Wow – that was probably one of the best festivals I have ever attended, and at this point I’ve been to a few. <wink> I took my favorite concert buddy and their boyfriend with me on the trip and it was a pretty quick – fly out Friday for what was supposed to be stand alone shows all day Sat and same line up on Sunday. Unfortunately, the Saturday had to be cancelled due to dangerously high winds. People were really pissed off and I get it. If you were only had tickets for Saturdays show you were pretty much screwed. Yes they will refund the concert tickets but a LOT of people spent a LOT of money to travel there airfare. hotel, etc only to be really disappointed.
When the announcement happened an hour before the gates were supposed to open there was already a huge line of people lined up all around the Las Vegas Fairgrounds and there was understandably quite strong emotion about it. The kids and I actually got a bit nervous as some folks were screaming and threatening to storm the gates. So we skedaddled out of there and went back up to our hotel to give the drama a chance to dissipate. I had booked a 2 bedroom suite for the 3 of us and our room was on the 35th floor penthouse level with a fantastic view of almost the entire fairgrounds. The winds were so strong they were tearing the turf up all over the place and, ripping the sun shade tarps off the structures and blowing all kinds of stuff everywhere. It was the only safe decision to make because it truly would have been dangerous to proceed and people would have definitely gotten hurt.
The weather report said the winds were expected to die down by 5am Sunday but let me tell you – it was still pretty freaking windy when I went out for my power walk on the strip that morning. But I had faith that this was going to happen and so I hit the line to get in and managed to be get inside and hit the merch line first thing. It still took me well over an hour to make it to the front of the line but I could still hear music while I waited so I was happy. All told I was at the venue from 11am until 11pm and in those 12 hours I managed to catch at least one song by 32 of the 65 different bands. Of course, some of my faves I stayed for the full set of like Pierce the Veil and We the Kings but for the most part I did a gypsy thing – bopping from stage to stage checking out music everywhere! It was amazing!
I was sorry to find that this was not really a great event for crowd-surfing and that’s ok, I will get another chance to see “Pierce the Veil” (PTV) at an indoor show in Buffalo of all places on Nov 20th. But all in all – I had an absolutely AMAZING time and kind of hope I can manage to go again next year even though tickets sold out immediately and are now pretty expensive. :-/
Here is the full schedule –
And here is my full list that I caught at least a bit of:
- The Ready Set
- Red Jumpsuit Apparatus
- Meet me at the Altar
- Huddy
- We the Kings
- Jxdn
- Dashboard Confessional
- Pierce the Veil
- The Used
- Royal and the Serpent
- Silverstein
- The Maine
- Jimmy Eat World
- Taking Back Sunday
- A Day to Remember
- State Champs
- Story So Far
- Four Year Strong
- Motionless in White
- Avril Lavigne
- Poppy
- All American Rejects
- Ice Nine Kills
- Palaye Royale
- Sleeping with Sirens
- Manchester Orchestra
- Bring Me the Horizon
- Nissa Barret
- Alkaline Trio
- Paramore
- Thursday
- My Chemical Romance
I was pretty wiped out by the time MCR was getting ready to take the stage and decided that since I saw them twice already this year that I would take that opportunity to limp back to the hotel on my very sore legs and feet. I had been standing pretty much 13 or more hours straight at that point so I was sore and tired but it had been totally worth it!
As far as other sightseeing – I also walked up and down the Las Vegas strip a fair bit looking at stuff but because I am not really a gambler (unless you count attempted crowd surfing) I didn’t really go into the casinos much. The trip home was almost totally uneventful last night until I arrived at Bradley to discover my suitcase never made it on the flight and almost 20 hours later it is still not here yet even though the website said it was due no later than 90 mins ago. (smirky not surprised face)
Anyway I had a freaking blast and am looking forward to resting for a day or two and then getting back into a load of kinky fun next week! Here’s a sampling of pics from the weekend!
