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Pearl Jam was awesome. Purple Rain, Elderly Woman, Jeremy, Alive , Do the Evolution, Garden. Fuck that was a good show. St. Vincent was awesome but it was a dead crowd which we couldn’t understand because of how good the show was. I got to bs with Douglass about 20 minutes in the afternoon, so that was cool too. I gotta wake up but I’ll post some more later.
Post by blueslikehail on Sept 18, 2022 13:37:54 GMT -5
Another great day yesterday. We made it up for the end of Elle King. CWK were fine enough, seen them a couple times before and don't need to prioritize them in the future. No Hospital Beds was just rude. Crowded House was fun and Eddie V. came out to sing 2 songs and told a story about singing along to their records in his room at 13. Holy crap St. Vincent was great. What an artist and performer. Can't say a whole lot else, it was fantastic and everyone should go see her. GVF was good but not my thing ultimately. PJ was awesome. Yep, Do the Evolution and Purple Rain were highlights for me too. I was toooooo drunk by the end. The crowd was MASSIVE. VIP was packed and we left briefly to try and get some different food and it was crazy trying to move through the crowd and food lines were super long so we went back to the relatively shorter VIP lines. Looks like today will be a lot less crowded. A bunch of folks around us have already packed up and left.
Another great day yesterday. We made it up for the end of Elle King. CWK were fine enough, seen them a couple times before and don't need to prioritize them in the future. No Hospital Beds was just rude. Crowded House was fun and Eddie V. came out to sing 2 songs and told a story about singing along to their records in his room at 13. Holy crap St. Vincent was great. What an artist and performer. Can't say a whole lot else, it was fantastic and everyone should go see her. GVF was good but not my thing ultimately. PJ was awesome. Yep, Do the Evolution and Purple Rain were highlights for me too. I was toooooo drunk by the end. The crowd was MASSIVE. VIP was packed and we left briefly to try and get some different food and it was crazy trying to move through the crowd and food lines were super long so we went back to the relatively shorter VIP lines. Looks like today will be a lot less crowded. A bunch of folks around us have already packed up and left.
We had a blast today. I didn’t get in until about 4:30 EDT to go get my free Angels Envy Rye. Today wasn’t nothing so much for me but it’s whatever. Marcus King Band* was great. Voodoo Child was up there. He and his fiancé did Hey Now. Doobies was fun as shit. Black Water into Listen to the Music finale was fun. Stapleton was pretty good too but I didn’t get Metallica covers so I will withhold judgment until the future. Your boy likes Kentucky and met a million hip people. But I got to sign out for annihilated level shit. \m/
* edit i don’t know why I starred that shit but what’s up Greenville, SC?
Here's the wrap-up, music first. Sound was great for every set I saw except Reignwolf was super scratchy. I didn’t care since he’s usually got the distortion cranked up. They have side by side main stages, so you don’t have to wait long between shows. The food and bourbon stages were also side by side and much smaller. They would get some bleed from the main stages, but that was to be expected. There was also a bar type installation which featured some live bluegrass and then piped in music. I wanted to do a top ten, but I went in late Friday and Sunday so only caught a handful of acts each of those days. It’s chickenshit, but I came out with a 1A/1B/1C between Pearl Jam, Jack White and Brandi. It's not the best PJ set I ever saw, but I think it was my favorite Jack White. Brandi was Brandi, so these are very close.
1A. Pearl Jam 1B. Jack White 1C. Brandi 4. Jason Isbell & 400 Unit 5. Doobie Brothers 6. Alanis (I got one hand in my pocket…)
? St. Vincent
The rest:
Chris Stapleton was good, but I don’t really listen to country and don’t know any of his songs.
Caamp was more campy then when I saw them a few years ago. They did get in the first stanza of War Pigs which woke me up, but they should have played the whole song.
Always Sunny Podcast – That was in the bluegrass installation thing, but it was super packed and I couldn’t really understand what was all being said. I caught those guys earlier that day on stage with Chef Tiffani Faison helping her make porchetta and just taking swigs of whiskey and clowning. That was enjoyable
Greta Van Fleet – I couldn’t take this show seriously whatsoever. My middle kid digs them, but I was with my oldest son who does not and was not amused. I had seen them at ACL a while back and a concert at UNO that was actually pretty good. But he was in hater mode throwing an occasional heckle out there and just clowning the whole show. 4 different times he brought me to tears laughing, so even though there were some good rock parts, it was all coming off as a joke to me. The show started with the singer coming out in a one piece tight 70’s style rockstar outfit which outlined his small one which was annoying because 20% of the show was him on the big screens with the weenie sort of the middle of the shot. Between that and endless “what is this shit?” in my ear, I enjoyed being at the show for its comedy aspects if not the show itself. On the flip side, I had people tell me they liked that show a lot so it hit home for some.
Revivalists – Solid as ever. They’re never a band that I seek out or go to their concerts, but I always have a good time seeing them. I got love love love love love and Wish I Knew You were my highlights, but the whole set was fun. For some reason I saw a ton of people wearing Revivalists t-shirts this weekend.
