Vibes

I went to my first jam band festival, Gathering of the Vibes, over the weekend. Here are some notes I was able to mentally recover.

- I woke up at 7:00 a.m. Friday morning to catch an early train to Bridgeport, Connecticut, the site of the festival. I was upset to be up so early, but then I realized I was heading to hippie festival for a day of drinking, live music and other sorts of good vibes and not like my roommates who were up at 7 to go to work.

- Even though I had never heard of any of the bands playing in Friday's line-up except for George Clinton and Parliament Funkadelic and the fact that I am not really into jamband music; I was dying to go to Vibes for the following reasons:

1. I am a fake hippie.

2. My friend Aaron is a seasoned veteran in the music festival game. There is nothing in the world Aaron loves more than Phish. I hope to one day find something I love half as much as Aaron loves Phish. I was hoping that by going to Vibes I would find some divine light.

3. Aaron's girlfriend once told me, "Music festivals are the last place on earth where people act as they should." I needed to understand this for myself.

4. One of my favorite professors attended the Summer of Love back in '67. In my mind Vibes is as close as I would get to any Summer of Love/Woodstock atmosphere, minus the urge for social/political change and plus the addition of chemically-evolved drugs.

- I made it to the venue, bought my ticket and left society. After walking around for 10 minutes I realized this is the closest I ever wanted to becoming homeless. I joined my friends (who were much, much, much harder than I and were camping there for all four days, for their fourth straight year) in their campsite and began to enjoy myself.

- I walked around trying to take in a population that was 60 percent donning Deadhead tees and tie-dyed shirts/40 percent not wearing a shirt.

- I think it was just the atmosphere that brought it of me, but my frisbee game has never been so on point as it was at Vibes.

- There are a lot of zombies at Vibes who just walk around as close to legally dead as you can be. My friend assured me that the night would be much more intense.

- I sat inside a tent deeply contemplating life for quite a while. I was then trying to justify shattering my budget to attend this ludicrous jamband festival I really had no place being at. I then said to myself, "Well, you're only in college once."

- Some five minutes later I realized I graduated college over a year ago and I was sad.

- Some time later I fell asleep on a chair, walked inside a tent and resumed my nap on a cot. I woke up drenched in sweat, wildly dehydrated, pretty sure I was going to pass out and die. The most frustrating part of this whole experience was realizing it was only 2:30 in the afternoon.

**I found this picture on Facebook four days later**

- I drank bottle after bottle of water and tried to reassure myself that everything was going to be alright. There was also a Bob Marley song playing in the background that confirmed this message.

- Eventually I decided I was capable of moving and leaving the only people I knew at the festival (some would argue that everyone knows everybody there). I tried to go to my own happy place so I sat on the rocks near the disgusting beach of the Long Island Sound and I listened to Rick Ross on my Zune and thought about Natalie Sitto.

- I ran into one guy running around frantically asking everyone who was Ponch's sidekick on "CHiPs" as if his life depended on the answer. I was born three years after "CHiPs" went off the air, but I thought long and hard about it and answered "Erik Estrada," a name I only know because Hov has been doing this since CHiPs was out, baggin' up at the Ramada watching Erik Estrada, with a table full of powder. It turns out Estrada was Ponch and I did not have the right answer. His search continued.

- Later on I was ready for round 2. I danced my ass off to a bunch of goofy jam bands and had a great time. George Clinton and P-Funk were dope (no pun intended). At one point George brought out his 'granddaughter' who rapped for about 15 minutes on how much she loved weed.

- Then the mayor of Bridgeport introduced Bridgeport's own Deep Banana Blackout. Everyone loved them, but I don't think I got their message.

- Then Moe. came on. My friend Aaron was adamant about me seeing Moe. so I expected a lot, but unfortunately I did not find them any different than Deep Banana Blackout.

- If you stand out at Vibes it means you are messed up to a point of no return. One guy who was that messed up almost got in a fight with another man. The two were face to face about to start throwing blows, but then after a bunch of screaming and death threats the two, hugged eachother and each said, "I love you." Only at Vibes.

- There were people there from all ages from 1-80. I made a mental note to thank my mother for never bringing me to a jamband festival when I was a child. Still, God bless parents who let their six year olds run along with the crazies.

- The whole time I was wearing a goofy hat slanted to the left a la R. Kelly in the "Fiesta Remix" video. I'm not sure how many people at Vibes picked that up.

- Eventually I re-passed out in the front seat of my friends Ford Ranger. There is really nothing like falling asleep to the sweet sound of hissing nitrous tanks, the occasional pop of a balloon and the good ol' nitrous-induced fight.

- I woke up the next morning at 7:15. Promptly gathered by belongings and hopped out of the car to find the exit and get the fuck back home. The morning scene at vibes looked like Omaha Beach on D-Day, except instead of lifeless bodies laying among blown-off limbs, they laid among thousands of deflated balloons. Those who were still moving looked like they had been through war and a good amount of them probably had been.

- When my friend made it back after his four-day exodus, he told me somebody died there. I was not surprised. I was surprised to learn that the person was murdered, having all four limbs broke and their face burned off.

-This is my new favorite picture ever.