well, voodoo day 1 was unfortunately not all it could have been. vince called this afternoon and said he had to sell his ticket because of some stuff with his job, someone not coming in, so he had to cover…something. jacob and i still got there early and it was pretty fun. we walked around the grounds to get a feel for the area, where the stages were, etc. we were hassled by some people trying to save the world by sending a text message. oh, and they wanted us to give them $20 so they could give us a t-shirt. we passed. music wise, we saw the hot 8 brass band, who were great. we walked around some more to kill time since the main people we wanted to see (kings of leon and rage) weren’t till later.
we saw the witch king from LOTR. by that i mean a guy dressed in black with a witch king mask walking around on stilts. i’m still not sure if he was with the festival people or he was just some random guy walking around on stilts. he came in the tent during the hot 8 and walked through the crowd. my first thought was how hard i’d have to kick a stilt for him to topple over. i still don’t understand why he was there.
after black rebel motorcycle club came on, we realized neither of us were into them, so we went over to this bingo tent stage (still no idea why it was called that) to see a band called lez zepplin. it’s an all female Zepplin cover band, and they were GREAT! i had no idea they were all female until they walked out on stage. we stayed for about half of their set, then headed back over to the main stage to get a spot for KOL. they came on a couple of minutes late, but they were once again awesome. we were standing in an area of people unfamiliar with KOL, so we may or may not have stuck out as we moved to the music and sang the songs. their loss though! the KOL set was great, and each time jacob or i mentioned a song we’d like to hear, they played it almost as if they heard us, so we heard all the favorites. after KOL finished, the nearby 2nd stage had a hip hop group called MIA. they sucked. thus began the near hour and a half long wait for Rage…
they were slated to come on at 9:10, but they didn’t actually come on till 9:27. thanks for making us wait! by then the crowd area had gotten full up, and it was crazy. people as far as you could see in front and behind. before the band even came out, we got to see a fight, so that was cool. with that many people, security can’t be everywhere, so it was amazing their friends actually stopped the fight. most people like me, wanted to see a fight. the lights went down and Rage came out. their show was typical, and by typical i mean the most intense band performing i’ve ever seen. the political rant came as expected during Wake Up. we were standing in an area of people who were not all about the commie propaganda stuff usually associated with rage (like say the Che t-shirts, how many people actually know who he is and wear the shirt?), so it was funny to yell out things like “please….tell us what books we should read!” the rant was something about katrina and how we should fight to rebuild, and something about the evil people in DC. whatever. as they sang the finale, Killing in the Name, i know at least i was singing the final part of the song AT the band. they had shirts on sale for $25 using the same graphic design from the 1999 tour. wtf? eight years and that’s the best they can come up with?
so the first day of voodoo was good, and the politics from rage weren’t as bad as we thought. there was gorgeous weather too, but the grounds are going to need some work because there was some mud already today, so i hope the organizers fix up the ground so it’s not a mud bog by sunday.
and we’re now marked for the weekend with the weekend wristbands. more to come tomorrow and Sunday.
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