Posts tagged Fun Fun Fun Fest

I was looking forward to Sunday for three reasons:  Lemuria’s set, last day of the fest, and Henry Rollins.  Today was also the day Slayer was headlining so everyone was buzzing about that.  I was never a big fan
of their music, but seeing their set up during the soundcheck was pretty awesome.  Lemuria played 2^nd on the orange stage so I helped set up a few things at yellow and headed over there to make sure I had a good spot on the side of the stage for their set.

I had never seen them play on such a big stage before and it was definitely weird.  There wasn’t much of a crowd watching them since it was early in the day, but there were a handful of people singing along.  Lemuria sounded really good and it was awesome seeing Sheena and Max with a lot of room to move around and rock out.

When I got back to the yellow stage, Henry Rollins was there.  I wasn’t nervous to meet him like other people were, but it was definitely cool.  He’s super nice and really talkative.  He was there early because he was going to officiate a wedding for 2 people who met at FFF several years ago.  It was a fun service, easily the best wedding I’ve ever been to.  It ended with the Sexy Sax Man coming out and playing which was pretty awesome.  He might come out to Lemuria’s show in LA.  I really hope that happens because that would be amazing.

A few hours later Henry Rollins went on and killed it.  He always puts on a great show and has awesome things to talk about.  About half way through the set I heard a voice in the crowd that sounded like someone was heckling him with a bullhorn.  As I was looking for the person, I realized it was Brian Posehn starting his set over on the orange stage.

Directly following Mr. Rollins was Trash Talk.  They were supposed to play the black stage as that’s where most of the punk and hardcore and metal bands played, but for some reason they got moved to our stage.  I helped them get all their equipment on stage and then set up near the stage right speaker to make sure people didn’t climb on them.  I’m not a fan of Trash Talk, and had never seen them, but I’ve been to enough hardcore shows to know what to expect.  It was full of pile ons and stage dives and circle pits.  It was weird watching a show from a different perspective.  In the middle of the first song, this kid John from Buffalo saw me on the stage and said hi.  It threw me off because I forgot he had told me that he was going to be at FFF.  It was cool to see him and I wish I could have talked to him more at the time, but I had to get Trash Talk’s equipment off the stage and then rush over to the blue stage to do security again.

The reason was because Odd Future was playing.  I had heard stories and seen videos of the insanity of their shows, so I didn’t go in unprepared.  I got there before they even started but the crowd was already going crazy.  People were pushing on the right barrier so much that it was about to flip over.  To remedy this, they were wedging a big metal rod between the stage and the barrier to keep it up.   A few minutes later, Tyler the Creator and the rest of Odd Future hit the stage and the place went wild.  Bodies were flying everywhere.   Odd Future was stage diving into the crowd, people were crawling to the front, and a few people were crowd surfing on giant inflatable rafts.

In the middle of their set, they abruptly stopped a song and all ran off the stage into the crowd.  It was pretty crazy and we didn’t know what to do and what was going on.  Apparently someone had thrown a water bottle and it hit Tyler in the head so they jumped into the crowd to beat the shit out of the person.  It was hard to tell what happened in the crowd or if they ever found the culprit.  I thought that was going to be the craziest thing of the set, but I was wrong.

Right before they played their last song, ‘Radicals’, Tyler the Creator told the crowd to “fuck the security, rush the barrier and come on stage”.  While normally i’d think “that’s awesome and super rad”, being on the other side of the fence (literally), I was not stoked.  As soon as the song started, chaos ensued.  Immediately, my glasses got knocked off which was terrifying to me.  Without my glasses, I can barely see.  At first I couldn’t find them among the bodies falling on my head, but luckily I managed to see them in the dirt and put them in my pocket before they were broken.  For the duration of the song, it was non-stop stage diving and crowd surfing.  It was easily one of the craziest things I have ever experienced.