Day 7

July 26, 2008: We woke up after sleeping in (our room was completely dark with the curtains drawn and the bed was soooo comfortable!). We made our way over to the festival, and traffic wasn't much of any issue because we went so early in the day. We got there about 11:30 and decided to make our stake out our area and then I went to get something to eat. The food was one thing the festival did great on. They had a ton of vendors with all kinds of food. Some was expensive, but there as long as I didn't have one specific thing in mind, I was able to find something reasonably priced. I think that morning I grabbed some banana bread. When I got back they had decided to cool off the crowd using a snow blower, but of course it was just water coming out the other end. People were hot enough that they were soaking themselves in the water.

Low Vs Diamond was the first band to play that day. They were supposed to start playing at about 1:30 But instead didn't start until closer to 2:30. I attempted to go back and forth some between the stages, although since bands on the smaller stage started late, bands began eventually playing at the same time instead of alternating like the schedule had planned. The sound would have been better if the stages faced opposite directions, but instead, they both pointed the same direction, such as West (that's my guess as an example, I don't know which direction they actually face). The result was that although the music was mostly clear, we could also hear music from the other stage. This was especially true if we were at the smaller stage, as the music wasn't quite as projected compared to the larger stage.

The Flaming Lips deserve their own paragraph here. They had some of the most interesting props for their show. Big balloons, bright colored paper shot from the stage, characters in costume, and one of their band members came out crowd surfing in a big bubble. Most of it was rather silly, but it made everyone want to watch just because we wondered what they would do next.

Dust was an issue the very first day at the festival. While images had been associated with the festival as being held on a green field, this was not at all the case. The ground was dirt with sparse hay laid out on top. Our feet were covered with dirt and when people would walk there were clouds of dust in the air. I later heard that many people were treated over the weekend for respiratory problems, which really was no shock to me. We were grateful that day for the cloud cover that reduced the heat. And later as Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers began playing, it started to rain. Petty commented, "I'm going to slow it down just a little bit here. See if we can grove in the rain here a little bit." And then he started playing Free Fallin' while we all enjoyed the rain as relief from the heat and something to settle the dust. Their show was awesome! It started making it all worth it.

That night, we waited a little longer in line for the buses. We also first went to one gate, only to find out we had to exit from a different gate that night. It might have been nice if they had told us, but mass confusion from a huge crowd was probably more amusing. I'm not even sure what time we made it back to the hotel that night. Tom Petty started playing about an hour late and it was after midnight before we got back to our room.