Elle King was decent if nothing special. I could only ever remember seeing her on a stream. I dug Chainsmoking, Hard Drinking Woman. She also covered Charlie Daniels Band Long Haired Country Boy which was okay but hopefully ironic. Fuck him and his stupid shit, but he’s dead.
Father John Misty was alright. He came out kind of looking like a retro porn star so we weren’t sure if he was pulling schtick or if he’s changed his image. Band was competent though I expected more from the set than I got.
Shakey Graves was pretty good. I didn’t remember giving a shit last time I walked passed one of his sets, but he was sufficiently entertaining.
Japanese Breakfast was pretty decent. Seemed a little less pop and more jangly than what I’ve seen her do in the past. Nothing was great or very technical, but I appreciated the performance. I met her and her guitarist in the FJM crowd. She said it was her favorite lineup she ever played on and is a giant FJM fan.
Kings of Leon was alright. I stayed for the whole thing. It was a big show and mostly unmemorable for me except it sounded good watching it.
Lukas and POTR was also alright but sort of monotonous. No hate, but I saw him before and don’t probably need to see him again.
Marcus King Band – Energetic, rocked, a good time. I had actually forgot he was playing, so that was a treat when he came on not long after we walked in that afternoon. I had only ever watched him on streams but possibly remember him playing some of the Griz superjam at Bonnaroo.
Reignwolf was scratchy. He said he’s usually sleeping that time of the day. It was him with his guitar and kick drum and his drummer was also on this tour though he played on only about 60% of the songs. As usual, Reignwolf played behind his head, with his teeth, mike stands, while rolling on the stage, the drummer’s back, etc. He dedicated his last song to Pete Townshend ending by leaping onto his drummer, knocking him over with both of them crashing onto the stage together. Solid ending.
Shovels and Rope was kind of boring. I saw them once before so I knew it wasn’t really going to be much for me. It was okay, but they just don’t really ever seem to go anywhere live.
St. Vincent – This is the hardest one to write about. Sound was immaculate. The performance was fucking great but people just stared at her. Not many cheers or applause or anything at all. I know it was a rock crowd that night with Greta and Pearl Jam following her set. And she started off with Digital Witness, Down, Birth in Reverse and New York. So maybe people were thinking it was going to be a soft performance or whatever. She ended up playing a lot of guitar later on and did get some appreciation. But I just wasn’t understanding how more people there didn’t know her or were bewildered or whatever. It would have been my #4 show of the weekend had the crowd even not sucked just a little.
Festival Itself - Brisket Sliders @ Café 502 were good and the brick oven pizza was also pretty good. Lots of quality bourbon was available, but many of the cocktails were premixed. Luckily in Beyond we could get Angel’s Envy Rye with soda water, so I had my drink most of the weekend. They oversold what the specific installations were, but that didn’t mean they were bad or anything – just many of them overhyped for what was actually there. Like the “arcade” which had only 3 or 4 video game machines in it. Cell service got progressively worse each day as crowds filled in, so that kind of sucked. The grounds were fine and easy enough to navigate. The crowd was a late millennial into Gen X crowd which is on the older side/dad fest territory. If I had to characterize age, it would be halfway between ACL (which is an older crowd than most multi-genre fests) and Jazz Fest. So most of the people maybe between 35-50 with older and younger people there as well. It changed a little each day. Saturday, because Pearl Jam was playing, got packed. I talked to several people who were following them on a 3 night run (Nashville, Louisville, St. Louis). Someone said they were told it was the most sold day of B&B’s history. I have no idea if that’s true, but it was the most packed of the weekend. Sunday had more of a country crowd because of that day’s lineup. Not rednecks, more just older music fans of country. There was a decent sized police presence, but they weren’t really messing with anyone and several of them turned out to be pretty nice. I didn’t see any fights or anyone get arrested though there was one old guy who dropped out in the beer line yesterday and had to be wheeled off and a couple other people attended to – one of those was during Pearl Jam where they stopped the show to let the paramedics get to someone in the crowd. It probably cost us a song, but that’s the right thing to do. So hopefully that individual ended up okay whatever happened. I didn't feel like the fest was unique except for the emphasis on drinking bourbon which is a large plus for me.
Louisville – We came away with a very positive view on the city. Fleur De Lis were everywhere, so I was already happy about that. Most everyone we met was nice there too. We ate at the festival mostly, but we did get over to Grind Burgers. I didn’t realize until later but that was on an old Diners Drive-ins and Dives where the chef roasts her own veggies for vegetable burgers. I remember seeing the episode after the fact and would have gotten one of those if I could have remembered earlier. We tried to go to Mussels and Burgers, but they had a one hour wait. I had a great cocktail at a tasting we went to at Stitzel-Weller. We did a tour at Evan Williams. It was mostly a historical thing with lots of movies. But at the end it’s only Evan Williams. Finally we got to Peerless which was the distillery I enjoyed the most. That’s an actual working bourbon production facility. The tour was great. Upstairs you could see the yeast doing its work in the 6 tanks. Everything smelled of wood and bourbon and I was loving that. Tasting was good there too, so I bought a tshirt and a tin of bourbon smoked coarse black pepper. It smells wonderful, and we can’t wait to cook with it. My only knocks on Louisville are extremely minor. I assumed Uber/Lyft would be super easy. But with the festival in town as well as the people who came up for the FSU-Louisville football game, it was often impossible to get a driver. We saw scooters everywhere and some e-bikes. In hindsight, either having known about those or having checked out the bus service options, we wouldn’t have gotten stuck waiting a few times. There are a couple of spots down by the river where you can tell the sewer pipes are cracked as you’ll get smacked with a sewage smell randomly for like 3 steps walking on a block only to disappear - nothing major just notable. It's possible flow was just slow because it was dry and the river was super low as well. Otherwise, it was clean with trees and flowers everywhere. Also the lack of day eating options on the edge of downtown was kind of a pain. Trying to find an early open bar near the river distilleries was impossible. Not everyone wants a drink at noon, but we walked into Michter’s when it opened and it was already a 1 hour wait. I have no serious complaints and would go back to Louisville any time.
