This is my fourth and final attempt to sit in front of my computer screen and try to describe how amazing this weekend was. I've mentioned in the past the compulsive nature that coincides with my love for music. This last weekend was the musical equivalent of some type of heaven for obsessed music weirdos. The line up this year (outside of Kanye West, fuckin dork) was not to be taken lightly. It should be noted that for the last five years I have found my way into this festival one way or another running from tent to tent so that I wouldn't miss the "I was there" moment. This year went a little differently, I rode up to meet the TOTEM crew, a tribe of kids that come from all over the country to embrace as a fluid unit; that hugs, screams, dances, talks, and LOVES, I mean really loves each other. This is the third year that I've joined them and for sure the most connected that I've ever felt. My entrance to the festival is all thanks to one of my best friends in the whole world, Jen Daley, who happened to finagle me an all access backstage pass! So you could say that for a kid like me this was a recipe for some pretty " I was there" moments. I found that this year was a lot less stressful than years passed. I just kind of floated around the carnival of glee and no matter where I was there was a great band playing and a group of pinkies, TOTEM uses their pinkies as a land mark so you can always be with your friends if you want to be when you're cruising around the festival. I definitely utilized the privileges that came along with my pass a couple times. The first was to "air-hump" on the stage while Gogol Bordello was blowing everyone's minds with their gypsy rock and the second was to get a more intimate moment during the Broken Social Scene set. Other than that I decided that I'd rather be with my friends more than anything. Almost every band I saw was pretty next level but nothing even compared to the set that Arcade Fire put on. From start to finish I had chills, and I can't even describe the surreal, "out of this world" type feeling, that comes along with hearing their song, "Wake Up", while standing close to someone you can connect with and care about and all the while gigantic colored orbs are falling from the sky into the crowd by the hundreds. There is no other moment in time where I felt whatever it is that I felt while that was going on. It was such an impressionable moment that I could feel a sort of conscious shift that over took the negative, gloomy parts of my brain, a moment where life it self gently took me by the hand and said "Hey buddy not everything has to be so confusing all the time, look at how beautiful it all can be". After that point in time you could have punched me in the face and I would have greeted it with a smile. The rest of the weekend was filled with way too many laughs, mostly provided by Tommy B., and so much god damn dancing it made dance dance revolution look like a game of pong. All in all for only being three days long I realized that if half as many good things happened to me in a years span then it would have been a pretty good year. "Left Front Pinkies Up That's The Way We Like To Fuck!!!!"
PS here's some footage of the orbs being dropped. The good footage was taken down for copyright reasons but you'll get the idea
<3
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