We were all really exhausted from Saturday so we took our time waking up and getting out the door.  I think we didn’t end up leaving the hotel room until almost 1:30.  We all barely ate anything the day before due to how crazy it was so we were starving.  We decided to check out The Top, which was across the street from The Atlantic.  Chris had been there before and raved about the falafel burger than came on a pretzel roll.

It was really busy and we had to wait a little bit to get a table.  Once we ordered, we had a good time hanging out but then we realized we had been waiting much longer than usual for our food.  The waiter never said why, but I assume that they forgot to make our food.  It sucks, but it wasn’t the biggest deal.  The waiter gave us two huge pieces of vegan chocolate cake and free coffee/soda as an apology which was awesome.  But the food was definitely worth the wait.  I got what was called a ‘Mastadon Burger’, which was a huge handmade black bean veggie burger on a pretzel roll with mustard, nutritional yeast cheese sauce, bbq sauce, onions, and seitan bacon.  It was a massive burger and tasted so good.  I really don’t know how I managed to eat it all.

The only downside for the long wait for our food was we missed the Cheap Girls set at 8 Seconds.  We could hear the last song as we approached the venue and sang along on the street.  I had some time to kill before Pygmy Lush so I called Eva because I hadn’t had a chance to talk to her much in the past few days.  It was fun telling her all about The Fest.  Then Jay Draper came by with Christian, the fill in drummer for Failures’ Union and we got $1 vegan kabob’s which were delicious.  We talked about how he watched Lemuria’s set the night before (Jay used to play bass for Lemuria until he was kicked out a couple years ago).

Then I headed to The Atlantic to see Pygmy Lush.  I had heard good things about them and they had members of Pg.99 so I wanted to check them out.  I thought they were good but I was in the mood for something a little more energetic and fun so I left after a couple songs to go see Mikey Erg at 8 Seconds.  I’m really glad I did because it was so much fun singing along to Ergs! songs.  He closed out his set with “Books About Miles Davis”.   As soon as he started to play it, I looked at Jay on the side of the stage and nodded to him and he laughed because he knew exactly what I meant.  Whenever Lemuria would play with The Ergs! and they played that song, Jay would hop on the bass and Alex would play drums for the ending .  Instead of Alex, the drummed of The Measure got on the drums but Jay didn’t come out and play the bass.  I was so bummed.   As soon as the set was over, I called Jay out on it.  Apparently he was going to but they couldn’t find a bass on stage.

Afterward I hung out with Jay and the rest of Failures Union for a bit at their van as they started to load into the venue they were going to play.  After unsuccessfully getting a $5 burrito (they were out of tempeh, lettuce, salsa, and beans so it would have been the worst burrito ever), I decided to check out a few songs of Teenage Bottlerocket at The Venue.  I’m not crazy about them but I like a few of their songs.  I watched the first 6 songs, which included “Stupid Games” and “Radio” so I was pleased.  I had seen enough so I headed back to Loosey’s to see Failures’ Union.

This was the first time I had ever seen Failures’ Union outside of Buffalo which is weird to think about.  It also meant I had seen every drummer who has ever been in Failures’ Union (there has been 5 now).  I was surprised and happy with the amount of people who were singing along to their set.  Rightfully so, they are a great band and sounded really good that night.  It was also nice to see them outside of Mohawk Place which is where I’ve seen them play the majority of the time.

I met up with Sheena and Alex after that and got a mediocre slice of vegan pizza.  Then we went back to the hotel room early and hung out and were lazy.  I’d say I went to bed early due to the amount of driving we had the next day, but I wasn’t tired so I stayed up pretty late on the computer.

The Fest was finally over and I had a lot of fun.  I had heard mixed things about it; some people love it and think it’s the best weekend of the year and some think it’s overwhelming and too hectic.  I personally loved it and I can’t wait to go to Fest 11.  Hopefully Lemuria wants me to do merch for them again next year because it was a really great experience.

 

Bands I saw partial sets of: 4 (I watched a little bit of Cheap Girls and The Measure through the back door)
People I was bummed I didn’t get to spend more time with on Sunday: Rory, Hex, and Danny
PBR cans thrown in the air during Teenage Bottlerocket: 3
Number of Lemuria shirts seen being worn: 10-15 (on Friday we kept seeing so many while walking around that we devised a signal to let each other know we saw one)