The one comedy aside was trying to figure out how to walk back to the hotel at nighttime. We went 0-2 until we got it right on Saturday. Thursday was insane because we thought we knew exactly where we were going. We ended up getting to what we thought was our hotel only to find one of our drunk friends sitting in the lobby proceeding to tell us, “what’s up? We’re at the wrong hotel.” The chances of both of us making the same exact mistake and ending up at the same wrong hotel on the other side of the grounds and airport was pretty slim. There are a dozen or so of them close by. But we got a laugh out of it. Shout out to LLL for some clutch late night food and alcohol and hanging out this weekend. Yo.
Post by LoveLuckLaughter on Sept 20, 2022 14:20:30 GMT -5
esteban Glad to see you made it back relatively unscathed.
1)Jack White. Fucking blew my mind. I wish I had dropped for that show. Made some great new friends. Rode a scooter around for a minute with one of them. Nearly went back to that hotel just so I could skinny dip in the pool.
2)Pearl Jam sang_xcx My first PJ Show! Did not disappoint, except the whole Spicy Pie I was trying to bring back to my boys was nearly smashed by bros trying to mosh in the outfield. Happy to see the enthusiasm tho. The camera did a close-up of someone else with an entire "I <3 Spicy Pie" pizza box and Eddie commented on it. "What is Spicy Pie?" So on my walk through the crowd to get out I was getting a bunch of folks yelling "SPICY PIE GIRL!!" I just hollered back "Spicy Pie here! As seen on TV!". I was a lil spun out for that show.
3) My girl St. Vincent. Low energy crowd for this fantastic show. Lame-os.
4)Alanis! Great nostalgia for this one. Made me feel like a 19 year old girl in angsty love again.
5) Jason Isbell. Never lets ya down with his shows.
esteban. Boo, you should fly out to Denver for the King Gizz show in 3 weeks. I'm grabbing the Airbnb today. I think we may have a cameo appearance by another Inforooer too.
We're all a mess of paradoxes. Believing in things we know can't be true. We walk around carrying feelings too complicated and contradictory to express. But when it all becomes too big, and words aren't enough to help get it all out, there's always music.
sang_xcx
Inforoo Influencer Efficient Sangry Panda
esteban Glad to see you made it back relatively unscathed.
1)Jack White. Fucking blew my mind. I wish I had dropped for that show. Made some great new friends. Rode a scooter around for a minute with one of them. Nearly went back to that hotel just so I could skinny dip in the pool.
2)Pearl Jam sang_xcx My first PJ Show! Did not disappoint, except the whole Spicy Pie I was trying to bring back to my boys was nearly smashed by bros trying to mosh in the outfield. Happy to see the enthusiasm tho. The camera did a close-up of someone else with an entire "I <3 Spicy Pie" pizza box and Eddie commented on it. "What is Spicy Pie?" So on my walk through the crowd to get out I was getting a bunch of folks yelling "SPICY PIE GIRL!!" I just hollered back "Spicy Pie here! As seen on TV!". I was a lil spun out for that show.
3) My girl St. Vincent. Low energy crowd for this fantastic show. Lame-os.
4)Alanis! Great nostalgia for this one. Made me feel like a 19 year old girl in angsty love again.
5) Jason Isbell. Never lets ya down with his shows.
esteban. Boo, you should fly out to Denver for the King Gizz show in 3 weeks. I'm grabbing the Airbnb today. I think we may have a cameo appearance by another Inforooer too.
Glad you enjoyed it. Who the fuck moshes to Pearl Jam?
esteban . Boo, you should fly out to Denver for the King Gizz show in 3 weeks. I'm grabbing the Airbnb today. I think we may have a cameo appearance by another Inforooer too.
