All the good girls are home.

You see that? That flooded out sky? That means camera's quickly dying. And the picture quality from this weekend is disappointing to me. I need D-80 more than ever.

But you also see all those people? I hung out with them this weekend, all 80,000 of them.

The past few days has been an exercise in waiting. Waiting in line for the Dark Knight. Waiting for Lucero. Waiting for Tom Petty. Waiting in traffic. Marky and I estimated we waited about 18 hours for about 5 hours of entertainment. Not to say that waiting isn't fun.


We got an early (?) start on Saturday morning, leaving Albuquerque at about one in the morning. We were initially planning on getting into Raton, sleeping a few hours, then getting up to drive the rest of the way to Denver. However, Marky and Tom both slept through Lucero and since they were so well rested, we drove straight to Denver, getting to Maria's brothers apartment at about 9 in the morning. We slept a few hours, showered and drove to Commerce City for the festival.

Getting in was pretty easy, as we qualified for car pool parking and we got there early in the day, about 2:00.


Bright-eyed and bushy tailed!

We were excited to just be there, out of Albuquerque, in a new city, Tom Petty on the horizon. But, a funny thing happened in that Denver cooked. The temperature was at least 100 on Saturday. And 100 degree weather while surrounded by 80,000 is freaking hot. I had initially intended in checking out all the stages, all the tents, just sort of taking it all in. But, after I threw up as a result of heat exhaustion, I spent most of the day huddled under one of several tents in the park.


Cat-like tomato.

I think it was a combination of the heat and the tiredness, but all four of us were useless for the bulk of the day. In fact, we napped.



While Steve Winwood jammed.

After nap time and $10 burrito, I felt a little more like myself and less like tomato. We made our way to the main stage for Tom Petty, dancing like hippies through the crowd, it makes them more open to moving for you if you're dancing. We ended up about 9 rows of people back and in our hour and a half wait, we made friends with all the people standing around us. I was surprised by how many out of towners there were.

Tom Petty was, of course, remarkable. I didn't take any pictures as I've started to feel that it creates a certain amount of distance between me and the performer I'm seeing. That's one of the best parts of live music, the intimacy. I'm all for snapping a photo or two for the sake of the memory, but watching a show behind an LCD screen is a whole different game. There was this sea of digital cameras and cell phones when Petty took the stage. Don't I sound pretentious.

We played a pretty regular set, comparable to what he's been playing his whole tour. Standouts for me were the always sexy Honeybee, the Free Falling singalong (the crowd, including myself were not meant to hit some of those notes), acoustic Learning to Fly, and Marky and me screaming the lyrics to American Girl for his closing. I had a fantastic time. The crowd was fantastic and very respectful of open space, I had lots of room to bounce around. If I had to get sick and do it all over again, I would in a heartbeat.

Maria started feeling queasy during Petty's set, so she got out of the crowd about 3/4ths of the way through. She stayed with her brother, while the rest of us stayed with my buddy Sarah who I stayed with when I went to Denver last June. She was just the greatest hostess. We each got our own air mattress and we all slept so, so, so great.


We got a much later start the next day, which I think we all needed. We picked Maria up at about 2 and by then the traffic into the festival had backed up for miles. We had a good hour or so in the car to trash talk Dave Matthews and write "Stay Down" on my knuckles.


No really, dang shame it washed off before work today...


We didn't get into the festival gates until 4, so we all ran straight to see Flogging Molly, who had just started. Both me and Maria hung back, Marky and Tom got towards the front. I was worried about overdoing it. But they played a great set, including Devil's Dance Floor and If I Ever Leave This World Alive.


Their crowd. LOOK HOW DISCONNECTED I AM.

Sunday's music also included Pinback, the Roots, John Mayer and Dave Matthews. So, I don't like Dave Matthews. I think that's okay. He's one of those musicians you're either into or you're not. And I am not. But, I think 90% of my disdain for Dave is because of his fans.

And here's the funny part of going to a summer outdoor festival that Dave Matthews is playing at. THE ENTIRE CROWD ARE DAVE MATTHEWS FANS. You know who I'm talking about, the shirtless white-hatted bros with $8 Bud Light in hand, shirt tucked into the back of their swim trunks, corresponding lady friends (frat mattresses) on arm. And then there's the OTHER Dave fans, the hippies/yuppies, with Teva sandals and broom skirt.

So, after wading through them for two days, nothing gave us more pleasure than to leave before Dave played. On our way out, we saw this dude passed out in the parking lot, curled around a car tire.


Maria: "He's gonna miss Dave!"

We then spent 20 minutes trying to get to the Church's Chicken that appeared to be across the street from the park and hit the road. We got push pops at a gas station, as per Cat and Marky tradition. I tried to take a picture of us with our push pops, but that turned into a giant fail.

Fail #1.


Fail #2.


And my personal favorite, Fail #3.


We got home at about 5:30 yesterday morning and poor Maria had work at 8:30. The rest of us slackers took Monday off.

So far this year, I have seen the following live:

1. Ben Folds
2. Hot Water Music
3. Strung Out
4. Saves the Day
5. Rancid
6. Lucero
7. Tom Petty
8. Flogging Molly
Among others.

That is AWESOME.

And still to come:

1. NOFX/Bouncing Souls
2. Counting Crows
3. Ben Folds, again. I want to go to a symphony date, he's doing a few back east in the fall.

That's just as AWESOME.