darkflavor

i am so tired. i got back today at 4am after driving for 17 hours. pumping up with caffee and a stressful night driving going very fast over a bumpy, narrow road through the desert is exhausting.

sat night saw nin at the joint. sun morning left for desert hot springs, ca / indo / coachelle festival. after five hours we arrived. stayed the night at a spa in desert hot springs. noon monday left and drove though riverside, ca then down the coast through oceanside, san clemente, la jolla, san diego, stopping at several beaches along the way. then we went straight to yuma, az, then up to vegas. got back at 4am. monday consisted of 2 hours driving straight, then three hours of driving broken up by beach stops, then 12 hours of straight night driving. it kicked my ass.
i will add more soon. i have to rest.

*update*
the LV nin show was strong and tight. trent looked great, strong, postive and mature — but man, what a weird f’n crowd. i felt like i was at a tourist show. trust me, it is very strange to see girls in cowboy hats dancing to wish. or standing next to guys sporting their new nin tour shirt with their bling bling chains hanging outside their new shirt waving their fists to tdtwwa. it was surreal.
i never felt so alone at a show before. after 2 years living in vegas, for the 1st time i missed the buffalo crowd. in buffalo, there are no tourists. 2/3’s of the vegas nin show crowd certainly seemed so. not to be superfisal, i am 27, but apperances do mean a lot. i watched three bon jovi songs before nin. at least there the crowd fit in!
understand that there is nothing wrong with trying something new. in fact, i encourage it. however, there were way less “fans” than i expected to see and way more people “trying something new,” to quote myself. that was unexpected and inpersonal.
the opening act dresden dolls was very good. she has talent, skill and was fun to watch. good preformer.
the air was much cleaner that expected at the show.
i have never been to the joint before, but high frequency sound such as guitar distortion (from the band) would bounce off the backend and the wall that sticks out for the 2nd level and distort the rest of the music at certain times.
SET LIST had the same songs as the 1st SanFran show, minus starfuckers.

next up – coachella
*update*
well, it was quite an adventure driving to coachella. we woke up somewhat early on sunday and departed. after five hours of driving in the desert sun, we made it to the desert hot springs. (this is near coachella.) we drove though a pretty moutainous areas. before hand, we drove through a salt flat with interesting salt evaporation canals. the canals are bright blue with white crystals along the sides and bottom. pics below.

As you could imagine, it was warm there. and it was dindy and boring. it was desolate. there where many small, flying insects there. the salty canal is the only source of water for many, many miles.
on the otherside of the playa, before the evap canals, there was a large mound that stretched alongside the canal in both directions. this mound has large, brown (caused dirt and sand contamination?), simi-transparent crystals slicking out of it. i took some pic’s, but they are useless cause there is no referfrence for size. some of these brown crystals where the size of grapefruits, others the size of duffle bags. i could not break them free. i needed a hammer, and was running late to coachella. so, i took off.

i has reserved a hotel room nearly a week earlier in palm desert, but when i called the front desk to get instructions on how to get there, they had no record of my name. in addition, they were booked. fustrated, i drove through desert hot springs (about 20min from palm desert / indio /coachella) and booked a room at a spa. this place has four pools of water pumped from undergound springs that people come to bath in for immortality. the room had a direct view of san jacinto mountain, which was large and forboding snow caped moutain with a shear front face over 10k ft. … that’s it, just one huge, nearly vertical snow capped mountain and nothing else viewable except the windmills, tiny and numorous, like a white forest at the foot of the giant mountain. san jacinto mountain below:

when driving up to this area, it became very windy. then we noticed, besides the beautiful san jacinto mountain in front and the san mato moutains to the right (north), we saw hundreds, if not thousands of windmills at the base of that mountian.

