Bonnarood part third

Thursday.
We wake up around 4-5 in the morning, stow some of the gear we got out to sleep, and head over to the festival.

I think the timing was just right as we beat the BIG rush of people whose cars I believe were lined up on the side of the interstate. We left most of the drinks in a spare refrigerator at the manchester family's home and brought enough for about the first day. The car was a little less full since Chelsea left most of her stuff at the house.

We slowly follow the lines of cars as they filter through the entrances to be searched for contra-ban and the like. no hitches so far, nice. We get to the camping area and see all of the cars being directed to line up and set up their camp. We ask one of the volunteers what we should do if we want to do day-camping so that Chelsea can use the car. "Oh, just over there is fine." We head over to where all of the cars are parking/camping. I pull towards our designated space and start putting the pieces together. We have about 4 feet on either side of the car... 1 foot behind the car between us and another car, and a tent place in front of us... there is now way to get the car out of here without running over a bunch of hippies... ... ... I think... ... ... I think we are stuck. "Hey guys..." ... ... .... ...
Brandon goes with Chelsea to talk to some people about what we are supposed to do, but it is REALLY really too late... there are already 2 rows of cars behind us, 4 rows ahead of us, and 20-50 cars in either direction to the sides... we are stuck.

Looks like Chealsea's mom was right to be worried about her getting totally screwed.



Both Zach and I get out of the car, look at each other and shake our heads. Unless Brandon comes back with a crane the car isn't going going anywhere for 4 days.
We start setting camp knowing that the other two are going to come back pretty upset, but at this point there is absolutely nothing we can do about it. We get the tent set up when chelsea and brandon get back and surprise, they are upset. I can't blame them. We talk about it for a while and I am just waiting for it to set in that we can't do anything about it so let's just go forward from here with plan B. Everybody sleeps at the campsite and we try not to take advantage of poor Chelsea.

As we finish setting camp we can feel that it is going to be a hot, hot week.
Hot.

We talk to a couple people in the camps near us, just to be neighborly. We have come from further than anybody we have met so far.

um... we eventually head over to the festival's event entrance.



There are about 10 people waiting there, since there isn't much more to do.
we stay there for about 20 minutes and decide to walk around some more.

We walk around some more.

Time-warp!-> -> ->

It is time for them to open the entrance. Nice.
They open it up and there are more than 10 people waiting. It takes about 45 minutes to get from the point where we are standing in the picture to the archway/entrance.

There aren't as many things going on thursday, so we kind of walk around the place just chekcing out the various wares and boothes that are set up. I find the sweet spot of the entire place, The semi-airconditioned movie tent.

I am still feeling from the two days of driving that should have been 1 day of driving and 1 day of rest. This causes me to lose interest in all of the bands that I have never heard of (Backdoor slam, MGMT, The Sword) and spend a couple hours watching movie shorts that are pretty much boring. Yes, the earth doesn't do well when we abuse it... we get it already.

Brandon and Chelsea leave to see MGMT, I think, while Zach and I get ahold of passes to see the comedians of that day (Mike Birbiglia, Janeane Geraffalo, and Leo Allan).
As we wait int he line for the funny show, we are offered our first pipe of the festival. We are the only uncool people and pass... we are so lame.
Looking back I wish I could have had some for the third part of the show.

Leo was first, he was fairly funny but had some timing problems and I didn't feel like a very good continuity.Not much to talk about really... he had some really good punchlines and was fun to listen to... just not amazing.

Here we have me and Zach having a laff.

Mike Birbiglia (Whom I had never heard of before) was HIGH-larious! This guy is funny. Everybody was having a great time and he made a great impression on me.

Then Came out the star, Janeane... Oh lord, she isn't being funny at all? Everybody is still riding on the jollies from Mike B, and staring at her waiting for some punchlines... or something. Are these inside jokes, because they don't really sound like any kind of jokes. She jogs around the audience, maybe to try to wake herself up... it was pretty sad... nobody was laughing and there was a constant trickle/flow of people leaving... she was bad and she knew it.

C'mon Jeneane! just make fun of George bush and you'll be fine!! I wished I wished... she just rambled about random subjects from pain medication to having sex with a mentally retarded fireman...

At least it was out of the sun.

After the show we leave and get some lunch. Everywhere we go, if you stop and wait in a line you end up talking to everybody around you. There was a really, really friendly attitude during the entire festival. I can't remember seeing any sort of violence other than at the Kanye event (which I will cover later).

A lot of really cool people, as I expected, who were just excited to see a lot of really great performances. This energized me quite a bit and I felt like trying out some new band I hadn't heard of.. But then I ended up here.



Make new friends, but keep the old...
Walked around for a while longer listening to a single song here and there, but nothing special to report so far.

next thing you know it is getting dark, so walk back to the campsite to see if we can't link back up with brandon and chelsea.

We find them and head back to the events to see some sort of goth group, "Vampire Weekend". Not what I was expecting. They were really fun. I was dead tired already, drained from the sun and one really unfunny lady.

Vamp-weekend pumped me back up with one song, and I joined in with the swarm of people yelling and singing along with the band. Pretty cool.


A really fun band. They finished and we walked over to where Lez zeppelin had already started their set.

Yaaaayy...y.....oh. They really are just a mediocre lesbian themed coverband. Hmm. At least they seemed pretty mediocre live.
So we went back to camp.

We stayed outside and enjoyed the cool air. Promised no funny business to chelsea, and figured out a way to have padding enough on the ground for everybody to sleep soundly.

Day 1 complete, push start to continue.