late night person, and when I am up late, it's because I'm hanging back at camp participating in song circles or drinking or some combination of the two. So I've never done the Budgiedome thing, which is an after-hours setup where musicians come to jam well into the next morning. But anyway they also had pre-fest music this year, so I went up there to catch the Strangelings on Thursday afternoon. They rocked. There's an ongoing debate between Kerry and me as to whether or not Meredith Thompson is in the band. I realize that she started out in the band, but she recently popped out a shorty and has been on maternity leave since. But is that leave from The Strangelings, or from the duo she and her sister have? If you read the liner notes for the Strangelings' CD, it seems to indicate that she's not in the group anymore. Anyway. Budgiedome was fun, glad to say I did it, I just wish I didn't usually have to choose between it and prime hangout time at camp each night. My fellow campers are fucking awesome, and I cherish the time we have to shoot the shit each night.
We saw some other shows that night, too, but they all kind of swim together as to what we saw when...basically the music was awesome and that's a given, so I won't go into great detail about it. Favorites this year were pretty much what I'd expected - Stephen Kellogg and the Sixers were probably my favorite of all, though. They made a STRONG case for an invitation back next year, even though I don't think anyone at the fest believed they were "folk." :) I ran into Goose and Stephen at the merch tent just as I was buying their CD, so we talked for a while. They're pretty rad dudes. Goose is my new sorta-famous person crush.
On Friday the rains came, as is the tradition, but they held out long enough for us to see everything we'd planned to, and nothing flooded this year. And it cooled everything down for the next two days, so that was lovely. My one complaint about the fest is that it's just so fucking hot all the time. But this year was by far the best, weatherwise.
Saturday was stacked with goodness. I spent more time at the stages on Saturday than any other day, but also feel like I did more hanging out at camp, too. I guess that's cause I was up from 5am until 2am the next night. I'd promised Kerry I'd do the tarp run on Saturday morning, since he'd done it the previous days. I'd never done a tarp run before, and I was seriously freaked out. You hear horror stories...but I lucked out. It was still raining when I got up on Saturday, so I guess there were fewer people waiting for the whistle that morning than usual. Cliff came down from our camp just in time to help me, and I allied with a few folks in line to get a pretty sweet spot. All in all, I'd say my first tarp run was a success, but the palpitations didn't stop for several hours. ;)
John from camp went into town and picked up a bottle of Fighting Cock bourbon, and from then on it became a running joke in the camp that we all love the cock. "Want some cock?" "Pass the cock over here!" "I need the cock!" "Mmm, that's good cock!" "Meg loves the cock." And I do. That shit was good. We literally passed the bottle around camp over the next day and a half, making the same cock jokes every time, and taking silly pictures of ourselves nursing the cock, which I will post as soon as someone sends me one of them. This year, the crucial things that I forgot to take were tent stakes (no problem - borrowed some extras) and my camera. Dang.
Jason arrived on Saturday morning, and during one of our breaks, he taught me and Z a new card game. It's one of those games that's probably about 50/50 luck/skill, except that once you've had one bad hand or round, it's really fucking hard to pull yourself out of the hole (like Asshole), and of course, I was losing miserably. I was also drinking, and drinking brings out the effs in my vocabulary, so I was cussing up a storm every time a new card was played. It's a good thing Olivia, token camp child, wasn't there this year...though I did miss her. Lots of familiar faces were MIA this year, and I just want to take this moment to say that I missed you all, and even though I had a rockin' time, I'm sure it would've been even rockin'er if y'all'd been there.
So anyway we're playing cards and I'm screaming obscenities, and Shelly is just appalled at my pottymouth. When I first started coming to FRFF, I was but 20 years old, and I didn't drink at all...such a goody two shoes...I think some folks have been surprised at my transition. Several people said things like "Remember back when Meg didn't drink? Ha!" Truth be told, I never drank until I was 21, and even now it's only very occasionally, it's just that there were lots of occasions this past weekend. So Shelly christened me with a new nickname, which I tweaked slightly. The end result was that she and a few others from camp referred to me for the rest of the week as "Margaret Beth Fucking Shame On You Massie Taylor!" When I was in middle school and I would do something deplorable, I was always getting "Megged," so I made my friends come up with a new name to call me if they were going to scold me. They came up with "Margie," which was cute and I enjoyed, but I think MBFSoYMT has much more flair.
