Last weekend, I joined the tens of thousands of people flocking to Memphis and the Banks of the Mississippi for a 3-day music festival. It was an exhilarating experience and I had a lot of takeaways, some reflective and some that were just observational.
Friday
1. Environmental Responsibility: Or lack thereof. The amount of waste created by the festival attendees is disgusting. At the end of the day, staff work over night with leaf blowers to collect all the bottles, cans, and food containers.
2. The Flaming Lips: I don’t think I was in the right state of mind for their performance. It was an experience all to its own with crowd surfing hamster balls, provocative clothing items, dancing suns, and the groping of rope lights.
3. iPhones nearly ruined Awolnation’s “Sail,” and just about every other chart topping song I saw that weekend. I had a pretty good spot at the Awolnation show, but as soon as the intro tune started, I couldn’t see the stage. I love that song and was pumped to experience it live. I didn’t mind the Snapchat videos because it was only 10 seconds of frusteration, but I know no one watches iPhone videos after the concerts so those people need to learn a thing or two about proper concert etiquette.
Saturday
4. Paramore is a very LGBT friendly band: It was refreshing to see so many openly gay couples at the show. Our society has created a stigma towards the outward expression of affection so maybe it was appropriate that so many couples found solace in Hayley Williams’ and crew’s punk-rock counter culture.
5. Tom Lee Park is massive: You’ve been there 5 hours and have not sat down yet, but then the headline band at the end of the day is playing at the farthest stage away from the entrance. It’s about a mile across the extent of the festival plus another mile or more to your car at the end of the day. If city organizers wanted me to spend more money downtown after the show, they shouldn’t make me walk so far at the end of the day.
6. G-Eazy should come party back at Rhodes College: He was in Memphis a year ago for the Rites of Spring festival at Rhodes College and I think he performed a much better show. He was more relaxed and into his music a year ago than at the BSMF. Maybe the popularity and press is getting to his head.
Sunday
7. Of Mice & Men is not the same as Of Monsters & Men: I’d been listening to Monsters for the last 2 months getting pumped for this show. I got almost to the front, peaking at 6 people back. When Mice came out on stage and started with a screaming death metal song, I thought it was a great prank on the crowd. But after the second and third song were more of the same, I discovered much to my surprise that the two bands are very different.
8. Survived a mosh pit at Of Mice and Men: In that same vein, it ended up being a very fun show and I tried to embrace it full on including jumping into my first mosh pit. I wasn’t there for long, but it was an experience I may never forget. I also was far enough forward to have to be constantly paying attention for approaching crowd surfers
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9. Ed Sheeran makes a lot of money to be a 1 man band: I knew he was going to be good, but the man knows how to jam with a loop track. It sounds like a 5 piece band up there is a rocking drumset and a thumping bass player, but it was all him. Incredible stuff to watch.
10. Sunset: Every day on the river was great, but Sunday’s was by far the best. Hozier and I and several thousand other people took in the scenery that was the capstone on a perfect weather weekend.
Reflections of an Urbanist 