Saturday, 21 June 2003 | Field Day, part 3

An acquaintance of mine suggested that music festivals are like all-you-can-eat buffets—they seem like a good idea at first, before you realize: the dishes being offered are pretty low quality; the place is chaotic; the amount being served is overwhelming; you feel compelled to consume more than you want in order to make the price seem reasonable.

Underworld was the first band that I saw, mainly because they played in the arena where I could watch them from beneath a ceiling. By the time the first song ended, the band had coaxed a few hundred people out from their dry caves to dance in the rain, driving them (the moths) into the field and toward the railings (the light). I stayed underneath my shelter, watching a rainbow of ponchos bounce up and down like an EKG measuring the band's pulse. Some people carelessly absorbed the water, poncho-free. Such as the guy who smiled and pumped his fist when he danced and got lost in himself. Or the girl on the field who couldn't stand still, who thrust her hips in zig-zags and threw both arms up simultaneously, as if she were hailing two taxis.

Bright Eyes and Elliott Smith were on the second stage, the stage hidden in the parking lot underneath the clouds. I'd seen Bright Eyes a couple times before, but because on this particular day it was roughly a side helping of, say, jello salad, and I only took a few bites before abandoning it, since I could hear Blur cueing up on the main stage. Elliott Smith was pretty much the same story; he was good, and he said some funny things while I was standing there, but he lost in a competition to the Beastie Boys.

Blur and the Beastie Boys, yes, yes. (Mashed potatoes?) But I was removed, and, except for the level of sound, I could've been watching it on TV. In fact, I was watching it on TV, on the screens to either side of the stage. It was difficult not to rely on the screens, because, otherwise, the person onstage was about an inch tall and had no face.

Beck canceled last-minute; the rumor around the venue was that he'd slipped backstage and had been taken to the hospital.

The break between the Beastie Boys and Radiohead was long. The cameras panned the crowd on the field so that it could amuse itself with itself, so that it could smile and wave and make obscene gestures and hold up strange objects and get a reaction from everyone watching the screens. They were creative, funny, boring, immodest, shy, and obnoxious. They made me wonder what I would do if the camera came to me. I would probably do nothing, and then come up with something to do an hour after the opportunity had passed, something I probably never would've done anyway.

By the time Radiohead played, it was dark and it had stopped raining.

Radiohead was not a well combed-over dish on the buffet table. They were not cold and gross; they did not have a dead fly hiding in them; they were not unidentifiable. In fact, for the two hours (?) that they played, I didn't feel a million miles away from the stage. I didn't silently wish that they'd hurry up or that they'd play different songs. I didn't silently wish that I were somewhere else. I didn't regret coming.

During the middle of the set, the three of us moved a few rows closer, which put us underneath the dark, sealed sky, where we were able to see the filled seats all around us, people watching the stage and holding out their cell phones.

(Part 1 | Part 2)