We managed to get to Grant Park before people were allowed in. I think they opened the gate late. Anyway, I managed to get 3 bags before seeing our first band, and I only paid for one of them. Someone was handing out tote bags outside the gate. Then I went to Green Street and bought the tote bag with the skull and crossbones on it (and a flap and zip pocket!) that I was eyeing the day before. Finally, I went and got one of those little red XRT backpacks, which will go nicely with the blue one I got last year.
Even after getting all of those bags we managed to get to the AT&T stage well before Tokyo Police Club started their set.
We knew we would be leaving that set early to get over to Pete Yorn. I wasn't too disappointed because, even though I liked their set, I didn't love it as much as I thought I would.
Onto Pete Yorn. He's one of those artists I never really got around to getting to know. I knew a couple of songs, but that was it. I really enjoyed his set, as I figured I would given that I really like the few songs I do know. Tim suggested leaving just as he started playing his last song, but when I realized it was a cover of "There Is a Light That Never Goes Out" by The Smiths, well, I insisted that we stay.
Tim decided that we must walk all the way over for Silverchair. I saw them back in the day and wasn't interested in seeing them again. I then learned the method to Tim's madness. Generally we like to walk out of our way sometimes to stumble upon a stage we may not have considered going to. Since Silverchair was at the other end of the park, and we didn't have one particular artist we wanted to see at that time, he thought we would hear several stages and be able to stumble across something. That something certainly wasn't Silverchair, and we left after two songs. We liked what we heard from Aquaduct, however, and stayed for the rest of their set before heading back.
We decided to set up shop in that little patch of grass between the Adidas stage and the Playstation stage so that we could hear the next few acts we wanted to hear.
We caught the last bit of Stephen Marley's set (and I started regretting the decision to see Silverchair because then I would have heard more of it, though I was glad to encouonter Aquaduct), then Rhymefest, then The Roots (who were absolutely amazing) without having to move.
We left The Roots early because there was no way I was going to miss even one second of The Hold Steady. Plus I was meeting some fellow Moggers for that set, so I wanted to be there early.
They certainly
did not disappoint. I think this was my second favorite set of the weekend.
Even Tim, who doesn't like listening to them because he doesn't like Craig Finn's "singing", was impressed.
As I said, there was no way I was going to miss even a second of The Hold Steady's set, so we were late for Snow Patrol. Oh well. I spotted some other friends (the ones I saw Ted Leo with) and hung with them until the friend I was supposed to meet there found us. I liked Snow Patrol's set, and it was my second Nikki Monninger experience of the weekend. She's so cute!
After that Tim and I went to get a bottle of wine. It was kind of pricy, but we got to keep the plastic bottle they gave us. We decided to set up camp on a grassy hill next to where Spoon was playing, and that we would chill with our wine, listen to Spoon, and wait for Muse. By the time we sat down it was raining so I sat under my umbrella and we shared our wine in the rain. We listened to Spoon (who were great), watched people play frisbee in the rain, and drank our wine. The rain actually enhanced the atmosphere, and this was my favorite moment of the weekend.
When Muse took the stage we still hadn't finished our wine. I wanted to get down into the crowd, but obviously wine drinking took precidence. Plus, we could see the screen and hear just fine. But then, horror! The one song, my favorite Muse song, the one song I had been waiting months to hear live, started. They played
Map of the Problematique second. I made Tim pour the rest of the wine and we walked quickly (didn't run as to not spill the wine) down into the crowd. It was fantastic, as was the rest of the set. This was the best set of the weekend for me. I was a little nervous before hand because I had built it up so much in my head from the day that the lineup was announced that I was afraid I would end up disappointed. I was not. Not at all. It was even better than I had hoped.