I wish, and thank you! They're playing here in October as well. I got an in for that venue, but my daughter who knows them won't be back from Greece until the week before. She made me go with her the first time I saw them, so she is a fan. I just got too much shit going on and Christmas to deal with which I don't even have a penny on the side for at the moment. So except for a couple runs for mail in Florida, i can't do anything else for a while unless I hit the lottery. I'll be playing. But yeah, great shit. Glad you got home safely as well. We stopped in Birmingham at Hattie B's to grab some hot chicken for the second half of the ride. I wanted to hit Teddy up, but it was kind of spur of the moment and we weren't in town but for that stop off the highway. Also I wanted to stop in Nashville and hit Prince's on Druid's recommendation, but I was on the maze of interstates there and E was sleeping when the thought occurred to me. I think we made it back in about 7:30 so 10 hours with the stop, 3 gas stops and getting the hour back switching to Central Time. I knew the drive home was likely to suck. I pulled like 4 1/2, he woke up and got 3, then I got the last 2 and a half or so. Not terrible.
Glad y’all had a blast. Sorry that the crowd was lame for my girl Annie. The St Vincent crowd was super lit at Shaky Knees. We recently saw Jack White and that show ripped as well. Sad to have missed PJ , still need to see them. Chris Stapleton would be nice to catch sometime as well. Sad to have missed it but gotta budget for next year , we did way to much this year haha
esteban Glad to see you made it back relatively unscathed.
1)Jack White. Fucking blew my mind. I wish I had dropped for that show. Made some great new friends. Rode a scooter around for a minute with one of them. Nearly went back to that hotel just so I could skinny dip in the pool.
2)Pearl Jam sang_xcx My first PJ Show! Did not disappoint, except the whole Spicy Pie I was trying to bring back to my boys was nearly smashed by bros trying to mosh in the outfield. Happy to see the enthusiasm tho. The camera did a close-up of someone else with an entire "I <3 Spicy Pie" pizza box and Eddie commented on it. "What is Spicy Pie?" So on my walk through the crowd to get out I was getting a bunch of folks yelling "SPICY PIE GIRL!!" I just hollered back "Spicy Pie here! As seen on TV!". I was a lil spun out for that show.
3) My girl St. Vincent. Low energy crowd for this fantastic show. Lame-os.
4)Alanis! Great nostalgia for this one. Made me feel like a 19 year old girl in angsty love again.
5) Jason Isbell. Never lets ya down with his shows.
esteban. Boo, you should fly out to Denver for the King Gizz show in 3 weeks. I'm grabbing the Airbnb today. I think we may have a cameo appearance by another Inforooer too.
Glad you enjoyed it. Who the fuck moshes to Pearl Jam?
We're all a mess of paradoxes. Believing in things we know can't be true. We walk around carrying feelings too complicated and contradictory to express. But when it all becomes too big, and words aren't enough to help get it all out, there's always music.
esteban . Boo, you should fly out to Denver for the King Gizz show in 3 weeks. I'm grabbing the Airbnb today. I think we may have a cameo appearance by another Inforooer too.
I wish, and thank you! They're playing here in October as well. I got an in for that venue, but my daughter who knows them won't be back from Greece until the week before. She made me go with her the first time I saw them, so she is a fan. I just got too much shit going on and Christmas to deal with which I don't even have a penny on the side for at the moment. So except for a couple runs for mail in Florida, i can't do anything else for a while unless I hit the lottery. I'll be playing. But yeah, great shit. Glad you got home safely as well. We stopped in Birmingham at Hattie B's to grab some hot chicken for the second half of the ride. I wanted to hit Teddy up, but it was kind of spur of the moment and we weren't in town but for that stop off the highway. Also I wanted to stop in Nashville and hit Prince's on Druid's recommendation, but I was on the maze of interstates there and E was sleeping when the thought occurred to me. I think we made it back in about 7:30 so 10 hours with the stop, 3 gas stops and getting the hour back switching to Central Time. I knew the drive home was likely to suck. I pulled like 4 1/2, he woke up and got 3, then I got the last 2 and a half or so. Not terrible.
Alright, well if you hit the lottery the invitation is open. There are two of us now in the group for sure and we can fit up to six in a communal room setting. And the lodge has a hot tub under the cliffs and a firepit. Hopefully the crowd there is lively because it has a "quiet time" and god knows none of us are quiet.
We're all a mess of paradoxes. Believing in things we know can't be true. We walk around carrying feelings too complicated and contradictory to express. But when it all becomes too big, and words aren't enough to help get it all out, there's always music.
Here's the wrap-up, music first. Sound was great for every set I saw except Reignwolf was super scratchy. I didn’t care since he’s usually got the distortion cranked up. They have side by side main stages, so you don’t have to wait long between shows. The food and bourbon stages were also side by side and much smaller. They would get some bleed from the main stages, but that was to be expected. There was also a bar type installation which featured some live bluegrass and then piped in music. I wanted to do a top ten, but I went in late Friday and Sunday so only caught a handful of acts each of those days. It’s chickenshit, but I came out with a 1A/1B/1C between Pearl Jam, Jack White and Brandi. It's not the best PJ set I ever saw, but I think it was my favorite Jack White. Brandi was Brandi, so these are very close.
1A. Pearl Jam 1B. Jack White 1C. Brandi 4. Jason Isbell & 400 Unit 5. Doobie Brothers 6. Alanis (I got one hand in my pocket…)
? St. Vincent
The rest:
Chris Stapleton was good, but I don’t really listen to country and don’t know any of his songs.
Caamp was more campy then when I saw them a few years ago. They did get in the first stanza of War Pigs which woke me up, but they should have played the whole song.
