GETTING TO FESTIVAL STARTS HERE:
My bus was supposed to leave Vancouver at 5am, as I do not have an alarm clock I had to stay up all night and then walk 2 hours to get this bus, with my rucksack, bag, tent and a sign to try and hitch hike with when I get into Quincy, as it is a 6 hour walk away from Sasquatch and there is no public transport. So I get on the bus and it turns out that these busses don’t sell out, they only add more when one gets full. So three bus loads of people, 80% going to Sasquatch get on and head to Everett 4 hours away. We arrive in Everett where we meet up with all the people going to Quincy coming from Seattle, this now means we have seven bus loads of people. The next 4 hours of the bus ride and astonishingly beautiful. I knew Washington was full of mountains and shit, but I thought they would be off in the distance, we were weaving in between them constantly beside white rapid river and all this fancy shit it was AWESOME. We also went through “Germantown” which was supposed to be like “Ye Olde Europe” except with Subway and KFC written in script on their signs. So everyone on the bus finally starts talking to one another and we all realise that none of us have the slightest plan and are as clueless as to how to get to the festival as the next person. We pull into Quincy and the bus driver is like “So you guys all going to Sasquatch?” and the bus goes mental “Well I’ll tell you what, after this, I have no more passengers, so lets go see if I can go talk to the charter manager and see if we can’t take you all down to the festival” everyone goes mental again. “Oh by the way, I am the Charter Manager.” so we go to a grocery store, I buy like 30 apples, 20 bottles of water, a case of beer and 4 boxes of museli bars and we’re on our way. We get the sickest camping position about 40 tents without cars taking up one lot, this is all done by 3:30pm, we then get drunk, play frisbee, listens to music and be dickheads before everyone realises they’ve been up for ever and goes to sleep after being exhausted from 37 degree weather.
ACTUAL FESTIVAL SHIT BE HERE:
So it turns out it’s true. At 8am we’re all up and bored and burning in the sun. We go to the general store where it turns out you can buy cases of beer for reasonable prices and burritos and then cook them in the kitchen. We go into the festival site and go watch Owl City, worst decision ever. They are terrible. Adorable even. So we decide to go check out the main stage. We get to the top of the hill and everyone who has walked in has stopped there for some reason, turns out everyone is gawking at the most amazing scenery ever. Words cannot describe the Gorge. It’s stupidly beautiful. I suggest to everyone that we roll down the hill, so about 6 of us get in a line and roll down the hill. It’s awesome. Turns out security chased us screaming the entire way down and we get a stern lecture. Gaslight Anthem play on the main stage and they are nothing special. It is now something like 40 degrees and not a single cloud. I walk around, buy some 9USD food. Urgh. Then go to see Passion Pit and the crowd is huge. HUGE. And it’s full of “KinGs of nEOn” fans. Turns out Kings of Leon fans are a world wide plague. So when everyone finally pisses off I move in for King Khan and the Shrines and it is amazing. Lots of nudity, cheerleaders, jumping around, confetti and just general awesomness. One of the best shows I have ever seen.
Probably one of the highlights of Sasquatch! Festival. They had everything, horns, a dancer, costumes, flying dicks, a crazy crowd, 40 degree heat and a guest appearance from Mark Sultan. I get crowd surfed over (somehow in a crowd that had basically 0 density) and have one of my mics ripped off (in a way that convinces me its broken forever) but it’s fine but the sound conks out for about 2 or so minutes while I fix it.
King Khan and the Shrines - Sasquatch!, Quincy, 23/05/2009 - 63.7mb - 42 minutes
I go see Todd Barry in the Comedy Tent because that happens to be the ONLY piece of shade in the entire festival, turns out he’s funny. Next I watch the first 20 minutes of Animal Collective, they seriously have the worst projections ever but they were pretty good.
Dunno what happened but I only got 18 minutes of this set, the end of the set was probably the best I have ever seen them play the the Gorge setting was perfect for them. But here is what I got of them anyway.
Setlist
Summertime Clothes
My Girls
Essplode (Intro)
Animal Collective - Sasquatch!, Quincy, 23/05/2009 - 27.7mb - 18 minutes
I leave to see Tim and Eric but everyone raves on about how good the end of Animal Collective was, I guess I’ll find out on Saturday. Tim and Eric bombed. BOMBED BOMBED BOMBED. It was so fucking terrible. The first two sketches were hilarious, but then there’s costume changes and the DJ starts doing the worst stand up ever, then after 10mins they finally come back and the next skit goes nowhere, piss off again for another 10 mins, then they kick a plug and all the backing tracks stop and they are forced to improv. Turns out they can’t. I leave and watch Sun Kil Moon who is perfect. Back to the main stage to watch the Decemberists and they were pretty good, but too bad everyone was distracted by this couple who thought they were having secret cliff side sex but instead were being watched by 80,000 people and the band. Mos Def is next who is just fun as all hell and then Bon Iver. I don’t know if he played with a band when he did Sydney Fest but the two drummer set up is just great and his voice is never ever even close to being off.
I recorded this one way off centre as the crowd for him was huge, he played a perfect slot (Just as the sun had gone down he came on stage) and the atmosphere was amazing. Crowd participation is a lot better here than what was at Bonnaroo as well. He also happened to be 45 minutes late but that was Mos Def’s (who was awesome) fault. I would love to say that this was the best set of the weekend but it’s got some mighty tough competition, Sasquatch had way too many “moments”.
But yeah, taking part in Wolves (twice) is an amazing experience.
Setlist
Flume
Brackett, WI
Lump Sum
Wolves
Skinny Love
Mercury
Blood Bank
For Emma
Creature Fear
Bon Iver - Sasquatch!, Quincy, 23/05/2009 - 72.8mb - 49 minutes
Now there are no bands playing except for the main stage so I go watch Kings of Leon who actually didn’t suck. And by didn’t suck I mean were really good. Bummed they didn’t play King of the Rodeo though. So we walk the 30mins back to camp and everyone dies from exhaustion.
kINgs of NeoN. Recording cuts in during the first song and features a minute of me pushing through the crowd to get a spot and then features probably the best sound I got all weekend. Unforunately this one came with a lot of errors and cuts out during the last song as well, it’s also in a very low bitrate and I have no access to the .wav files so what’s here is all there will ever be.
They didn’t suck. I’ll give em that. But come on. King of the Rodeo guys. You know it’s your best song.
Setlist
Crawl (Fades in)
My Party
Be Somebody
Taper Jean Girl
Molly’s Chambers
Fans
Milk
Four Kicks
Charmer
Sex on Fire
The Bucket
Notion
On Call
Cold Desert
Use Somebody
Closer
Knocked Up
Manhattan
Black Thumbnail (Fades out)
Kings of Leon - Sasquatch!, Quincy, 23/05/2009 - 72mb - 1 hour 20 minutes (?)
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