Sunday, July 13, 2008

2010, watch it go to fire

all in all, i had a great weekend at the subpop anniversary festival (pictures and highlights tomorrow), but right now i am going to vent. what good is your blog if you can't complain on it?

as much as i love seattle, i hate the fact that buses are the only form of public transportation (well, and monorails and streetcars that go basically nowhere). having said that, i take the bus practically everywhere - not because it's always convenient, but because i hate driving and think that supporting mass transit is really important (as is not giving my hard-earned money to greedy oil or parking companies). i left the show tonight right after green river (and they are the reason for my next complaint.. hold on a sec) and just missed the 545 to seattle. instead of waiting an hour for the next one, i decided to take a bus to the bellevue transit center, which means that i got a wonderful tour of pretty much all the bus stops between redmond and bellevue. it was almost as fun as ride the ducks. every time i go to another city- boston, portland, san francisco, even LA - i am amazed by how relatively easy it is to get around with just a map and a rudimentary knowledge of the transit system. you go to a train stop and one is there within 5-10 minutes. that must be too simple for seattle. it's not even the city's fault entirely, the blame also lies with a short-sighted public that would rather fund roads than mass transit.

(if you're reading this and you live in seattle, please don't stop riding the bus. but keep making noise for better transportation options)

ok, so on to number two. stupid me somehow thought that it would be a good idea to get a spot towards the front for green river. about ten minutes before they started, it suddenly dawned on me that i probably really didn't want to be that close, but by that time there was a crush of people at the front and no way to get out. i don't think i've ever actually seen a mosh pit up close before. or touched crowd surfers before either. both are things i'm looking forward to never experiencing again. why grown people think that it's fun to smash into each other like idiots is beyond me. i was so focused on trying to stay upright and away from that craziness that i couldn't even enjoy the band at all. it's like a whole crowd of preschoolers gone mad. does anyone actually enjoy that? why??

but the worst part was at the end of the show. honestly, i thought to myself, "thank god, i'm still alive and now i can get out of here." but, no. someone from the stage started throwing shirts at the audience and people went insane diving for them. i had almost gotten through the crowd when a bunch of shirts came sailing over my head and a lot of people went for them at once causing everyone around me to fall down on the ground. i know it sounds stupid now, but i can't remember the last time i was that scared. for a split second, i thought that if i fell, people would step on me and i would die.

i have often wondered why, as a musician, you would continue playing when you see people basically trying to kill each other in your audience. i don't get it. does acting like an idiot somehow heighten your enjoyment of the music? and then to egg that behavior on by throwing things into the crowd for people to fight over... the whole thing just leaves me with a bad taste in my mouth. thank goodness people don't do that dumb stuff at pearl jam shows any more.

so that i can go to bed on a lighter note, i think the funniest moment for me was on saturday when the guy from iron and wine (who i only knew from his cover of such great heights, but who i really loved) actually started playing free bird when someone requested it.

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