Saturday we had our traditional party with the band, attended by all 4 performing members of EFO (but not Soundguy Bob this year), Dan Navarro of Lowen & Navarro, Annie Wenz, and Eric Schwartz via satellite. The party was one of our best, thanks to the efforts ofphantomsmom, the fully/over stocked bar, and the solar powered electricity that lit up our camp through the night, thanks to epheremelda and natertots. Being the old lady loser that I am, I went to bed before anyone else, but not before leaving Kerry with an assignment. I never did find out - is Dan related to Dave? I guess I can go on wikipedia and find out easily enough.
That reminds me of "Dave gets trashed." So, um, being from Charlottesville, I've never heard anyone ever say anything bad about Dave Matthews, ever. It's like sacrilege around here (he's from here, and apart from being a musician that most people here love, he's a major philanthropist and he's done a lot for the ville). So imagine my surprise when conversation in camp turns to Dave Matthews and everyone starts hating! Now, I'm no megafan - I haven't even bought an album since "Crash," but still, I've never heard of anyone who was less than neutral on the guy, and it was a surreal experience for me. I explained to everyone why my eyes were bugging out so much, and the conversation went like this:
Meg: He's from my hometown, and people there just love the guy. You never hear a bad word spoken about him. It just doesn't happen.
John: Wait, where are you from?
Meg: Charlottesville, VA.
John: Isn't Dave from Chapel Hill?
Meg: FUCK YOU!
I didn't mean for it to go like that...I'd had a lot of cock that day. But I think generally everyone was amused at my take on the situation, and I was awestruck at these sounds I'd never heard before, the sounds of DMB hate. I apologized to John several times throughout the rest of the weekend. He looked so shocked when I said that. But I'd much rather Cville be known for Dave than those crazy Wahoos.
Have I covered everything? Regardless, my lunch break is over by now, so I guess that'll have to be all for now anyway. Peace and love and all that. I'll post pictures if anyone sends me any.
Peace.
It all started with a detour through Philly to see Slaid Cleaves on Wednesday night. The show was great, the venue was pretty rad, and the parking ticket we got was a slap in the face. We'd asked in a restaurant how late they monitored the parking meters and we were told until 8pm. We paid the thing through 8 o'clock and went in to enjoy some sad songs. When we came back, we'd been ticked, with a time stamp on the ticket of 8:08. Bastards. The only way to contest the thing is to set up a court date, which would certainly cost more than the $26 ticket, so it won't be done, but I am annoyed at this. Bastard coated bastards with bastard filling.
But it was just a wee damper on an otherwise totally bitchin' vacation. We stopped over in Jersey for the night at what has got to be the dumpiest hotel in the history of the world. Camping for the next three nights was a total breeze compared to that place.
mczen's former roommate and heteromanlover Dave was in Jersey on business, so we took a slight detour to join him for breakfast on Thursday. He seemed cool and I can see why Z is so crazy about the guy. On our way out, Z showed me his feminine side and cried all the way out of Jersey to leave his friend. Please note I am not mocking him for this. There are plenty of things I do mock him for, but this, this is sweet, and that is why I mention it.We arrived at the fest with a few hours before festivities officially began, so we set up our tent and other things and then took a short walk around the site. We were out and about in the sun for no more than one hour, and by the time we got back to camp, I was redder than an embarrassed tomato (cause you know, it'd be even redder then). This was annoying, because I've spent a lot of time outdoors this summer already, and I've always been white as a frightened ghost (same concept as the tomato). Last year at FRFF, I was outdoors the whole week without a drop of sunscreen and neither tanned nor burned. This year, I spend 45 unprotected minutes in the sun and get totally fried. I was in a good deal of pain from this for the rest of the weekend, which was obnoxious, but I've got a bitchin' tan now, which is something I haven't been able to accomplish since I was about 13. Not sure it was worth the pain, though.