also, there was a haze that covered that entire area, notably viewable from a distance. it seemed five hundred feet tall, if not more, and extended across the whole valley around san jacinto mountain. silly me thought it was humidity from the salton sea (which is on the opposite side of the mountain). while driving through dersert hot springs, there was a stretch of road that went south from the hills down into the windmill farm where it is flat, right toward the mountian, then it goes around it to the opposite side to the salton sea and city. in that section, the wind blew so hard that my car swerved. it became very clear why there were windmill farms here. the wind blew sand everywhere. this created whiteout conditions while driving. whiteouts from blowing sand! people’s health must suffer here.
here is a pic of a road through my windshild during a sand blown whiteout:

anyway, we left for coachella. it took about 30 minutes to drive there. i had no idea, but coachella is a spanish farming community. not being aware where the festival is, i stopped at what appeared to be a food mart. it was, but filled with fresh vegetibles and spanish people. luckly, the security guard spoke english. i asked him where empire polo field is and he told me down this road on the left about three miles.
so down tara and i drove. at the two mile mark, the whole two lane road on both sides was filled with parked cars. we drove past a field where hundreds of dark-skinned people congregated. we parked. spanish familes, one after another, walked past us to the field after parking. i asked a few if this was empire polo field, and they all mumbled or said “no ingles”
perhaps i have the wrong field. perhapes empire polo field is somewhere further down this dusty road among the fields of alfalfa, grapes, and date farms. so we drove on.
a mile further there was lots of traffic. cars filled with white people. i think we found it!
we entered the festival around four pm. i was stupid and brought my pill box, which was thrown out. i also was stupid and did not bring warm clothes. when the sun set the wind still blew and it was cold. amound the fat bodies i kept warm, but outside crowds, i suffered.

i am sitting at starbucks right now and am sick of writing. it takes a while to write, even though little comes out. i have some work to do. there are two more sections that need to be written: the day at coachella and the trip along the coast.

*update*
well, it has been a month since i first started to document the coachelle festival. it is all in my mind, but expression comes from being able to express what is in the mind, of course.
so, i saw new order, nine inch nails, the dresden dolls, the prodigy, roni size, and arcade fire. now, let me till you, it was really cool to be sitting on the grass watching people come and go with nine inch nails spreading across the farm fields. it was like i was wearing headphones.
the nin show was desent.. the concert the night before at the joint was better. it really is good to see trent having a good time up on stage.
new order members look old! it was a shocker to see their faces on the big screens. i know how old they are, but this is music that i dont expect to come from guys who look that old and complacent. it was comical to me.
during the headliner nine inch nails, there were a lot of people arriving and walking into the festival. there is only two hours left of the festival. no one would pay $80 to drink at the bar area for two hours on the last day of the festival. so, i did not really think much of it. i was, you know, listening to the big comedown and the line begins to blur live. anyway… at the end of the nin show, everyone started to move across the field towad the tents where there is no exit.
when i say everyone, i mean everyone. thousands of people were walking toward the tents. now, i also was walking there to see the prodigy. but there is no way that everyone else in the festival is going there too. there must be an exit over there that i am not aware of. for the tents are on the parking side of the field.
now people start running toward the tents. then more and more. wtf is going on?!? i have never seen anything like this! so i start running too! this is when i realize that the people are still entering the festival grounds looking all clean. like they were not here earlier in the day. these people are running toward the tents.
the prodigy started in the main tent.
soon i understood what was happening. people paid $80 per ticket just for the last two hours of the festival to see the prodigy. does that tell you anything about the show the prodigy were about to put on???
…man, they were fucking awesome. it was amazing how much energy they gave out. they rocked the grounds and moved the bodies.
it ranks as one of best shows i have ever seen, making so many bands in stadiums, clubs and festivals (such as lollapalloza), including nin, look pale in compairison.
the prodigy stole the festival. i now understand why everyone rush to see them. i am also dumbfounded that they were not headliners considering how many people were at the tent. they were not even on the second or third stage!
the prodigy stole the festival and i understand why people paid just to see them. everything else was grey while the prodigy was in full color.

if the prodigy ever, ever preforms withing 500 miles of you, make your way to see them. you won’t forget it.