What better way to rebound from a 58-percent drop in attendance than to bring in heavy hitters Rage Against the Machine, Daft Punk, and MUSE? Vegoose, in it’s third year has seen more fluxuations than just about any other festival, outside of Lollapalooza. The first year at Sam Boyd Stadium and Star Nursery Field showed promise with over 72,000 people showing up throughout the weekend and headliners Dave Matthews, Arcade Fire, Phil Lesh, Widespread Panic, Beck, Trey, and more packing the roster. Last year, for some reason, people didn’t come out to see Widespread again and fellow headliner Tom Petty. With a drastic decrease in attendance, they kept the fest on the field and it was a great place to see someone like Petty with 15,000 people as opposed to 50,000 at ACL Fest, where you could only hear people singing along to his songs.
It was the same thought that went through my head while watching Rage Against the Machine with my dad. You can either see them with 60,000 people at Coachella for twice the money or with cooler people, in better environment with a third the crowd. Pretty easy decision for me.
It’s hard for me to go in any other order other than chronological when writing these puppies. I can bust some stuff up top but then it’s just a recap of what went down on our adventure getting to Vegas for Halloween weekend. cool? Let’s start with the crew. This might be the most spread-out crew we’ve ever assembled for a festival. Dameon flew out from Cleveland, Knife from Oregon, Kate from New York City, Pat from New Mexico, Jeremiah and I from Los Angeles, and Mathew from Las Vegas. Wow… that’s pretty impressive. I’ve always prided ourselves on our crew and this fest was no exception.
The setup “backstage” at Vegoose is little awkward. I guess, originally it was designed with the thought of the stadium being used and the main area was sandwiched between the back of the stadium and the field where the remaining three stages were. Once they ditched the stage in the stadium, the “backstage” area was about as far as you could get from the other stages yet still be in the festival. We realized that and secured extra passes for the crew so we could send them on runs to hit up as many people as possible. Keep in mind… our success rate is almost solely based on how many creams we’re able to give away.
We pulled in early on Saturday to secure our parking spot then started getting everything ready before Kate and I took a break to play some waffle ball on the field of Sam Boyd Stadium. Once the crew all arrived by noon, it was clear the weekend was going to be a great time. How could it not be? Great crew, venue, bands, and a ton of ice cream. You’re gonna have to dig through the galleries to see about band reviews because the only bands I saw were Rage and Daft Punk. Since it was the last festival of the summer, I had seen just about every band already and I would hold down the fort and force the rest of the crew to go see bands, like MUSE. Plus, we could hear everything by the truck from the main stage, so there wasn’t much loss there.
On Sunday we all dressed up as Buckaroo Banzai and the Hong Kong Cavaliers. Knife was John Parker, from planet 10, I was Buckaroo, Kate was New Jersey, Jeremiah was Reno, and Mathew was Pinky. Pat was supposed to be John Worfin/John Lithgow but he ended up taking a “suicide” mission and headed to the front of the crowd to shoot Rage Against the Machine, since we didn’t get official clearance to shoot them from the pit. The only downside with wearing a grey suit and a red bowtie is most people think you’re Pee Wee Herman, even with my Team Banzai patch on. It was the first time I’ve ever worn a bow tie slinging cream which is particularly memorable since I rock one in the logo.
I wonder what the turnout ended up being? I told someone a day or after Vegoose that I thought the attendance was strong enough that’d it make it hard not to do it another year but I doubt they would. Superfly and AC Entertainment do a very impressive job of putting on both Bonnaroo and Vegoose. After three years, if there aren’t enough people showing up, then it’s probably not worth all the work that goes into it. I hope it comes back again and we can have another memorable finish to our “summer” tour. Sometimes it’s just not in the cards.
Thanks to Levi’s, Jakprints, and Rich’s Ice Cream for making it possible for us to be there giving away ice cream. It’s still hard to believe we’ve been able to hit so many festivals this year and give away so much free ice cream. Now it’s four months off while reorganizing and getting ready for big big things in 2008. I’ll sleep well knowing there’s over 30,000 people out there who think it’s a good idea to head to the desert the weekend before Halloween, get dressed up, and rock their socks off the whole time.
Remember,
No matter where you go….. there you are.
Check out our Vegoose coverage from 2005 and 2006