On Thursday, Z and I spent most of our time just hanging out, catching up with people at camp, and browsing the various vendors in town. (Shantytown(e)=our collection of tents; town=where all the vendors are on the site; the big city=Great Barrington, the nearest sign of civilization away from the farm.) We moseyed past the mainstage as the Glengarry Bhoys were rocking the bagpipes and decided to stay for the rest of their set, which kicked ass. They were Discovery #1 of the festival this year for me.
Oh I skipped the Budgiedome. So...I went for the first time this year. I'm not much of a late night person, and when I am up late, it's because I'm hanging back at camp participating in song circles or drinking or some combination of the two. So I've never done the Budgiedome thing, which is an after-hours setup where musicians come to jam well into the next morning. But anyway they also had pre-fest music this year, so I went up there to catch the Strangelings on Thursday afternoon. They rocked. There's an ongoing debate between Kerry and me as to whether or not Meredith Thompson is in the band. I realize that she started out in the band, but she recently popped out a shorty and has been on maternity leave since. But is that leave from The Strangelings, or from the duo she and her sister have? If you read the liner notes for the Strangelings' CD, it seems to indicate that she's not in the group anymore. Anyway. Budgiedome was fun, glad to say I did it, I just wish I didn't usually have to choose between it and prime hangout time at camp each night. My fellow campers are fucking awesome, and I cherish the time we have to shoot the shit each night.
We saw some other shows that night, too, but they all kind of swim together as to what we saw when...basically the music was awesome and that's a given, so I won't go into great detail about it. Favorites this year were pretty much what I'd expected - Stephen Kellogg and the Sixers were probably my favorite of all, though. They made a STRONG case for an invitation back next year, even though I don't think anyone at the fest believed they were "folk." :) I ran into Goose and Stephen at the merch tent just as I was buying their CD, so we talked for a while. They're pretty rad dudes. Goose is my new sorta-famous person crush.
On Friday the rains came, as is the tradition, but they held out long enough for us to see everything we'd planned to, and nothing flooded this year. And it cooled everything down for the next two days, so that was lovely. My one complaint about the fest is that it's just so fucking hot all the time. But this year was by far the best, weatherwise.
Saturday was stacked with goodness. I spent more time at the stages on Saturday than any other day, but also feel like I did more hanging out at camp, too. I guess that's cause I was up from 5am until 2am the next night. I'd promised Kerry I'd do the tarp run on Saturday morning, since he'd done it the previous days. I'd never done a tarp run before, and I was seriously freaked out. You hear horror stories...but I lucked out. It was still raining when I got up on Saturday, so I guess there were fewer people waiting for the whistle that morning than usual. Cliff came down from our camp just in time to help me, and I allied with a few folks in line to get a pretty sweet spot. All in all, I'd say my first tarp run was a success, but the palpitations didn't stop for several hours. ;)
John from camp went into town and picked up a bottle of Fighting Cock bourbon, and from then on it became a running joke in the camp that we all love the cock. "Want some cock?" "Pass the cock over here!" "I need the cock!" "Mmm, that's good cock!" "Meg loves the cock." And I do. That shit was good. We literally passed the bottle around camp over the next day and a half, making the same cock jokes every time, and taking silly pictures of ourselves nursing the cock, which I will post as soon as someone sends me one of them. This year, the crucial things that I forgot to take were tent stakes (no problem - borrowed some extras) and my camera. Dang.
