Langerado 2008 Recap March 16, 2008
So I got back from Langerado (a music festival in Florida) on Monday night around 9 pm. I had a pretty awesome time there. The festival started on Thursday (March 6th) at 6pm, so I figured that a flight scheduled to arrive at 2pm in Fort Lauderdale (an hour from the festival grounds) would give us plenty of time to get there and set up our campsite. Unfortunately, there were electrical storms in the Fort Lauderdale area, so our flight was forced to land in Orlando. We sat there for awhile and refueled, and by the time we got to Fort Lauderdale, it was about 5:00 pm.
It took us a bit to get our rental car situation figured out, and then we headed to Big Cypress Indian Reservation, where the festival was taking place. There was a huge line of cars outside of the festival (this has come to be expected, however) and it was pretty frustrating to be sitting in the car, knowing that bands you really wanted to see (like Les Claypool) were playing a mile or two away. But we tried to make the best of a bad situation. So we started drinking, and this of course leads to peeing on the side of the road. It was dark out at this point, so this wasn’t really a problem. I got out of the car and walked away from the car, down a little hill on the side of the road about 50 yards. It was marshy on either side of the road, and people were jokingly (or so I thought) yelling stuff like “watch out for alligators!” I laughed, and started to do my thing, when I heard some crazy noises followed by movement about 5 feet away from me. I immediately zipped up and ran back to the car like a little bitch. Sure enough, about a mile down the road, there was a sign posted saying “caution: crocodiles” or something along those lines.
When we finally got into the festival it was between 12:30 and 1. We rolled right through security, they didn’t even ask if we had anything illegal in the car… Which we didn’t, but I know sometimes those searches can take a long time. We parked and setup our campsite in the dark. It was a raining a little bit, but nothing ridiculous. We managed to catch the end of Perpetual Groove, and then if I remember correctly we walked around for a while exploring the campgrounds. I got bit by a few fire ants and we probably called it a night around 3 am.
The next day we got up around 9 or so. We hung out for a bit and drank, and enjoyed our canopy tent (which wouldn’t be around for much longer). We headed into the main festival area around 12:30 to see The Dynamites. They were cool to watch for a little bit, but matt pond PA started at 1:30, so I left the show early to check them out, and I’m glad I did. They put on a really good show, although I don’t know if I would have enjoyed them as much had I not known some of the songs.
After matt pond PA, we went back to the campsite to drink a little, and then headed back to the festival area in time to catch The Wailers. They were pretty cool, I’m not crazy about reggae, but if I’m gonna listen to some, it obviously doesn’t get much better than the music of Bob Marley. So that was kinda cool, but I got distracted after an hour or so of it. We checked out a little bit of G Love‘s set, but I’m not too crazy about them.
311 put on a pretty good show. I don’t listen to them that often anymore, but they were my first “favorite band”, I remember listening to them non stop starting in like 6th grade, so it was cool to finally see them. It sucked that I missed !!! (who I also heard put on a good show), but I am definitely glad that I saw 311.
After 311, we checked out a little bit of The Roots (which were okay, but I’m not crazy about them) until The Beastie Boys played. I really enjoyed the Beastie Boys set. I knew that they had some instrumental stuff (their new album, The Mix Up, is all instrumental) but I didn’t expect them to play a lot of it. The set turned out to be about 50/50 and I was impressed by how good they were at playing their respective instruments. Their set was a lot of fun.
After that was Umphrey’s McGee. I was pretty excited to see them, and they played an awesome set, it was definitely in my top 5 for the weekend. After Umphreys we headed over to catch the end of Sound Tribe Sector 9‘s set. I like these guys as well, but I couldn’t really get into them that night for whatever reason. So many people were out of their minds at that point, there were people in “zombie mode” all over the place. It got really windy and cold, so as soon as Sound Tribe stopped playing we headed back to the campsite. On our way back, it started to rain really hard. I have had this same tent leak before during rain, so I moved what I could of my stuff into the car. At that point the rain was coming down so hard, it was just ridiculous. So the four of us were just sitting in the car while the torrential downpour continued outside. We had a few beers, and I ended up sleeping in the car that night. My tent did flood, but I’m glad I moved my stuff so none of my clothes got soaked.
