The Festival Express: Part 3

We gracefully accepted our free plane tickets and went to the festival in Florida, just four months deep down the newfound path of our relationship. Years later we would both acknowledge realizing the risky Test we were taking.

We witnessed mindblowing music. The weather was great. Most importantly, we cohabitated peacefully. For 4 days, in a tent, hundreds of miles from home, surrounded by tens of thousands of smelly hippies. If our relationship could sustain such intense conditions, we assumed we were Good to Go.

2009 was another Vibes, this time in Connecticut. Lovely.

But at this point we're gigging like hounds and feeling that we can hang with some of the acts gracing the smaller stages. We vow not to return to a festival unless it is as a paid member of a performing band.

The gigs churned through 2010. I was a strong believer in "Tom Stein's Theory of the Finite Number of Well Paying Summer Gigs" and so I didn't go to concerts. Or festivals. Or hang with friends. Just gigged like a hound.

Not a good decision. Life is a balance, and those hangs with friends are just as Finite as well paying gigs. Learned that one the hard way.

This past Summer of 2011 found me on the upright, subbing for two gigs with a bluegrass band I have admired and tried to get with for a couple years. One of the two gigs was a Festival.

We were welcomed by a topless young lady, the word STAFF written across her tits in body paint. People danced while we played, smiling and laughing with a twisted twinkle in their eye.

A man stood backstage during our set, holding a large turkey bag full of gas that he was intermittently inhaling. He offered me some, midsong, and I politely declined. He offered the mandolin player some, but the mandolin player was confused. He didn't see the bag. He thought the man was just saying Hello, Great Job, etc... so he nodded in recognition. Yes, Thank You.

The bagman starts coming right as us now, still midsong, and as he extends the bag out, Mandolin realizes his mistake and his face turns white. No, No and he's furiously shaking his head, somewhat intrigued but mostly frightened by the mysterious contents of the bag. Bagman did not take offense, just nodded as to say Alright, Your Loss, and carefully assumed his position backstage watching the band, sucking from the bag.