What a great weekend! (Virgin Fest 2007)

I was at a pretty-happening party at College Park, MD, this past Friday night when I got a text from a bud--Did I want to work as a video production assistant for MTV at Virgin Fest this weekend?

I'd wanted to go to Virgin Fest, had thought a lot about it, but the $115.00 ticket cost per day was restrictive... so when I got that text I replied--'Hell Yes!' Awesome timing!

I spent the last two days videotapeing and catching sets from great acts like The Fratellis; Paulo Nutini; LCD Soundsystem; TV on the Radio; Peter,Bjorn and John; Modest Mouse; The Beastie Boys; The Police (damn yeah!); Bad Brains; Interpol; The Yeah Yeah Yeahs; Spoon; Panic! At The Disco; Wu-Tang Clan; Velvet Revolver; and the Smashing Pumpkins, amongst a couple of others whose names slip my mind now (too much great music!).

All the acts were good, but to me, the stand-outs were The Police, who performed classics like 'Walking On The Moon,'Synchronicity II (love that song!),'Driven To Tears', 'Don't Stand So Close To Me?', and that classic of classics, 'Every Breath You Take'. The Beastie Boys were in rare form, jumping all over their catalogue and performing pieces from their recent all-instrumental record. They wore full suits and fedora hats (which were quickly taken off due to the 95 degree weather in Baltimore on Saturday. One of the Beasties declared 'It's hot as Mo'Fo on this Mo'fo!)

Amy Winehouse performed and I caught a few bars of her set: She closed with 'Rehab', complete with Motown-looking backup singers. The woman's skinny as a rail and has one hell of an awesome deep voice. I had no idea that TV On The Radio is mostly made up of black performers; they fooled me with their spacey-rock sound. There were a lot of folks for the Saturday night South Stage Modest Mouse set. I wish I was more of a fan of them, because they were great live.

Richard Branson, head of Virgin Inc, and (I believe) the richest man in all of Britain was there, basking in the glory. At one point, just standing a few feet from me. He seems like a great guy, very approachable. And filthy rich. He had his own camera crew following him around.

Sunday was less of a scorcher, but the live music was just off the charts. I even got to catch some of the electronica action in the DJ tent, where acts like Dan Deacon, Girl Talk, Dieselboy, Deep Dish, and M.I.A. all performed. Damn, can those rave kids dance, or what!!

The Yeah Yeah Yeahs also put up a great show, with the lead singer dressed in a catsuit, silvery tassels and a tasseled-mask. That girl can go from a whisper to a scream in a second! I could only catch a couple of songs from the Interpol set, but 'Slow Hands' sounded awesome (I heard from the sound techs that Interpol brought all their uber-special sound equipment.heh) I really wish I could get 'Panic! At The Disco' because there were a lot of kids out there for them; they just don't do it for me for some reason... Now, Spoon I very much like, and was able to catch their entire set, which was great. Lots of material from their past three records. At one point Britt Daniels from Spoon was heard saying: 'This is what I hate about day shows, I can't see what my tuner says. Your're out of tune, Brit, it's saying.'

By far, the best, liveliest set was the Wu-Tang Clan's. They arrived fashionably 15 minutes late, and brought the house down, making every body, of any color, jump up and down in ectstatic hip-hop glee. Their set attracted a lot of VIP attention (Branson was there. Also, Ben Harper, the musician) They dedicated a portion of their set to the departed ODB by performing 'Oh, You Know I like It Raw' (or whatever that song is actually called), Lotsa of crowd surfind and hand waving during their short set. Everybody loved them, myself included, and I wasn't much of a fan of them until last night.

Velvet Revolver was very, very good. It was great seeing Slash doing his thing; The dude is a born-hard-rock guitar god. Scott Stapp has lost some weight. You can hardly recognize him these days as he has slimmed down to that hard-rock-lizard physique. He was in great vocal form though, and they performed several Stone Temple Pilots and Gun'sNRoses songs.

Finally, I caught a bit of The Smashing Pumpkins as I was departing last night. I'm not sure about this new lineup, or their new record--Only half the band is back (Billy and Jimmy). James Iha and D'arcy are nowhere to be seen. But I did get a bit wistful as they performed 'Tonight' followed by their new hit, 'Tarantula'.

All in all.. I stumbled into a great weekend of music. Thanks to my bud Chris for hooking me up. I think some of the footage I recorded for MTV (their producing staff, Dee, Whitney, and Vanessa, were awesome to me) will end up in their news broadcast sometime this week.

I took many pictures with my cell camera, but darn it, I need to learn how to get pics ouf of my camera and into my puter.