Always Sunny Podcast – That was in the bluegrass installation thing, but it was super packed and I couldn’t really understand what was all being said. I caught those guys earlier that day on stage with Chef Tiffani Faison helping her make porchetta and just taking swigs of whiskey and clowning. That was enjoyable
Greta Van Fleet – I couldn’t take this show seriously whatsoever. My middle kid digs them, but I was with my oldest son who does not and was not amused. I had seen them at ACL a while back and a concert at UNO that was actually pretty good. But he was in hater mode throwing an occasional heckle out there and just clowning the whole show. 4 different times he brought me to tears laughing, so even though there were some good rock parts, it was all coming off as a joke to me. The show started with the singer coming out in a one piece tight 70’s style rockstar outfit which outlined his small one which was annoying because 20% of the show was him on the big screens with the weenie sort of the middle of the shot. Between that and endless “what is this shit?” in my ear, I enjoyed being at the show for its comedy aspects if not the show itself. On the flip side, I had people tell me they liked that show a lot so it hit home for some.
Revivalists – Solid as ever. They’re never a band that I seek out or go to their concerts, but I always have a good time seeing them. I got love love love love love and Wish I Knew You were my highlights, but the whole set was fun. For some reason I saw a ton of people wearing Revivalists t-shirts this weekend.
Elle King was decent if nothing special. I could only ever remember seeing her on a stream. I dug Chainsmoking, Hard Drinking Woman. She also covered Charlie Daniels Band Long Haired Country Boy which was okay but hopefully ironic. Fuck him and his stupid shit, but he’s dead.
Father John Misty was alright. He came out kind of looking like a retro porn star so we weren’t sure if he was pulling schtick or if he’s changed his image. Band was competent though I expected more from the set than I got.
Shakey Graves was pretty good. I didn’t remember giving a shit last time I walked passed one of his sets, but he was sufficiently entertaining.
Japanese Breakfast was pretty decent. Seemed a little less pop and more jangly than what I’ve seen her do in the past. Nothing was great or very technical, but I appreciated the performance. I met her and her guitarist in the FJM crowd. She said it was her favorite lineup she ever played on and is a giant FJM fan.
Kings of Leon was alright. I stayed for the whole thing. It was a big show and mostly unmemorable for me except it sounded good watching it.
Lukas and POTR was also alright but sort of monotonous. No hate, but I saw him before and don’t probably need to see him again.
Marcus King Band – Energetic, rocked, a good time. I had actually forgot he was playing, so that was a treat when he came on not long after we walked in that afternoon. I had only ever watched him on streams but possibly remember him playing some of the Griz superjam at Bonnaroo.
Reignwolf was scratchy. He said he’s usually sleeping that time of the day. It was him with his guitar and kick drum and his drummer was also on this tour though he played on only about 60% of the songs. As usual, Reignwolf played behind his head, with his teeth, mike stands, while rolling on the stage, the drummer’s back, etc. He dedicated his last song to Pete Townshend ending by leaping onto his drummer, knocking him over with both of them crashing onto the stage together. Solid ending.
Shovels and Rope was kind of boring. I saw them once before so I knew it wasn’t really going to be much for me. It was okay, but they just don’t really ever seem to go anywhere live.
St. Vincent – This is the hardest one to write about. Sound was immaculate. The performance was fucking great but people just stared at her. Not many cheers or applause or anything at all. I know it was a rock crowd that night with Greta and Pearl Jam following her set. And she started off with Digital Witness, Down, Birth in Reverse and New York. So maybe people were thinking it was going to be a soft performance or whatever. She ended up playing a lot of guitar later on and did get some appreciation. But I just wasn’t understanding how more people there didn’t know her or were bewildered or whatever. It would have been my #4 show of the weekend had the crowd even not sucked just a little.
Festival Itself - Brisket Sliders @ Café 502 were good and the brick oven pizza was also pretty good. Lots of quality bourbon was available, but many of the cocktails were premixed. Luckily in Beyond we could get Angel’s Envy Rye with soda water, so I had my drink most of the weekend. They oversold what the specific installations were, but that didn’t mean they were bad or anything – just many of them overhyped for what was actually there. Like the “arcade” which had only 3 or 4 video game machines in it. Cell service got progressively worse each day as crowds filled in, so that kind of sucked. The grounds were fine and easy enough to navigate. The crowd was a late millennial into Gen X crowd which is on the older side/dad fest territory. If I had to characterize age, it would be halfway between ACL (which is an older crowd than most multi-genre fests) and Jazz Fest. So most of the people maybe between 35-50 with older and younger people there as well. It changed a little each day. Saturday, because Pearl Jam was playing, got packed. I talked to several people who were following them on a 3 night run (Nashville, Louisville, St. Louis). Someone said they were told it was the most sold day of B&B’s history. I have no idea if that’s true, but it was the most packed of the weekend. Sunday had more of a country crowd because of that day’s lineup. Not rednecks, more just older music fans of country. There was a decent sized police presence, but they weren’t really messing with anyone and several of them turned out to be pretty nice. I didn’t see any fights or anyone get arrested though there was one old guy who dropped out in the beer line yesterday and had to be wheeled off and a couple other people attended to – one of those was during Pearl Jam where they stopped the show to let the paramedics get to someone in the crowd. It probably cost us a song, but that’s the right thing to do. So hopefully that individual ended up okay whatever happened. I didn't feel like the fest was unique except for the emphasis on drinking bourbon which is a large plus for me.
