Volunteering for P4m Festival on saturday was great. The weather was cool, we worked under a shady tent, our break came during one of our favorite bands, and taking tickets seemed worthwhile, but not backbreaking.
Sunday, not so much. The heat came back, and we missed the first round of assignments so we wound up split up, trying to keep people from climbing the soundstages. The Wifest apparently looks so tough that no one even bothered trying to climb hers. Even at my station, it was only an hour on/hour off kinda thing, as the crowd alternated between stages.
I've been out of touch with the P4m scene, at least since the new year. So while I wouldn't have forked out for a ticket, I'm happy to volunteer to help out mercy for animals. There were really only two bands I was interested in, in advance. Voxtrot played during our shift on Saturday, but fortunately we were close enough to hear, and we got our break during their set. The set was fun, and we danced along out in the field, and more restrainedly back at the booth. The set failed to convince our skeptical friend though.
Mastodon was absolutely amazing. The security staff made note that they were the only band at the festival to sell out a bigger venue in chicago (as part of a triple bill with slayer and lamb of god). It seemed like as many people came towards the stage fresh from the entry gates as from the alternate stage. The set they played was impossibly tight, as clean and heavy as the album itself (they played mostly Blood Mountain). The guitarist's vocals are a bit more "Smurf"1 than the album, but the set was so amazing it didn't bother me much.
Since I was already in, I was hoping to hear bands that I'd missed out on, with not paying attention to the indie scene. From all the hype, i thought the band to fill that bill might be Battles, but I didn't find them as amazing as I was supposed to. Menomena, however, definitely improved my Sunday afternoon. I'll be checking them out.
- the sound guys referred to it that way on Sunday (back ↩)
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