Virgin Festival: Part I

I could easily write a huge post on just this festival I attended on Sat. the 23rd, but there is a point where it becomes boring chatter so I will try to limit what I write to the best of my ability. In fact, what I will do is divide it into two parts, the first part will be of the first half of the show and the second part will be the second half of the show. Anyway, I went to the show with my roommate and two of his friends and we arrived at The Pimlico Racetrack in Maryland where the show was held around an hour before the first band went on. We were extremely close to the stage and refused to leave our position for basically the whole night. The bands which I saw were:

Kasabian
Wolfmother
The Racoontuers
Gnarls Barkley
The Killers
The Who
The Flaming Lips

All in all every band put on a fantastic show and being so close to the stage only emphasized the enjoyment which I had. The only issue which plagued the festival was the heat, the only description I can really give is the conditions were like being stuck in a very tight closet with no air conditioning in the summer. What made the atmosphere even worse was not exactly a problem due in part to the people who ran the festival but was a problem created by myself. As I stated earlier I refused to leave my position which was around twenty feet from the stage and I stood there for nine straight hours with no food or water. I would have most definitely left if I didn't have any bands to look forward to later in the night but I could not pass up being that close to The Who.

Enough bickering about the conditions, now lets get on to a little review of the bands. The bands which put on the best performances were Wolfmother, The Racoontuers, The Who, and The Flaming Lips. I was extremely excited to see Wolfmother although I'm going to see them again in a few months. The whole band was amazing, not only was their sound extremely tight but they really displayed some exciting raw intensity on stage. Singer/Guitarist Andrew Stockdale was rolling around on the floor, doing high kicks, and capped it off by throwing his guitar up in the air at the end of their set. The fans were really into their performance and it really heightened the energy of their show. Following Wolfmother was The Racoontuers which sounded great. Jack White is truly one of the best artist in the past decade pulling off some fantastic solos and tossing around his unique vocals. I will post Part II tomorrow afternoon so make sure you check in for a review of two of the best performances I've ever seen.