Metal Lungies

After much anticipation, partially based on HM’s 2006 experience, the 2007 Virgin Festival finally rolled around. While we weren’t able to check out all the acts that we would’ve liked (not humanly possible), we did get a well rounded experience. So here is a roundup of what we saw and my personal thumbs up & thumbs down rundown.

Day 1:

Amy Winehouse- Great voice live, great backing band…but putting some energy into your perfomance to make it look like you weren’t already thinking about playing Lollapalooza the next night would’ve gone a long way.

Incubus- A band I used to really like reminded me that I’ve been neglecting them for too long. Came out with great energy, the guitar riff from Anna-Molly is still stuck in my head. Small note: I’m on the fence about Brandon Boyd’s instrumental talents.

Ben Harper-Very talented musician, that would probably be better suited to play at a peace rally, or somewhere you can sit down and close your eyes.

LCD Soundsystem- One of the, if not the single most fun act of the 2 days. If you like cowbell and all sorts of crazy bells the south stage with LCD was the place to be. Randomness was to be expected when James Murphy, the singer/creater of LCD kept reminding us that the guiatirst was Phil. We almost didn’t want to leave early to go see:

Beastie Boys!?!!- Beastie Boys brought the righteous business in their suits (despite the 100 degree temps) when they hit the stage. Clearly not forgetting their beginnings as a band nearly 30 years ago, the Beasties came out as full band, everyone with an instrument in hand. When the instruments weren’t being used Mixmaster Mike lived up to his name by seemlessly switching up the beat on Beastie’s classics (Brass Monkey to No Sleep Til Brooklyn) using everything from Jim Jones’-Ballin, DJ Premier’s Nike Cut-Timeless, to DMX’s-Where The Hood At. This forced me to add seeing a Mixmaster Mike DJ Set on my ‘Must Do List’. In between songs the Beasties played songs off their new instrumental album, The Mix-Up, which I just viewed as interludes. To conclude their set, seeing Sabotage perfomed by the Beasties as a band was simply thunderous.

The Police- Everything went as expected, The Police didn’t do anything to improve or disprove their Legendary status. Belting out most of their greatest hits Sting seemed a little reserved but showed he has pretty good vocals despite his age. Stewart Copeland was no slouch either cleverly utilizing a gong and cymbals on his brief solo. The few baby boomers in attendance were happy as can be.

Day 2:

Matisyahu- Surprisingly tied with that other act we kinda wanted to see later on for best of the day. On a musical level his sound was very rich and polished. If Winehouse showed 5% of Matisyahu’s energy she would’ve been a ton more enjoyable.

Dieselboy & Andy C (with MC GQ & MC Messinian)-2 DJ’s & 2 MC’s? Wowawaweewaw. This stop in the Dance tent was completely unplanned but we got hit with some redonkulous shit. I never knew a house act could kick so much ass, everyone in the whole tent was jumping, sreaming, yelling “Hell Yeah” for a good hour and a half. Biggest workout & surprise at the festival by far.

Bad Brains-No comment, I never can get a good read on Hardcore.

Wu-Tang Clan- Based on the Crowd Reaction you might have thought you ended up at a Rage Against the Machine show. No, I’m not mailing it in but WaPo summed it up pretty well.

Crystal Method- We only caught the last third of their set but it didn’t disappoint. Since it was a DJ Set, remixes of Killing In The Name of & Smack My Bitch Up were definite highlights.

——

Based on everything the ML best single performance award would go to the Beasties Boys.

Here is some of what we missed, in photo form:

Cheap Trick

CSS

Smashing Pumkins

311

Velvet Revolver

All above Photos courtesy of Virgin Mobile USA.

Thumbs Up to:

• Sir Richard Bronson not being too cool to mingle with the regular folk(See Flickr Photos)
• Introduction of the term ‘Yank Yank’ by a scalper outside the racetrack.
• Drunk guy running away from security and not heading towards the exit but running on the race track, sadly for entertainment purposes he lost steam and was tackled by 4 big security dudes (see Flickr).
• Dieselboy & Andy c, still can’t get over that shit.
• Nice MTA employees.
• The true wu-tang fan, who risked their health to rock with the Wu.
• Clouds & and 10 degree weather downshifts are clutch.
• Festival security during performances was executed pretty well for such a large event.
• Graffiti display. Any Graf love is good love.
• Velvet revolver rocking very loudly. Even though I saw them for about 20secs they seemed to have the loudest sound out of all the acts during the 2 days.
• nh, but nuetrogena cooling suncscreen spray should be in your summer festival kit.
• After name dropping a bunch of municipalities & cities, Ad-Rock response to some fan “he said fuck laurel!”
• Method Man: “You have been the livest rock the bells tour stop so far” cutting off Meth, RZA: Nah, Verizon mobile festival (verbatim) as Branson looked on.
• My bowel movements so Bathroom needed to be used only once for a #1, and not a portajohn, pretty painless.
• Ad Rock hyping up The Police.
• Ad Rock after goofing on a song “listen to it on the album it’s a good one”, no one can play it cool like the beasites.

Thumbs Down to:

• Clueless police officers “Your feet are your shuttle to the metro”, security guards too.
• Brown q-tips after cleaning ears after both nights. L
• Little girls in the middle of a Wu-tang concert, some heavy set woman brought in a 3 year old right in to the front of the madness when you couldnt breathe, only to try to get out in a panic 10 minutes later.
• Rain esp. a race track, think mud ala woodstock.
• Free monster energy, not even good at free ninety nine.
• The douchebag wu-tang fan that just want to go nuts and can name about 2 wu memebers.
• Toe pain in flip flops mostly due to the above.
• Blown up condoms, beach balls, toilet paper, amusing the first time then it gets annoying.
• Any MALE seeing panic at the disco, what boy bands are in 2007 in my opinion.
• Missing Girl Talk & 311 each for the 2nd time in my life.

Click the following picture to peep my personal festival photo stream (click on the right photo on the right side in flickr to go the next photo, right?!!):

Next stay tuned for Buhizzle’s report on the white masses gathering for the San Bernardino stop of Rock the Bells.

For more post-concert coverage from the “pros” head to http://blog.washingtonpost.com/virgin-festival/

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