Louisville – We came away with a very positive view on the city. Fleur De Lis were everywhere, so I was already happy about that. Most everyone we met was nice there too. We ate at the festival mostly, but we did get over to Grind Burgers. I didn’t realize until later but that was on an old Diners Drive-ins and Dives where the chef roasts her own veggies for vegetable burgers. I remember seeing the episode after the fact and would have gotten one of those if I could have remembered earlier. We tried to go to Mussels and Burgers, but they had a one hour wait. I had a great cocktail at a tasting we went to at Stitzel-Weller. We did a tour at Evan Williams. It was mostly a historical thing with lots of movies. But at the end it’s only Evan Williams. Finally we got to Peerless which was the distillery I enjoyed the most. That’s an actual working bourbon production facility. The tour was great. Upstairs you could see the yeast doing its work in the 6 tanks. Everything smelled of wood and bourbon and I was loving that. Tasting was good there too, so I bought a tshirt and a tin of bourbon smoked coarse black pepper. It smells wonderful, and we can’t wait to cook with it. My only knocks on Louisville are extremely minor. I assumed Uber/Lyft would be super easy. But with the festival in town as well as the people who came up for the FSU-Louisville football game, it was often impossible to get a driver. We saw scooters everywhere and some e-bikes. In hindsight, either having known about those or having checked out the bus service options, we wouldn’t have gotten stuck waiting a few times. There are a couple of spots down by the river where you can tell the sewer pipes are cracked as you’ll get smacked with a sewage smell randomly for like 3 steps walking on a block only to disappear - nothing major just notable. It's possible flow was just slow because it was dry and the river was super low as well. Otherwise, it was clean with trees and flowers everywhere. Also the lack of day eating options on the edge of downtown was kind of a pain. Trying to find an early open bar near the river distilleries was impossible. Not everyone wants a drink at noon, but we walked into Michter’s when it opened and it was already a 1 hour wait. I have no serious complaints and would go back to Louisville any time.
The one comedy aside was trying to figure out how to walk back to the hotel at nighttime. We went 0-2 until we got it right on Saturday. Thursday was insane because we thought we knew exactly where we were going. We ended up getting to what we thought was our hotel only to find one of our drunk friends sitting in the lobby proceeding to tell us, “what’s up? We’re at the wrong hotel.” The chances of both of us making the same exact mistake and ending up at the same wrong hotel on the other side of the grounds and airport was pretty slim. There are a dozen or so of them close by. But we got a laugh out of it. Shout out to LLL for some clutch late night food and alcohol and hanging out this weekend. Yo.
I agree Head. I didn’t expect much, but that’s what was on. I don’t think I’ve gotten hand in pocket out of my head since, and I don’t even listen to her. I felt like the first part of the show was good but it took off And stayed good. Sorry we didn’t get to meet you and your mom, but we were looking for y’all to say hey. How did you like Pearl Jam and St. Vincent?
We're all a mess of paradoxes. Believing in things we know can't be true. We walk around carrying feelings too complicated and contradictory to express. But when it all becomes too big, and words aren't enough to help get it all out, there's always music.
Here's the wrap-up, music first. Sound was great for every set I saw except Reignwolf was super scratchy. I didn’t care since he’s usually got the distortion cranked up. They have side by side main stages, so you don’t have to wait long between shows. The food and bourbon stages were also side by side and much smaller. They would get some bleed from the main stages, but that was to be expected. There was also a bar type installation which featured some live bluegrass and then piped in music. I wanted to do a top ten, but I went in late Friday and Sunday so only caught a handful of acts each of those days. It’s chickenshit, but I came out with a 1A/1B/1C between Pearl Jam, Jack White and Brandi. It's not the best PJ set I ever saw, but I think it was my favorite Jack White. Brandi was Brandi, so these are very close.
1A. Pearl Jam 1B. Jack White 1C. Brandi 4. Jason Isbell & 400 Unit 5. Doobie Brothers 6. Alanis (I got one hand in my pocket…)
? St. Vincent
The rest:
Chris Stapleton was good, but I don’t really listen to country and don’t know any of his songs.
Caamp was more campy then when I saw them a few years ago. They did get in the first stanza of War Pigs which woke me up, but they should have played the whole song.
Always Sunny Podcast – That was in the bluegrass installation thing, but it was super packed and I couldn’t really understand what was all being said. I caught those guys earlier that day on stage with Chef Tiffani Faison helping her make porchetta and just taking swigs of whiskey and clowning. That was enjoyable
Greta Van Fleet – I couldn’t take this show seriously whatsoever. My middle kid digs them, but I was with my oldest son who does not and was not amused. I had seen them at ACL a while back and a concert at UNO that was actually pretty good. But he was in hater mode throwing an occasional heckle out there and just clowning the whole show. 4 different times he brought me to tears laughing, so even though there were some good rock parts, it was all coming off as a joke to me. The show started with the singer coming out in a one piece tight 70’s style rockstar outfit which outlined his small one which was annoying because 20% of the show was him on the big screens with the weenie sort of the middle of the shot. Between that and endless “what is this shit?” in my ear, I enjoyed being at the show for its comedy aspects if not the show itself. On the flip side, I had people tell me they liked that show a lot so it hit home for some.