The next day, the first band we checked out was The Bad Plus. I was excited to see them (they do some awesome covers) but I wasn’t really able to get into their music that day. We walked around for awhile, checked out some of State Radio‘s set, and then headed to the stage where The Avett Brothers were supposed to play. They didn’t end up showing up though, which was kinda lame.
We went back to the campsite to drink for a while, and then came back for some of Thievery Corporation‘s set, which was pretty cool. We watched a little bit of Medeski, Scofield, Martin & Wood‘s set, but made sure we left in time to get to the stage where Ghostland Observatory would be playing. The frontman (?) is so ridiculously strange, and the light show was just awesome.
They put on one of the best shows of the weekend, in my opinion.
After Ghostland played, R.E.M. came on the main stage. I stayed for maybe 2 songs, and then 2 of us headed back to the campsite to drink some more. We came back in time to catch the last 3-4 songs that R.E.M. played, and it was definitely cool to see them, but I’d be lying if I said I really cared about them. I wanted to hear them play “Man on the Moon”, and they did, so that was cool.
Pelican was up next. I like these guys a lot, and they definitely didn’t disappoint. Before the show, some cute little hippie girl (covered in glitter and wearing fairy wings) was talking to me. She asked me “what kind of music do these guys play?” They’re definitely not a “jam band” by any means, and I think they’d tend to appeal to metalheads more than anyone else. I told her they were a rock band, which I realize is a ridiculously vague description. She said “oh, like REM?” I told her yeah, and then made my way up to the front of the stage. I doubt that chick stayed around for more than 30 seconds of Pelican’s set. Regardless though, it was awesome. After Pelican played, I didn’t really care where we ended up. The Disco Biscuits were playing, but I’m not too crazy about them, so we just wandered around for awhile. There was so much to see there, and I’m sure I still didn’t see 25% of it.
We ended up checking out the Yard Dogs Road Show before we went back to our campsite for the night, and I’m glad we did. They are a traveling cabaret act with sword swallowers and stuff. I didn’t think I’d like them but it was actually very entertaining; I was surprised. Definitely check these guys out if you ever have a chance, I feel like they do a good variety of different things, so there’s something for everyone… And their music is good, too.
Sunday (the last day of the festival) was a lot of fun. I was pretty burnt by this point (the sun was brutal during the day there) and I decided Sunday would be my booze day. That’s not to say that we weren’t drinking the entire festival, but I decided to just concentrate on drinking. We headed into the main festival area at around 2:30 to see The Funky Meters, then checked out a bit of Keller Williams and Grace Potter. I wasn’t excited to see Grace Potter, but I was pleasantly surprised, she can really, uh… Rock? I don’t know what else to say.
The way they had the main festival area setup, you had to pass through security in order to get to the area where the stages were. Security wasn’t letting people bring in anything other than one sealed water bottle, and they were patting people down, so bringing anything other than a flask was pretty tough. There was a “taxi” service (people driving golf carts around) and we learned that when you took a taxi into the festival area, you didn’t have to pass through security. So we started bringing in bookbags full of beer this way, which was pretty awesome, especially since beers were like $6 each inside the festival.
Minus the Bear started at 5:30, and we took a “taxi” – I asked the driver to take us right to that stage, since we were cutting it pretty close. She took us down some access road and dropped us off behind the stage, an area that we otherwise wouldn’t have had access to. So we walked out from behind the stage and entered into the media section, where all the photographers and people with press passes watch the shows. We watched most of Minus the Bear’s set from there, which was pretty awesome. I got some half decent (or at least close up) pictures too, though I was a little drunk at this point. Minus the Bear played an awesome set, and I really enjoyed being super close to the stage.
