Nod your head to this

I used to love festivals. I've spent many a late spring and summer day at Lollapalooza, End Fest, Jazz Fest, Big Spring Jam and other such events, soaking in the sun and music. I don't know if I'm getting too old or if having spent my week battling a respiratory infection sapped my concert-going spirit, but I did not have the best time at the Shaeffer Eye Center Crawfish Boil in Birmingham Friday night.

This is the second time I've attended this event, the first time being a fantastic experience in 2006 that featured Better Than Ezra, Cowboy Mouth, Gin Blossoms, Live and Sister Hazel. It's expanded exponentially since then, outgrowing the downtown lot that the stage, one crawfish tent and handful of vendors used to occupy. It now takes up two city blocks with a VIP village of special vendors, two big crawfish tents, and a whole midway of vendors, games and rides for the common ticket-holder. (Still only one stage.)

Doors opened at 1:30 with the first act performing at 4. Because of Jason's work schedule and my lingering illness, we didn't arrive until after 8, well into LL Cool J's set. By then, the whole two blocks were packed shoulder-to-shoulder with drunken idiots. We navigated the crowd first to the port-a-potties, where Jason had a strange encounter with a girl so hammered she could barely form words, and then to find bottled water.

As folks pushed out from watching LL Cool J, we snaked our way to about the middle of the crowd in front of the stage. Before Jason Mraz even started, I was hot and miserable (because in Alabama, summer instantly starts when April turns to May). Because the crowd is forced to stand on a gravel parking lot, it took no time at all for my feet to grow uncomfortable. I didn't want to push forward any further because I didn't want to feel too closed in, but as far back as we were, I could barely see the stage. Once Mraz came on (20 minutes late), I basically wound up watching him on the big screens on each side of the stage.

The folks around us made it very difficult to enjoy the performance. Few people were paying attention, instead talking to each other loudly as if at a regular Friday night fraternity party. Drunk girls were stumbling around, bumping into people. An extremely tall guy next to me felt the need to stand on a folding chair that kept collapsing, causing several people to fall into me. The people next to Jason were basically having sex right there. The chick in front of me threw up and then passed out. When the guy in front of me stomped on my foot as he turned to high-five his friend, I had had enough and snaked my way back out to the open area between the stage and midway.

I spent a moment debating whether to just go home, but as unhappy as I was with the circumstances, it would be my only opportunity to see 311 this year. So, I stuck it out. We found a little ridge where we could hear well and see the screens. I couldn't see the stage at all, but I couldn't see it where we'd been anyway. From that point forward, I found the evening much more enjoyable.

Between Jason Mraz and our headliner, I was able to participate in one of my favorite pastimes: people watching. I saw a lot of people stumbling around dazed. I saw a couple more people vomit, including one guy who stood hunched over for several minutes. I saw a girl being carried out of the crowd unconscious, revived and taken away on a stretcher. I saw a couple have a pretty nasty argument. I saw a very large woman inhale two funnel cakes. I saw a guy try to pick up several different girls and leave alone.

I also saw a crazy array of attire. Although most of the men wore jeans or shorts and t-shirts, the women were dressed in so many impractical ways it would take an entire separate blog to discuss them all. Of course there were the usual whorelets in tiny shorts and halter tops, and plenty in what seems to be the new common concert attire (judging from the two FOB concerts last week): day-glo leggings and t-shirts. Surprisingly, there were a number of girls dressed up like they were going out to a fancy theatre, in spike heels and pretty dresses (many of them floor-length, picking up plenty of filth as they dragged on the ground). The most memorable outfit of the evening was on a girl running around in a thigh-length yellow sundress, cowboy boots and a tiara.

It was 10:25 before 311 finally took the stage. Being at the very back of the crowd, I can tell you that some folks were extremely into it, singing along and dancing, but a majority of the festival-goers seemed completely disinterested. Just as they had during Jason Mraz, a lot of people continued their loud conversations as if there wasn't a concert going on. People filtered out of the venue throughout the set, such that by the time 311 finished, there was maybe 1/3 the number of people that had been there when we arrived. It was so bizarre to watch one guy rocking out, bobbing his head and flailing his arms while stomping to the beat, as the people next to him packed up their folding chairs and gave hugs to their companions as if departing a picnic, right in the middle of one of 311's best songs. An upside to the partial exodus was that by the end of the set, I could actually see the band. [As an aside, one of the people that really seemed to enjoy the show was a little baby of maybe six months old that spent the set on his dad's hip next to me, smiling and dancing the whole time.]

The boys put on a characteristically energetic show, complete with lots of faint-worthy gyrations by the gorgeous Nick Hexum (who was sporting a crazy Mohawk do). There was not a lot of banter or crowd interaction; just one song after the next. No effects, no frills. They sounded great, but I couldn't get into it as much as I have the 17 other times I've seen them. Being tired/sick combined with the strange atmosphere kind of ruined it for me.

Setlist:
Beautiful Disaster
Freeze Time
All Mixed Up
You Wouldn't Believe
Love Song (Cure cover)
Applied Science
Prisoner
Hey You
Come Original
Beyond the Gray Sky
What Was I Thinking
Amber
Down

Encore:
Creatures (For a While)
Feels So Good