Revivalists – Solid as ever. They’re never a band that I seek out or go to their concerts, but I always have a good time seeing them. I got love love love love love and Wish I Knew You were my highlights, but the whole set was fun. For some reason I saw a ton of people wearing Revivalists t-shirts this weekend.
Elle King was decent if nothing special. I could only ever remember seeing her on a stream. I dug Chainsmoking, Hard Drinking Woman. She also covered Charlie Daniels Band Long Haired Country Boy which was okay but hopefully ironic. Fuck him and his stupid shit, but he’s dead.
Father John Misty was alright. He came out kind of looking like a retro porn star so we weren’t sure if he was pulling schtick or if he’s changed his image. Band was competent though I expected more from the set than I got.
Shakey Graves was pretty good. I didn’t remember giving a shit last time I walked passed one of his sets, but he was sufficiently entertaining.
Japanese Breakfast was pretty decent. Seemed a little less pop and more jangly than what I’ve seen her do in the past. Nothing was great or very technical, but I appreciated the performance. I met her and her guitarist in the FJM crowd. She said it was her favorite lineup she ever played on and is a giant FJM fan.
Kings of Leon was alright. I stayed for the whole thing. It was a big show and mostly unmemorable for me except it sounded good watching it.
Lukas and POTR was also alright but sort of monotonous. No hate, but I saw him before and don’t probably need to see him again.
Marcus King Band – Energetic, rocked, a good time. I had actually forgot he was playing, so that was a treat when he came on not long after we walked in that afternoon. I had only ever watched him on streams but possibly remember him playing some of the Griz superjam at Bonnaroo.
Reignwolf was scratchy. He said he’s usually sleeping that time of the day. It was him with his guitar and kick drum and his drummer was also on this tour though he played on only about 60% of the songs. As usual, Reignwolf played behind his head, with his teeth, mike stands, while rolling on the stage, the drummer’s back, etc. He dedicated his last song to Pete Townshend ending by leaping onto his drummer, knocking him over with both of them crashing onto the stage together. Solid ending.
Shovels and Rope was kind of boring. I saw them once before so I knew it wasn’t really going to be much for me. It was okay, but they just don’t really ever seem to go anywhere live.
St. Vincent – This is the hardest one to write about. Sound was immaculate. The performance was fucking great but people just stared at her. Not many cheers or applause or anything at all. I know it was a rock crowd that night with Greta and Pearl Jam following her set. And she started off with Digital Witness, Down, Birth in Reverse and New York. So maybe people were thinking it was going to be a soft performance or whatever. She ended up playing a lot of guitar later on and did get some appreciation. But I just wasn’t understanding how more people there didn’t know her or were bewildered or whatever. It would have been my #4 show of the weekend had the crowd even not sucked just a little.
Festival Itself - Brisket Sliders @ Café 502 were good and the brick oven pizza was also pretty good. Lots of quality bourbon was available, but many of the cocktails were premixed. Luckily in Beyond we could get Angel’s Envy Rye with soda water, so I had my drink most of the weekend. They oversold what the specific installations were, but that didn’t mean they were bad or anything – just many of them overhyped for what was actually there. Like the “arcade” which had only 3 or 4 video game machines in it. Cell service got progressively worse each day as crowds filled in, so that kind of sucked. The grounds were fine and easy enough to navigate. The crowd was a late millennial into Gen X crowd which is on the older side/dad fest territory. If I had to characterize age, it would be halfway between ACL (which is an older crowd than most multi-genre fests) and Jazz Fest. So most of the people maybe between 35-50 with older and younger people there as well. It changed a little each day. Saturday, because Pearl Jam was playing, got packed. I talked to several people who were following them on a 3 night run (Nashville, Louisville, St. Louis). Someone said they were told it was the most sold day of B&B’s history. I have no idea if that’s true, but it was the most packed of the weekend. Sunday had more of a country crowd because of that day’s lineup. Not rednecks, more just older music fans of country. There was a decent sized police presence, but they weren’t really messing with anyone and several of them turned out to be pretty nice. I didn’t see any fights or anyone get arrested though there was one old guy who dropped out in the beer line yesterday and had to be wheeled off and a couple other people attended to – one of those was during Pearl Jam where they stopped the show to let the paramedics get to someone in the crowd. It probably cost us a song, but that’s the right thing to do. So hopefully that individual ended up okay whatever happened. I didn't feel like the fest was unique except for the emphasis on drinking bourbon which is a large plus for me.
