Sunday June 16
Started out cloudy and stayed cloudy. Which was actually a good thing
because I definitely did not need to add to my sunburn. I parked myself in
the same spot I was in the day before. Chaksam Pa and the monks and nuns
started it out again as they had the day before. The show started around
11:30ish.
(RS) Buddy Guy: Okay yet again I'm trying to think of something to say
about a performer I don't know too well. ;) He was good though...first song
was one that he got the crowd to sing along with. Others were a little
slower and more bluesy.
(BS) Yoko Ono/IMA: Oh. My. God. This was rather interesting...Yoko
looking like a grandma up there with this funky band (Sean played guitar and
keyboards...oooh...he has really long hair and looked pretty foxy. :9 )
making these guttaral moany sounds and kind of thrashing about. The first
song she just sang, "I'm dying! I'm dying! Help! help me! I'm dying!" over
and over again. I swear to you those were the only lyrics. Everyone around
me was like "oh my god! haha" Poor yoko. Well, at least they didn't boo her.
(RS) Sonic Youth: Opened with "Bull in the Heather." Thurston wished the
crowd a Happy Father's Day. He dedicated a song to Yoko Ono "whose rock n
roll is beautiful." It was a familiar song but I don't know the name. Went
off into a rambling/feedback portion for about 5 minutes and then came back
into the song..that was cool..
(BS) Beck: Leah was in heaven, she loves Beck. It was just him, his
guitar and harmonica and this little beat-making thing. I'm not into his
stuff at all but he was still fun.
(RS) De La Soul: uhh...you can copy what I said for ATCQ...I don't know
any of their stuff. At least it had a groove and wasn't total shit. That was
the good thing about almost every single performer this weekend...even if it
wasn't necessarily my style of music, it sounded good and was something you
could get into.
(BS) Skatalites: hmm...don't remember a lot about them...kind of reggae-ish,
not Ska like the name might make you think. Mainly older band members...I
think they've been around while. I'm sounding so ignorant here it's not even
funny.
(RS) Björk: she was really cool, lots of fun. Dancing around, barefoot
some of the time. I'm not WILD about her music but it is good and I wished
I'd had more room to dance. Partway through her set, the guy doing the
lights turned around his little video monitor which seemed to be from Mtv...not
necessarily what Mtv was showing, but what they'd cut to when they wanted
to show performances. So we got to see close-ups! yay!
(BS) Fugees: rap again. yay. They did "No Woman, No Cry" like at the KROQ
Weenie Roast, and I liked that...but we also had to put up with that damned
cover of "Killing Me Softly" and I do agree with the joshling in that I have
no respect for a band's #1 hit being a cover. They did some other
stuff...the lead guy's guitar was not up to his satisfaction so he did some
freestyle stuff for about 5-10 minutes while they fixed it. People were
starting to pack in in preparation for Rage...
(RS) Rage Against the Machine: ooooh man they were intense, and I was
very psyched to see them. The crowd was packed tight and the pogoing and
moshing was not limited to just the area immediately in front of the stage.
There was a brief moment where I pushed hard against the wall and I mildly
freaked that I might have to bail...but it didn't stay that way, thank
goodness. They did some stuff I didn't know as well as "Bulls on parade"
"Killing in the Name" (I LOVE that song) and "Freedom." It was great...also
got to watch it thru the video monitor thanks to the light guy. :)
(BS) Red Hot Chili Peppers: I think I was the most excited to see them. I
was so glad they played the stage I was closer to. :) I got to see Dave
Navarro in silvery leather pants and no shirt on mouth "oh baby do me now,
do me here I do allow." *sigh* I can die happy now. They played Power of
Equality, Suck My Kiss, Fugazi's "Waiting Room" which I LOVED, Walkabout,
Aeroplane, One Big Mob, Give It Away...I think that's it, might have been
one other one. I know they played for about 40 minutes. Not nearly long
enough for me, but still satisfying. davedavedavedavedavedave!
Then the monks and nuns came out one last time to bless us and end the
show. I bought T-shirts and then we left.
The entire weekend was great...it went very smoothly, the weather was
nice, and even the crowd was cool for the most part. Of course you're always
going to have the random person who has to be a dick, but there were no
idiotic beer gardens so that cut down on the asshole quotient considerably.
During RHCP there was this tall guy next to me who would bend down to let
the short girls around us stand on his knee to get better pictures or just
get a better view for a few seconds. I thought that was pretty sweet. The
vibes are just so much nicer in San Francisco...I love this big huge open
field with the breeze blowing through it and this large assortment of
different kinds of food booths..flags waving, interesting looking people,
cool security and medical staff, volunteers going around with letters to the
president to sign, people from Rock the Vote asking everyone if they're
registered to vote... They know how to do shows at the Polo Fields... I
can't help but think of how dumb they were at Spartan Stadium: not allowing
us to take water bottles in, but selling beer all day long. MORONS!
grr.
I'd also like to think that people came away from this event educated
about what's going on in Tibet and maybe motivated to do something about it.
They had 4 speakers through the day between acts. One of them was a monk who
spoke through an interpreter. He had been imprisoned for 33 years in
concentration camps simply for wishing to practice his religion and
expressing that Tibet is NOT a part of China. He told us about being
tortured with stun guns thrust in his mouth, and how the women of every age
were gang raped by both soldiers and stun guns. It was sickening...and
through all of this, this guy still has no hatred in him. They really
stressed non-violence. We were also asked to boycott all Chinese goods for
the month of June, and not as an anti-China or anti-Chinese message, but
more to the *government* of China. It's not just the Tibetans who are living
with some of the worst human-rights conditions on the planet, but the
Chinese as well. I certainly learned TONS this weekend and I'm going to pay
a lot more attention to the origin of things that I buy. I know this show
alone can't free Tibet, but I think it's brought the issue to the attention
of a lot of people who, like me, had no idea things were as bad as they are.
(June 1996)
