I decided to venture down to New Jersey this weekend for the Bamboozle festival, two days of over priced food and water, ridiculously large crowds consisting of people under the influence and annoying teenagers, and oh yeah, a crazy amount of bands spanning several musical genres. From Anti-Flag to Snoop Dogg, and Jimmy Eat World to Every Time I Die, I literally saw it all.
I found myself quite literally in the land of the enemy. As if the masses of Yankees paraphernalia wasn’t enough to bring out my fighting spirit, the festival was held in the parking lot of Giants stadium, and I had to walk past a huge banner declaring that the Giants were the 2007 world champions. I can certainly be said to be a huge Red Sox fan, so the land of the Yankees is not a happy place to be. I have a hard time watching football, but you’re god damn right I care that we lost the super bowl to those fuckers. Yes, I am one of those people that gets emotional about sports. You can say its lame but whatever, we all have things that move us. Luckily, I was able to put aside my sporting rivalries and prepare to enjoy a ridiculous amount of music.
The started off with some Story of the Year, marking my billionth time seeing them live. I then went on to My American Heart, which I was very disappointed in as every song they played was from their newest record, of which I am not the biggest fan. Less than Jake was up next whom I have never seen live. They put on an amazing show of course and were even nice enough to throw several boxes of doughnuts into the crowd so that we didn’t have to spend eight dollars on a shitty hot dog.
Towards the end of the night was Paramore. I had seen them at Warped Tour this last year so I figured I’d just hang in the back of the crowd and catch some of their performance. My dreams of this were smashed however as the crowd behind me grew and began pushing everyone forward. Eventually I ended up in the front of the crowd with a ridiculously close view of the stage. Definitely not the band I pictured myself ever being in that position for. I wasn’t having a bad time until a little 16 year old crowd surfing tasty decided to kick me in the face, resulting in the loss of one of my contact lenses. I was pretty pissed about this because later on I had to watch Snoop with one eye closed, and minimal depth perception.
I caught some of Jimmy Eat World. I had never seen them live before so I figured I would give them a try. I admit it, I am not a JEW fan. They just don’t do anything for me. I like a few of their songs (mostly the ones that have been on the radio, lame I know) and overall I respect what they’re doing, but I just don’t have that big of a connection to their music. A lot of it just sounds the same to me. I was hoping that seeing them play live would inspire me a bit to get into them more, because everyone I know seems to love them, but I was sadly disappointed. It happens I guess.
The night finished off with Snoop Dogg, which was amazing to see. I am not exactly the type of person to head off to a hip-hop show, so it was nice to see him mixed in with all the other crazy music I listened to that day. I could honestly say that my concert going experience is that much more complete. Its always exciting seeing someone perform that you’ve been a fan of for awhile but never seen live.
I left the festival absolutely exhausted. Between walking around, rockin’ out every once and awhile, and continually standing on my toes to see over the crowds, definitely did a number on my body. I had no idea how I was going to be able to get through another day of it all. I had time to eat, sleep, and eat again and then it was time for round two.
