dust, drugs, thugs

This sprawl comes a few weeks after the event itself. The whole ordeal was unbelievably exhausting as was trying to regurgitate my feelings about it. You can tell the result is sloppy, flawed and erratic. However, I think those words authentically convey the Pemberton experience, a weekend of highs and lows.

A member of my camping party just referred to his haircut as a “brohawk” and I have no clue where I am. Our camping field is open but filling up fast; sweaty people are streaming in looking both rushed and flushed. One of my group took a stand and negotiated a large expanse of land to accommodate the horde of Deep Cove affiliates who, in a short while, will contribute to the deplorable conditions of our three day home.

We paid sixty bucks for this. It was easy for me to sensationalize the festival camping experience – the parties, the drunken babes, maybe even a slight wind of camaraderie and brotherhood. Maybe I thought I would get laid (WRONG!). In reality there’s a bunch of garbage and fucked up idiots (myself included).

Everyone had reasons for being here. It could be the bands or the party, or maybe even just to say they were there. After all it’s the first one, and everyone knows you never forget the first one.

It’s Thursday and the campsite is taking shape, hints of the eventual evolution into a cesspool are already visible. Anticipation, for the beer tent at least, is building. Once those floodgates open the gouging of the wallets will begin, and won’t stop, for another three days.

It’s Friday and bands are playing today. The sun is hot. A quick scan of the campsite reveals that it has indeed developed into the inevitable favela. I eat a shitty breakfast and feel ready to take on “Pemby”.

Minus The Bear ends with “Pachuca Sunrise” and the outro is disrupted by the unfortunately close proximity of the Guitar Hero truck/stage thing.

Some people were under the impressions that being here is, in some hyperbolic way, comparable to being at Woodstock. This is heinous. Our generation is too fractal, too divided in it’s agendas and interests, to a point where a music festival is barely an instrument of unity.

Wolfmother takes the mainstage and the high five bros show themselves. There is good music somewhere amongst the nostalgic solos, but it has been diluted, packaged, for the Guitar Hero slaves, devil horns included.

I mentioned high five bros. A lot of other bros are present: hackey sack bros, cowboy hat bros, and “Tapout” shirt bros. Most of them wear board shorts. A few hipsters can be spotted slinking about. Some fleeting pixies, braided belts adorning their soft heads, run by.

Stumbling through this melting pot of social sects is intimidating.

I rendezvous with the other half of the clique and his companion, mutual friend (and all around great guy) Connor Knickerbocker. Interpol is so gripping our jaws hurt. Immaculately dressed and sounding totally on point they tear through their time slot, with almost equal portions of Turn On the Bright Lights, Antics, and Our Love to Admire.

Fuck NIN. We’re rolling hard. Beer tent.

Blackout.

The next day follows a now solidified pace; up early, waiting/drinking, some bands. This evening brings my sole reason for attending Pemberton.

Tom Petty’s music has been seared into my memory since early adolescence. His tunes always found an opportune place to nestle into your life. “Even the Losers” assured my 14-year-old self that one day I would get a blowjob, while “Don’t Do Me Like That” helped console a heart stretched across continents. Tom Petty conducted himself with the grace and eloquence you would expect, the Heartbreakers corroborated their status, and I went home happy. We were all grins and glow.

The next night I drank enough to forget Jay Z ending with “Numb/Encore” and to blank two songs into Coldplay.