dan
10-16-2007, 08:50 PM
This past weekend, I went to a music festival outside of Atlanta, The Echo Project. It was out on sime 350-acre farm in a town called Fairburn. Very fun times, lots of great music, lots of great experiences. I hate to sound like a square, but I was really blown away by how free everything was. There was basically no visible police presence, and geez, people were doing pretty much everything you could imagine. The crowd was about 85% hippie, as you can imagine, but hippies are pretty funny, and generally harmless, so it's cool.
It was also my first experience sleeping in a tent. Whenever we camped, we always used a trailer, so I never had much hardcore camping experience before then. The first night was a little rough, but the second night I slept like a log.
The crowd was actually pretty small, all things considered. There were enough people there for it to be a fun experience, but it wasn't crowded by any means. There were so many funny little incidents, I couldn't even begin to sum them up, but it was a great time overall. Here's the bands I saw:
Friday:
The Flaming Lips - Great, of course. The show was a lot more jammy than their normal shows, and they ended on a great cover of the Rolling Stones' "Moonlight Mile" with a ten minute solo. Lots of fun.
Bassnectar - Kind of a Girl Talk type thing, just a DJ mixing some rando songs together. His set had a lot of classic metal (early Metallica, Iron Maiden, etc.), so that was cool.
Disco Biscuits - Blah, it's just hippie jam music. My friend Brian started having a bad time, so we left during this set.
Saturday:
Scissors for Lefty - I actually enjoyed these guys. It was a good start to the day, just some bouncy ska-pop/punk music.
Strut - The music was okay, but I didn't like the singer at all. The music was kind of a Sublime ripoff type sound, but it wasn't anything terrible. But, yeah, the singer looked like Turtle from Entourage.
Louis XIV - I liked these guys a lot. It was really good classic-type hard rock. It was very much "guy" music, lots of songs about weapons and booze.
Futureman & His Black Mozart Ensemble - This was probably the weirdest band I saw. It was a small orchestra (about 8 people, I think) with a Flavor Flav-type rapping over it. It was funny and interesting for a few songs.
Avett Brothers - I made a post about these guys, they blew me away.
Clap Your Hands Say Yeah - Really weird, trippy songs. Sort of reminded me of Ween. The singer's voice was very irritating, but sort of interesting too.
Tea Leaf Green - Just another jam band, I've seen them before, but they were cool to check out again for a few minutes. Their guitar player really kicks ass, he shreds a lot more than the average jam band guitarist.
Thievery Corporation - Outstanding. The music is sort of slow electronica with a twist of world music. They played with a full band, so that helped. It was just cool, chill music.
Cat Power - She has a great live voice, and her music is cool for a short set. I could imagine it would get old after a longer set, though.
Common - I hate to say it, since it's hip-hop, but I really liked this guy a whole lot. His songs were really dramatic, and his lyrics were a little better than average. And, at least he played with pretty much a full band.
Rabbit in the Moon - Really cool, weird DJs. Very good visuals, reminded me of the Flaming Lips sort of.
The Killers - These guys were outstanding. I wasn't particularly interested in them beforehand, I liked "Mr. Brightside" and a couple other songs, but these tracks really came alive onstage. On their new album, they sound a lot like early Springsteen, and that carried over to the stage show: each song started with a pastoral organ solo that made the upcoming song seem so epic and religious, in a weird way. And, they all sounded great, it was CD-quality. Definitely one of my favorite shows of the night, the highlight being "All These Things That I've Done".
Moe. - More jam-band stuff. It was good, especially for the time of night (midnight-2 AM), but nothing outstanding.
MSTRKRFT - Very high-energy electronica show. Great way to end the night.
By the time Sunday came around, we were all worn out, and there were really no bands any of us wanted to see, so we headed out kind of early. Before we left, though, we found out that one of the bands playing that day, Sons of Crosby, were staying three tents down from us, and they were warming up for that show. They were pretty good, they were all young and obviously really excited and nervous. It was cool to have a kind of VIP show like that.
And, that's it. I'll try to steal some pictures from other people on Photobucket or something and post them here.
It was also my first experience sleeping in a tent. Whenever we camped, we always used a trailer, so I never had much hardcore camping experience before then. The first night was a little rough, but the second night I slept like a log.
The crowd was actually pretty small, all things considered. There were enough people there for it to be a fun experience, but it wasn't crowded by any means. There were so many funny little incidents, I couldn't even begin to sum them up, but it was a great time overall. Here's the bands I saw:
Friday:
The Flaming Lips - Great, of course. The show was a lot more jammy than their normal shows, and they ended on a great cover of the Rolling Stones' "Moonlight Mile" with a ten minute solo. Lots of fun.
Bassnectar - Kind of a Girl Talk type thing, just a DJ mixing some rando songs together. His set had a lot of classic metal (early Metallica, Iron Maiden, etc.), so that was cool.
Disco Biscuits - Blah, it's just hippie jam music. My friend Brian started having a bad time, so we left during this set.
Saturday:
Scissors for Lefty - I actually enjoyed these guys. It was a good start to the day, just some bouncy ska-pop/punk music.
Strut - The music was okay, but I didn't like the singer at all. The music was kind of a Sublime ripoff type sound, but it wasn't anything terrible. But, yeah, the singer looked like Turtle from Entourage.
Louis XIV - I liked these guys a lot. It was really good classic-type hard rock. It was very much "guy" music, lots of songs about weapons and booze.
Futureman & His Black Mozart Ensemble - This was probably the weirdest band I saw. It was a small orchestra (about 8 people, I think) with a Flavor Flav-type rapping over it. It was funny and interesting for a few songs.
Avett Brothers - I made a post about these guys, they blew me away.
Clap Your Hands Say Yeah - Really weird, trippy songs. Sort of reminded me of Ween. The singer's voice was very irritating, but sort of interesting too.
Tea Leaf Green - Just another jam band, I've seen them before, but they were cool to check out again for a few minutes. Their guitar player really kicks ass, he shreds a lot more than the average jam band guitarist.
Thievery Corporation - Outstanding. The music is sort of slow electronica with a twist of world music. They played with a full band, so that helped. It was just cool, chill music.
Cat Power - She has a great live voice, and her music is cool for a short set. I could imagine it would get old after a longer set, though.
Common - I hate to say it, since it's hip-hop, but I really liked this guy a whole lot. His songs were really dramatic, and his lyrics were a little better than average. And, at least he played with pretty much a full band.
Rabbit in the Moon - Really cool, weird DJs. Very good visuals, reminded me of the Flaming Lips sort of.
The Killers - These guys were outstanding. I wasn't particularly interested in them beforehand, I liked "Mr. Brightside" and a couple other songs, but these tracks really came alive onstage. On their new album, they sound a lot like early Springsteen, and that carried over to the stage show: each song started with a pastoral organ solo that made the upcoming song seem so epic and religious, in a weird way. And, they all sounded great, it was CD-quality. Definitely one of my favorite shows of the night, the highlight being "All These Things That I've Done".
Moe. - More jam-band stuff. It was good, especially for the time of night (midnight-2 AM), but nothing outstanding.
MSTRKRFT - Very high-energy electronica show. Great way to end the night.
By the time Sunday came around, we were all worn out, and there were really no bands any of us wanted to see, so we headed out kind of early. Before we left, though, we found out that one of the bands playing that day, Sons of Crosby, were staying three tents down from us, and they were warming up for that show. They were pretty good, they were all young and obviously really excited and nervous. It was cool to have a kind of VIP show like that.
And, that's it. I'll try to steal some pictures from other people on Photobucket or something and post them here.