Recap: 8


I was short on time and condensed 16 hours of writing into 3. I'm bummed out that I did not have enough time to write more about the Halloween weekend, but I have more pressing work matters. At any rate, here's a sample of my recap of the weekend titled 8. Since it's over 3,500 words, I decided to post it on my regular blog.

Here's a bit...
Entering the campgrounds at the Coachella festival was notoriously a hassle because of the tight security procedures. Phish acquiesced to the local security instead of providing their own crew -- something they had always done at previous festivals. The result? Heads were hit pretty hard. The folks who arrived early on Thursday sent out the word to be vigilant with stashing your shit and to avoid bringing glass in at all costs. However, even with the repeated warnings via word of mouth, Facebook, and Twitter, the campers were no match to four guys tearing apart your car faster than the DEA could break down a van at the Juarez/El Paso border smuggling a couple of kilos of Peruvian snowflake

We anxiously waited for over an hour as we watched the Draconian tactics unfold in front of us. When it was our turn to be violated, I quickly grew infuriated with the scope of the search. I understood that security is seeking illegal items (especially booze and bottles of beer), but did one security guard have to open up my check book and riffle through my tiny Moleskin notebooks? The check book really pissed me off because he wasn't going to find a bottle of vodka there. So why did he look? I hid extra cash stashed in my checkbook and I let out a "Yo dude, watch my cash!" when I caught him in the middle of eying my poker bankroll. He glared at me and looked like he wanted to deck me. "Please put that back as you found it."

One of the SS guards found my girlfriend's medicinal marijuana stash. She quickly whipped out her medical card but that didn't help. I knew what was up and pulled a Benjamin out of my pocket very slowly to let him know my intentions. I looked the SS in his shifty eye and offered him $100. He took a deep breath and declined. The value of the bud was over $200 and I was not about to overpay to get my girlfriend's medicine back. Those fucking Nazis took one whiff at the pungent aroma of her OG Kush and drool rushed down the sides of their mouths. No way they were about to give up the motherload, even for a cash bribe. I had to write the confiscation off as a loss, considering the rest of the contents that they missed due to my Han Solo skills. We were still well stocked, yet my girlfriend was in tears and rightly so. I was trying to get her focus on the positives -- that we finally made it to Festival 8 and we're with our friends...

Click here to read the entire recap.

Comments

jonas0tt0 said…
As always, SICK REVIEW! My favorite line is:

"During the acoustic set, a wook with an inflatable cactus was bouncing off the walls and running around waving his cactus. The Joker wrote him a wook ticket for operating a cactus without a permit, despite his pleas where he insisted that he was not a wookie."

lol.
Kid Dynamite said…
wtf is up with the 2 hour setbreak? absolutely ruins me when they do that...

pics of the Ocelots?

how did Benjo like the wook scene? "what eeees deeees sheeet?"
Good recap. I saw the dudes holding hands in the show...pretty erotic dancing...if you like that kind of thing. Me? I want to see more Ocelots.

Kiley "Fozzi" Lyons
very well put together entry.
i had similar experience, even with press credentials, nothing stopped the SS. during my reporting i found that Phish had hired 3 separate security agencies. The CSC, the inside the Venue Security, and the Mounted Patrol (35 horse riders in all), who by the way were the nicest of all. the mounted patrol made not one report all weekend. these 3 separate private security firms were not connected in any way including being on the same bandwidth on radio so there was much confusion and "overkill"-mind you the 3 security firms, were told to say nothing at to press, and that is not counting the Indio Police Department and The Riverside County Sheriff's Dept, who did all undercover and behind the scenes work. Who actually, were true to form, dick heads, but after the show praised the fans and the less than 24 arrests all weekend...(this fact has not been verified as i cannot get anyone including Phish to confirm it) i know that bail was set at a staggering $25,000 for any felony arrest made no questions asked, and most likely more for the one man that stabbed another inside the venue...yes it happened, but besides that no major incidents, and thankfully no one died, 24 hospital visits,mainly for bad trips and too much drinking, no over heating or dehydration all weekend(the medical staff was much more loose lipped).once again Coventry, very well done! Thank you.


Sammy Martin
www.phishandthedead.com

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