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As part of my vacation to the great northwest,I reserved tickets to the Sasquatch Music Festival in George, Washington (that's the city not the man, perv). Washington was a long haul in a cramped rental van of 5 dudes. We finally made it to George in the late afternoon and set up the tent and campsite. This was only my second camping music festival so I had an idea of what to expect. It has been years since the last one and I most often prefer the confines of a nice cool hotel or house after a sweaty multi-day festival. The Sasquatch Music Festival is held at an amphitheater situated on the bluffs overlooking the Columbia River. It's very beautiful and I understandd why it is consistently voted one of the top musical venues in the U.S. We skipped the shows Friday night (didn't want to spend $$$ to see a bunch of goth / industrial bands). Instead we sat around and had some beer and made friends with the neighboring campgrounds...

Saturday, my friend Eric and I left around 1:00 to catch the opening set of Architecture In Helsinki (who made my #2 favorite CD of last year). They were really pretty fun and they even covered a Kraftwerk song at one point. Eric and I split up and I watched the entire Sufjan Stevens' set (coincidentally my favorite CD of last year). He did the full Illinois production and it was fantastic. The band was dressed in patriotic colors and handed out flags before the show. They threw out blow-up Supermen and turned many of their songs into full-on singalongs. The fans that had never heard Sufjan before were left scratching their heads. I think they thought he was some sort of zany spazzoid freedom fighter or something. I met up with the rest of our group and watched a couple of country / folk acts, Iron & Wine and Neko Case. I was wearing a sweater that day in the burning heat mainly because i didn't know what to expect of central Washington weather. It would be upper 80s in the day and drop to the 40s at night. So several people had critiqued my clothing choice for the day. Soon I would have my revenge. In the middle of Neko Case's set, a nasty black cloud started settling over one side of the Gorge. Soon enough, it started pelting down nickel to quarter-sized hail. Everyone bailed for cover, a poncho packed away in my bag sufficed me. Poor Neko was left on stage as the hail beat down on her and the band's equipment. This was a rain or shine festival but I guess Ol' Mother Nature doesn't believe in that. They cancelled the rest of the day's shows. I was ready for a break anyway. I went back to the campsite and crashed out. I woke up several times to a Flaming Lips CD and people joked that they were playing. I knew better and went back to sleep. Soon I heard Ben Harper in the distance so I guess they decided to resume the headlining act. I went back to sleep again. Then Eric tells me that The Flaming Lips were actually playing and I heard their cover of Queen's "Bohemian Rhapsody" playing in the distance. I threw on some clothes and made my way back to the amphitheater. The Lips were absolutely amazing. They became the new headliner and played extra long as a consolation for the other show cancellations. This was fine with me as I didn't really care to see anyone else anyway. Their stage setup was fantastic. Lots of video backdrops and props. If you've seen them before, you know the whole spiel. If not, I won't ruin it for you - just know that it was awesome and probably one of the greatest concert experiences that you can have. This was a great capper for the day.

Sunday started off rough. On the walk to the club, somehow I either lost or had stolen my day's ticket. I had to go through this big ordeal with the ticket office to get a replacement, calling Ticketmaster's service line, getting new tickets printed, etc. I was told that if the person went in before me, that my ticket would still turn up void. They explained that this was a fluke of the system. As it turns out, it was void but whatever, they let me in anyway. This caused me to get separated from the rest of the group (and miss Pretty Girls Make Graves). I finally made my way in and went right up to the front of the main stage and watched Nada Surf and The Arctic Monkeys. Both sounded just like their album. I like Nada Surf quite a bit and it was good to see them for the first time. I decided that they have the three most eclectic bandmates you could find. The Arctic Monkeys bored me out of my mind, I will say I was impressed with the talent of them considering how young they looked. I finally found my crew in the very back of the entire venue and we watched The Decemberists, Matisyahu, and Queens of the Stone Age atop a gigantic hill overlooking the Gorge. Matisyahu and QotSA really put on a great show. I was extremely impressed with the drummer in QotSA. The guy can really hit. Eventually I skipped out and caught David Bazan's band Headphones on one of the sidestages. I have to say I didn't really care for this performance too much, perhaps the CD is better. On the other sidestage, I caught a few songs by Clap Your Hands Say Yeah!. They were very good, I wish I could have seen the entire set. It was dusk at this point and I headed back to the front of the main stage to prepare for the night's headlining acts. Local favorites Death Cab For Cutie came out and played probably one of their most entertaining sets I've ever seen them play. Apparently Ben Gibbard can play some pretty mean drums. All the Canadiens in the audience yowled when the line "From Bangkok to Calgary" was sung in "I Will Follow You Into the Dark". The real headliner though was Beck. I've listened to all of his albums countless times but had somehow never managed to see him play live before. It was everything I had been told it would be. Crazy dancing guys, some acoustic numbers, some electronic numbers, some old stuff, some new stuff, some hits, etc. etc. His backdrop consisted of a swarm of marionettes imitating whatever the rest of the band was doing. Blown up on the jumbotron this was very amusing. Towards the end of the set, all the band members sat at a set dinner table and played percussion on various glasses, plates, and silverware as a beatbox kicked in later. I can't say what was my favorite song that they played but I think I enjoyed the performance of the material from the new album Guero more than anything else.

The Saquatch Music Festival is only one of the mega outdoor festivals that happens every year. It's a House of Blues event but still books a number of indie acts and I never felt completely bombarded with advertising or promotions. This was the fifth year for the festival and by far the largest production yet. You can't beat the venue that it's held at. It's by far the most attractive location that I've ever seen a show and other than the massive hail storm that interrupted the Saturday show, the weather was just great. The camping facilities could be better (the bathrooms were horrible and it was quite a hike just to get to the amphitheater) but I guess you just have to know what to expect at a massive campout music festival. I would definitely recommend this festival to anyone with a little cash to throw down. Here's a link to some pictures that we took of the festival.

-ick!