After that, we saw Blind Melon, who put on a ridiculously good show. Shannon Hoon, the original frontman, died in 1995 from a cocaine overdose, and I wasn’t sure how much I’d like the band with the new lead singer. I gotta give him credit though, he did a great job, and really did an amazing job with the old songs.
After Blind Melon, we apparently saw of Montreal, but I don’t really remember that. I do know that we were at the very front for Phil Lesh & Friends, though. I’d be lying if I said I was a huge fan of The Grateful Dead, but I really enjoyed watching these guys play, it was a great way to end the weekend. After Phil Lesh, Nick and I walked around for awhile and drank, and probably ended up getting to bed around 2 am or so. We weren’t in a huge hurry to leave the next day since our flight wasn’t until 5 or so. It was nice to be able to take our time while taking the tents down and packing up the car. I apologize if my recap of the festival wasn’t overly cohesive, but I’m pretty exhausted right now. You can check out the majority of the pictures I took at Langerado here. I took a lot of video as well, so maybe some day it will end up on YouTube? Probably not.
I started a new job (doing SEO) this past Wednesday. I mentioned before that I got pretty burnt while in Florida. By Wednesday, my entire face (and neck, and back) was peeling. I’ve never had it happen that badly before. I’m pretty sure everyone at my new job thinks I was in a chemical fire. It’s Sunday night right now and I’m still peeling, though it isn’t nearly as bad as it was before. Anyway, this recent lack of posts has been brought to you by corporate America. I don’t get out of work until 6:15, and I get home around 7 or so. After sitting at a computer the whole day, the last thing I find myself wanting to do is get back on the computer when I get home. But hopefully I will get used to this new routine soon enough, and I’ll be able to find more time for the site again.
I can’t believe that the world’s first MP3 player was released ten years ago. I only say that because I owned the world’s second MP3 player, the Rio PMP300. I thought it was the first until I read this article. It definitely doesn’t seem like ten years ago when I was walking to school in the morning, listening to the 5 Limp Bizkit mp3s that would fit on its whopping 32 MB of memory. I guess that really was ten years ago… Shit, I’m getting old.
So someone came out with a website that, in my opinion, is way overdue. It’s called RateMyCop.com, and I guess it’s pretty self-explanatory. For those of you that are complete idiots, it is basically an online police officer database where users can rate cops on things like authority, fairness, and satisfaction. Of course a bunch of cops have their panties in a bundle about this, and the domains registrar (GoDaddy) actually had the nerve to pull the plug on the site (article here). It’s back up on a different host, and you can check it out here.
This past weekend was pretty exhausting… We did the Erin Express thing again this year, and then saw Grimace Federation at the TLA. I also hit a girl with a french fry, and she told me that her boyfriend is in the mob, and that he’s going to kill me. So I have that going for me. Anyway, I’m gonna watch Breaking Bad and try and get some sleep, hope you all had a nice weekend.
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MusicFan Mar 16, 2008
March 3, 2008 – Langerado
To all those who spent their valuable time and effort in traveling and attending our planned performance at the Langerado Music Festival in Florida on the 8th of March,2008, we would like to express our most sincere regret over its unavoidable cancellation. Through no fault of either party (the Avetts or the festival authorities/representatives), the schedule was changed due to outside events. Sadly, an auto-accident occurred on the road leading into the festival grounds. At the time of this writing, we are without any information pertaining to the nature and/or severity of the crash. In any event, our hopes and prayers are with those involved.
Lastly, we want you all to know that we will be back to southern Florida as soon as we are able. Thanks for understanding and we’ll see you all very soon…THE AVETT BROTHERS.
ryan Mar 18, 2008
The Beastie Boys set is up on the torrents, http://isohunt.com/torrent_details/36702898/2008?tab=summary … its in FLAC
rafa Mar 31, 2008
hey john have you heard about how people are starting to beat up and some cases even killed, the main part where this is happening is mexico city. my friend told me he kicked one in the face, but thier gay i mean they congregate in public places and then that place turns into a athmosphere of faggot shit. look on youtube, for the fights .