Weather worries

With a rumors starting to spread around the festival that there was a cold front with a serious line of thunderstorms ahead of it, some festival goers were becoming more concerned about whether or not the sky would open up during the Beastie Boys.  The anticipation grew stronger and stronger as the wind became eerily calm and Mix Master Mike prepped the audience for what was to come.

AdRock, MCA and Mike D humbly strolled onto the stage and proceeded to blast everyone away, including me. MCA’s bass sounded so good vibrating my chest cavity, but Ad Rock was having some difficulties with what seemed like a chord shorting out. By the time they worked through it, they were attacking “Gratitude” in a way that made even more intense than the recorded version on “Check Your Head.”

After that, the rest of their set was smooth sailing on a journey through their past and a majority of the more eclectic hits. Well I suppose that’s hard not to do for the Beasties, but they will forever remain ahead of their time with the some of the most unique sonic experimentations in a live setting. 

Returning to the media tent to finish uploading images, typing, and trying to check the doppler radar to see when this aforementioned storm was expected to hit, I realized that we were under a tornado watch.  With 23,000 + in attendance everyday at this festival and a huge percentage of those people camping, there was no real safe shelter out here and some began preparing for the worst.

The clouds crept so low to the ground, if felt like you could reach out and touch them…even if you weren’t under the influence of every and/or everything floating around the grounds here. Just as I finished securing the tent, I heard a roar coming from the concert grounds that spread like a wave out through the entrance into our camp and it was no doubt from the deluge that was spreading from southwest to northeast.

Lightning started dancing across the sky as the rain let up for a bit and thankfully there weren’t too many obvious cloud to ground strikes, but it was the thunder was loud enough to remind everyone that they needed to get somewhere safe. Eventually the rain got stronger as the lighting retreated and I felt safe enough to jump outside of my car in my bikini and finally got to clean away the layers of sweat, sun block, bug spray and dirt that had been building up since we arrived Thursday night.

The storm finally calmed down somewhere around 4:30 or 5 in the morning and I retreated to my tent with a wet head to finally catch some zs. When I awoke, it wasn’t as hot as Friday morning, but still a steady 25 mph wind – this time coming from the northwest. I spent the morning re-staking my tent to withstand the high winds and got ready for another long day and night of Langarado.

After finally getting caught up with how we were posting photos and blogging, I caught Arrested Development on the Sunset stage.  It has been 15 years since I saw them at Lollapalooza ’93 and I can say that they sounded better than ever. Playing “Give a Man a Fish” at the beginning of their set drew everyone closer to the stage and by the time they played the big ‘90s hit “Tennessee” which was responsible for most of their major success back then, everyone was dancing, jumping and chanting along. Finishing up with other familiar hits like “Mr. Wendal” and “Everyday People” the sun started to set and a much colder wind started to kick in.  It became evident that tonight is going to be a chilly one and I’m now back at my campground bundling up as I write this. I hope Michael Stipe has a hat for his noggin, wish I did!