Saturday, August 11, 2007

virgin music festival 2007: day 2 (aug 5)


turns out i wasn't the only one completely shattered by hanging out in the insane sun for 9 hours straight. one member of the weekend posse (ironically the youngest) got heat stroke, ended up feeling nauseous and hitched a ride back to nyc with another friend. so then we were 6 tired festival go-ers.

we decided that regina spektor, spoon, css and girl talk were worth skipping in order to catch up on our lack of sleep. rock and roll? yeah, so not!
we got to the grounds around 5pm just in time to catch karen o of the yeah yeah yeahs do her thing on the main stage.

the crowd on day 2 was a tad more chilled out and hippy than the previous one. but karen's occasional glorious screech was enough to make any peace loving folk into a punk rocker.

after going through various rocked out songs, she led the crowd into a wonderfully mellow rendition of "maps". it was perhaps the only swoon moment of the weekend and i love her for it!
yeah yeah yeahs - maps (acoustic) [link 2]
of course all great yeah yeah yeah concert's always include some weird, but fierce, costuming. karen sure outdid herself with this american indian inspired poncho cape thingy. just look at the silver curtain tassles!

yeah yeah yeahs - cheated hearts [link 2]


after a mini liquid break, my friend with the pass brought me to the vip stage to check out interpol. i'm not lost on the irony that i had to go to baltimore to check out some of my favorite new york bands, but watching the boys of interpol command an audience of 5000-6000 people was pretty impressive. lead singer paul banks cooly went through the best tracks of their three albums and would rest a cigarette in his mouth during intrumental breaks.

rock n roll!


interpol - slow hands [link 2]
interpol - no i in the threesome [link 2]


[after awhile, i noticed that lead guitarist daniel kessler does some fancy footwork while playing on stage. i couldn't resist and recorded some of it to show you guys.]

look the guitarist from the yeah yeah yeahs was transfixed with daniel's dancing too!

by 8:50pm, i ran over to the dance tent to watch what i knew would be the highlight of my weekend, the m.i.a. gig! with her new album kala THE soundtrack for the weekend car ride, most of my posse were all jazzed up to party (and boy, does she throw a good one!)

starting off with the bombastic basslines of "bamboo banger", m.i.a. mixed in all the hits from arular with most of my personal favorites off her new album kala (though weirdly enough, the 2nd single "jimmy" was not on the set list).

m.i.a. - bamboo banger [link 2]
m.i.a. - pull up the people [link 2]
though m.i.a. ended our 2 day live musical extravaganza, i realised that the 2nd day was just 4 hours of attendance in total. but that doesn't matter since the whole 48 hour experience was easily one of the best of this year.

i realise that after i catch up on my sleep, i will so be ready for virgin festival 2008!

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