Day 8

Sunday, July 27th, 2008: We got as much sleep as we could before getting up and getting something to eat in the hotel cafe. I swear the only thing that kept us sane there was coming back to that wonderful room! We got ourselves there in time to see the Airborne Toxic Event. We went stage hopping after that. I saw Death Cab for Cutie! They were okay, but most of the bands on the big stage (such as Death Cab) seemed rushed. Every single band showed up late because of the traffic. Pemberton is a little tiny town above Whistler in British Columbia. There is a single two lane road from the South and the same from the North. The congestion of the traffic should not have been a shock, but for whatever reason, none of the bands seems to get there on time. N.E.R.D. showed up with, I believe, only two band members because the rest were stuck in traffic. I heard that they played a great show, although, I spent that entire show venting on the phone about all the issues going on with the festival.

Earlier that day, we had gone hours in between music sets. People were bored, had nothing to do. However, they were still kicking the smaller bands off the small stage, although I'm sure they would have gladly played longer for the crowds that had nothing to do in between. By Sunday, the trash had become so bad that we had to move trash in order to be able to sit on the ground. I personally absolutely hate it when people throw trash on the ground, however, I also threw my trash on the ground because there were so few trash cans that I couldn't see any around most of the time. On Saturday, cars were being towed in the parking lots because some rows had been packed so that there were no way out for many cars. Many of the problems associated with Pemberton were foreseeable and I'm not sure how the experienced company Live Nation was not able to overcome them.

When Jay-Z started playing, my mom and I moved to the very back of the group of people. The crowd at Pemberton loved him. That was the most packed show of the entire festival and I was one of the few people who didn't care much for him. As we stood in the back, it finally started to really rain hard for the first time that weekend. We grabbed out our umbrellas and enjoyed knowing that we each also had a rain poncho hiding in our purses in case it got too bad. After a little while it stopped raining and it ended up being just enough to wet down the ground pretty good which got rid of the dust for us.

After Jay-Z stopped, many people went off to the party tents (the lines were ridicules for them!). Because of this, I was able to go forward closer to the stage to see Coldplay. The show made all the struggles of the weekend worth it. To hear Coldplay live was great. The lights and paper butterflies added to an exciting show.

After the show was over, it too over an hour of standing in line to get onto a bus. Then, it took well over an hour to get to the parking lot. The bus we were on was so packed with people, that we were standing in the isle. The night before, a bus had crashed into a ditch on the side of the road while heading to the VIP parking lot. I actually saw the bus on it's side Saturday night as we passed it. This night, at least out bus didn't have any major issues. Although, we did hear over the radio that one bus had been taken over by frustrated passengers who kicked out the driver and drove themselves to their parking lot. When we got to our parking lot (my care was completely covered in dust each night) we waited in line for almost another hour before we got out of the parking lot to the street. I think it was after 3am before we got into the hotel room. Thankfully, I had booked the room this night also, so once we got back to the hotel we were able to go to sleep. Yes, that is me stretched completely out in the tub in the hotel room. Really that room was awesome!