Wednesday, May 30, 2012

Hangout recap!

Sorry it has taken so long to post a Hangout recap, I have been really busy with work and we were gone for the long weekend last week. Anyway, here we go!

As usual, the Hangout Festival was a great time. Just think about it, even if the bands all sucked, we were still hanging out at the beach in perfect weather and that is not bad at all. Throw in the fact that the bands were exceptional and that is just icing on the cake! It was a great weekend all around.
Myself, Coleman, Jim, Tony and Adam at the main enterance to the Hangout Festival.

This year, we stayed a lot closer to the festival, like 4 blocks away from the east entrance. That allowed us to come and go several times during the day if we wished. Each day we would wake up, hang on the beach for a while go have lunch and then go into the festival for a few of the early acts. Then we would head back to the condo to rest and refuel and even catch a few of the bands streaming live on MySpace. Then once refueled and refilled, we would head back into the festival for the evening and night shows. It was a great setup!
Here is the view of the festival site from our condo


Here are some of the musical highlights for me:

All of the headliners were good. On Friday night, Jack White really impressed me. I know he is one of the best musicians and entertainers around right now but his live show was incredible. He came out and played some White Stripes and Raconteurs songs with an all male band that is called Los Buzzardos. Then about half way through his set, his all female band came out and rocked the beach with a lot of his new stuff. They are called The Peacocks and were all very talented and beautiful! On Saturday, The Red Hot Chili Peppers provided a solid performance and played a lot of their big hits. The main stage was extremely packed and it was hard to get close at all for that show, but the music still sounded good and thank heavens they had some big screens. Then the Dave Matthews Band on Sunday closed out the festival with a great show. I haven’t seen DMB for many years due to the crowd they attract (young teenyboppers) but they do put on a good show and I am glad I was able to see them again.

Here is DMB closing out the festival on Sunday night

 

Now moving into the non headliners:

One of the best shows of the weekend was Wilco. I love those guys and they didn’t not disappoint. They brought their A game and rocked the beach.

One of the other best shows of the weekend was The String Cheese Incident. Again, I have seen them in many years so I was really looking forward to seeing them. They played some of their old bluegrass, folk stuff and have evolved into combining some electronica into their classic String Cheese style. They have also added some new lights and that just went nicely with their new morphed sound. They played two sets the first was with full sunlight but the second started at dusk and went into the night. That is when the lights really looked good!

This is a shot of the String Cheese Incident show, second set

The standout show of the festival for me was Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros! Those guys was great and put on a fun and grooving show. I highly recommend these guys! They are something else!

Another one of my favorite shows of the weekend was the Alabama Shakes. They are relatively new and that is why they got such an early timeslot, 2:30pm. They did have one of the bigger crowds for the day shows and they deserved it. Rock on Shakes!

Some other bands I really enjoyed were G. Love and Special Sauce, Young the Giant, Dr. Dog, Rebelution, and Steve Winwood. All of these guys put on good shows and had good crowds watching them.
Here is the crowd and the stage when Rebelution was playing their killer Reggae!

Here are some of the bands that had conflicting times with other shows I was watching and couldn’t see but wanted to: Sound Tribe Sector 9, Flogging Molly, Dawes, Julian Marley, and Futurebirds.

DJ Tent, since this was the first stage we got to from the entrance that we used, we saw several of the DJ’s. I will say they were all pretty good, but I really couldn’t tell them apart. They all have good beats and all had the crowds worked up but like I said, they are hard to one from another. We saw Skrillex, Yelawolf, Shpongle, Paper Diamond, and Zed’s Dead. Again, I can’t tell you which one is better since they all sound the same. I am sure there are people out there that can tell them apart and know each ones style but I am not one of those guys.

This is Skrillex thumping the DJ tent


Here is Jim, Tony and I having a big fat Philly cheeseteak after the DMB show.  It was huge and we ate it all!


Overall the trip was good, we lost a man before we ever left (Sorry BK) but luckily we were able to replace him at the last minute (Thanks Adam). I am already looking forward to next year!



Rock and Roll!



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