Jason arrived on Saturday morning, and during one of our breaks, he taught me and Z a new card game. It's one of those games that's probably about 50/50 luck/skill, except that once you've had one bad hand or round, it's really fucking hard to pull yourself out of the hole (like Asshole), and of course, I was losing miserably. I was also drinking, and drinking brings out the effs in my vocabulary, so I was cussing up a storm every time a new card was played. It's a good thing Olivia, token camp child, wasn't there this year...though I did miss her. Lots of familiar faces were MIA this year, and I just want to take this moment to say that I missed you all, and even though I had a rockin' time, I'm sure it would've been even rockin'er if y'all'd been there.
So anyway we're playing cards and I'm screaming obscenities, and Shelly is just appalled at my pottymouth. When I first started coming to FRFF, I was but 20 years old, and I didn't drink at all...such a goody two shoes...I think some folks have been surprised at my transition. Several people said things like "Remember back when Meg didn't drink? Ha!" Truth be told, I never drank until I was 21, and even now it's only very occasionally, it's just that there were lots of occasions this past weekend. So Shelly christened me with a new nickname, which I tweaked slightly. The end result was that she and a few others from camp referred to me for the rest of the week as "Margaret Beth Fucking Shame On You Massie Taylor!" When I was in middle school and I would do something deplorable, I was always getting "Megged," so I made my friends come up with a new name to call me if they were going to scold me. They came up with "Margie," which was cute and I enjoyed, but I think MBFSoYMT has much more flair.
Saturday we had our traditional party with the band, attended by all 4 performing members of EFO (but not Soundguy Bob this year), Dan Navarro of Lowen & Navarro, Annie Wenz, and Eric Schwartz via satellite. The party was one of our best, thanks to the efforts of
phantomsmom, the fully/over stocked bar, and the solar powered electricity that lit up our camp through the night, thanks to epheremelda and natertots. Being the old lady loser that I am, I went to bed before anyone else, but not before leaving Kerry with an assignment. I never did find out - is Dan related to Dave? I guess I can go on wikipedia and find out easily enough.That reminds me of "Dave gets trashed." So, um, being from Charlottesville, I've never heard anyone ever say anything bad about Dave Matthews, ever. It's like sacrilege around here (he's from here, and apart from being a musician that most people here love, he's a major philanthropist and he's done a lot for the ville). So imagine my surprise when conversation in camp turns to Dave Matthews and everyone starts hating! Now, I'm no megafan - I haven't even bought an album since "Crash," but still, I've never heard of anyone who was less than neutral on the guy, and it was a surreal experience for me. I explained to everyone why my eyes were bugging out so much, and the conversation went like this:
Meg: He's from my hometown, and people there just love the guy. You never hear a bad word spoken about him. It just doesn't happen.
John: Wait, where are you from?
Meg: Charlottesville, VA.
John: Isn't Dave from Chapel Hill?
Meg: FUCK YOU!
I didn't mean for it to go like that...I'd had a lot of cock that day. But I think generally everyone was amused at my take on the situation, and I was awestruck at these sounds I'd never heard before, the sounds of DMB hate. I apologized to John several times throughout the rest of the weekend. He looked so shocked when I said that. But I'd much rather Cville be known for Dave than those crazy Wahoos.
Have I covered everything? Regardless, my lunch break is over by now, so I guess that'll have to be all for now anyway. Peace and love and all that. I'll post pictures if anyone sends me any.
Peace.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2007-07-31 06:32 pm (UTC)I totally missed the cock thing. Where the hell was I?
It was great hanging with you as well!
no subject
Date: 2007-07-31 06:34 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-07-31 06:34 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-07-31 06:46 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-08-03 11:37 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-07-31 07:03 pm (UTC)Ah, the Goose is the king of random conversations. One night we had a 20 minute discussion about Ipod light (shuffle) and Ipod heavy (all the others).
If you can't dance in your underpants then you don't stand a chance.
no subject
Date: 2007-07-31 11:40 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-08-01 02:42 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-08-01 03:04 am (UTC)And don't forget Bill's blowing of the mouth organ. ;)
no subject
Date: 2007-08-01 03:53 am (UTC)I could sure go for a big mouthful of cock right now!