Louisville – We came away with a very positive view on the city. Fleur De Lis were everywhere, so I was already happy about that. Most everyone we met was nice there too. We ate at the festival mostly, but we did get over to Grind Burgers. I didn’t realize until later but that was on an old Diners Drive-ins and Dives where the chef roasts her own veggies for vegetable burgers. I remember seeing the episode after the fact and would have gotten one of those if I could have remembered earlier. We tried to go to Mussels and Burgers, but they had a one hour wait. I had a great cocktail at a tasting we went to at Stitzel-Weller. We did a tour at Evan Williams. It was mostly a historical thing with lots of movies. But at the end it’s only Evan Williams. Finally we got to Peerless which was the distillery I enjoyed the most. That’s an actual working bourbon production facility. The tour was great. Upstairs you could see the yeast doing its work in the 6 tanks. Everything smelled of wood and bourbon and I was loving that. Tasting was good there too, so I bought a tshirt and a tin of bourbon smoked coarse black pepper. It smells wonderful, and we can’t wait to cook with it. My only knocks on Louisville are extremely minor. I assumed Uber/Lyft would be super easy. But with the festival in town as well as the people who came up for the FSU-Louisville football game, it was often impossible to get a driver. We saw scooters everywhere and some e-bikes. In hindsight, either having known about those or having checked out the bus service options, we wouldn’t have gotten stuck waiting a few times. There are a couple of spots down by the river where you can tell the sewer pipes are cracked as you’ll get smacked with a sewage smell randomly for like 3 steps walking on a block only to disappear - nothing major just notable. It's possible flow was just slow because it was dry and the river was super low as well. Otherwise, it was clean with trees and flowers everywhere. Also the lack of day eating options on the edge of downtown was kind of a pain. Trying to find an early open bar near the river distilleries was impossible. Not everyone wants a drink at noon, but we walked into Michter’s when it opened and it was already a 1 hour wait. I have no serious complaints and would go back to Louisville any time.
The one comedy aside was trying to figure out how to walk back to the hotel at nighttime. We went 0-2 until we got it right on Saturday. Thursday was insane because we thought we knew exactly where we were going. We ended up getting to what we thought was our hotel only to find one of our drunk friends sitting in the lobby proceeding to tell us, “what’s up? We’re at the wrong hotel.” The chances of both of us making the same exact mistake and ending up at the same wrong hotel on the other side of the grounds and airport was pretty slim. There are a dozen or so of them close by. But we got a laugh out of it. Shout out to LLL for some clutch late night food and alcohol and hanging out this weekend. Yo.
I think Alanis did great that night.
The guys were singing louder than the chicks this show. So good
We're all a mess of paradoxes. Believing in things we know can't be true. We walk around carrying feelings too complicated and contradictory to express. But when it all becomes too big, and words aren't enough to help get it all out, there's always music.
I had a great Saturday here. Flew in that morning, got checked in at hotel and arrived just as Reignwolf started. Missed DBT and Elle for St. Vincent in the Zelle Rocks Room. This was a highlight, with free food and drinks, and fun people at my table. Since food and drink were crazy expensive on the outside, I made the most of this and downed four margaritas. I was in the second row, and Annie looked right in my eyes for 30 seconds or so while telling a story. Pretty sure we're friends now. Got to hang with esteban for a bit, then saw the Cold War Kids-->Almost Crowded House (with Eddie and Josh!)-->St. Vincent-->Greta Van Weenie-->PJ run. PJ is a favorite, so I loved this show from the great VIP viewing area. Went back in briefly on Sunday for Hannah Wicklund and some fried chicken, then rented a car and drove to St. Louis for the PJ show Sunday night. 5am flight Monday, day of work, and then made it down to Charlottesville to finally catch My Morning Jacket Monday night. (They melted my face off, btw.) A great run, but it wore me out. Still feeling totally spent here on Wednesday afternoon.
I agree Head. I didn’t expect much, but that’s what was on. I don’t think I’ve gotten hand in pocket out of my head since, and I don’t even listen to her. I felt like the first part of the show was good but it took off And stayed good. Sorry we didn’t get to meet you and your mom, but we were looking for y’all to say hey. How did you like Pearl Jam and St. Vincent?
I agree Head. I didn’t expect much, but that’s what was on. I don’t think I’ve gotten hand in pocket out of my head since, and I don’t even listen to her. I felt like the first part of the show was good but it took off And stayed good. Sorry we didn’t get to meet you and your mom, but we were looking for y’all to say hey. How did you like Pearl Jam and St. Vincent?
But I like Alanis a lot.
You were cheering and singing then. Ironically I got Covid at the festival which I didn’t catch for 2 1/2 years. You said that pandemic was over. They got me head.
We're all a mess of paradoxes. Believing in things we know can't be true. We walk around carrying feelings too complicated and contradictory to express. But when it all becomes too big, and words aren't enough to help get it all out, there's always music.
Thanks LLL. Had about 101.5 yesterday and otherwise just some congestion. Hopefully the 4 shots means that though I wasn't immune, I won't get too serious of a case. Everett and I were in the car for 11 hours on the way home Monday, and he's negative - but he had it last Christmas. So maybe he wasn't susceptible this time around? I hightailed out to Pensacola to veg since I'm now banned from work until next Tuesday. It could be worse.
