Vegoose - Beer and Loafing in Las Vegas

Even at a great distance you can't mistake that mug.

As we all grow old and enfeebled waiting for Adam and Kyle to slap together their Vegoose reports, I thought I'd sling one in even though I had to pay for my pleasure (e.g. I wasn't on the zboneman magic corporate ride)

Well here goes. This was my first time at the Vegoose hootenanny and I have to say it was quite enjoyable. My fiancé and myself stayed at the Changsta's house. Readers of the site might remember the Changsta from a few rap record reviews and comment board Molotov cocktails where he verbally accosted the beloved Kyle England for talking about rap instead of Coldplay. I got ahold of Adam on the drive down and he told me his free credentials that Boneman Industries had been hooked up with included a photo pass and if I was lucky enough, maybe I could get to use it. "Yeah man it's pretty cool." "Yes Adam I'm sure it is." This enticed me to daydream of the possibility of being in the photo pit in front of the Public Enemy stage acting uber-important, "oh yeah Flav baby, make love to the camera . . . that's it . . . swing that cock/ I mean clock these are great shots." Hopefully my fantasies would become a reality.

My girl and I got there early, too early, maybe even early enough to sip back a few free brews before bending over for the vendors to extract six dollars out of my ass. Could you give some room people, I'm performing a cashectomy over here (Okay Mr. Cantrell -Bend over and CLEAR) But as luck would have it I didn't realize the tailgate party options and forgot to bring beer. (It's like a Grateful Dead scene and all things available to Deadheads are available to Goosenecks - head smack). I instead just sat in my car listening to the radio watching all the other, more experienced Goosenecks stock up on as much inebriates as possible before the fest. During this time I was bombarded with amateur salespersons trying to cash in on all the lurkers. Some Rasta lady walked over to my car all suspicious and dumped a bunch of hippie stickers in my car and acted like it was a sack of weed, (or as they called it when the Bone was a teen - a lid) she even threw in some drug slang and sketchy talk for the full effect. Finally the woman told me she was raising money for needy families. Yeah right lady - when do my new wife and I get our cut? I bought one of her Bob Marley key lanyards for five bucks and she left us alone.

I finally worked up the courage to get out of my car and go to my trunk when a man walked up and started offering spiritual advice. He asked, "What are you some sort of undercover rockstar." I just stared back like, "What the fuck do want with me, I'm just here to have a good time man, don't ruin my good time." The rockstar bulllshit was the equivalent of telling some chick you're hitting on in a bar that she's got to be a model, and then when she says no, you cannot believe it, no way, I saw you in Elle." He said he was a monk and manifested some hardcover books on spiritual meditation and all that. He said that for just a donation I could take them, but I wasn't interested. I told him my budget was tight for the fest and he quickly snapped straight, moved his head in closer with some shifty eyes and interrupted with, "we got credit/debit machines." Yes man, here is my credit card number, how about I sign over my unborn child as well, or here, take my kidney. You could see the anxiety in his face. I bet he was thinking, "close the deal, close the deal" the whole time. He kept rambling on about how I'll, "never get a deal like this again." And I told him he was right you don't often get quality spiritual advise absolutely free. Thanks Monsenior. After I got rid of that guy I retired to my car and instructed my girl to pray and then not to make eye contact with anyone while we were in the parking lot - Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas baby - "Paranoia strikes deep/into your car it will seep/people carrying signs/saying repent you fool for smoking the kind." "It's time to stop hey what's that sound - could be a sound check going down."

Other strange observations were all the people along the main entrance road holding "I NEED TICKETS!!!" signs, and then less then a hundred yards up the trail people were holding "SELLING TICKETS" signs. How the hell could these two groups have missed each other so badly? We sensed a conspiracy and started speed-walking - we've just got to make it inside.

This is a sweet festival. Unlike the Bonnaroos and Coachellas of yore, Vegoose holds a unique quality because it's on Halloween weekend. So on top of all the normal music fest stuff you have a very highly concentrated weirdo population coming out to mingle as well. Vegoose planners really nailed the weirdo demographic with this fest. Plus in Vegas you get that amazing water pressure. Dudes were gelling up their brohawks in preparation, but we had no idea what to expect. Our anxious bodies moved towards the gates when noon hit.

First band on the list to see was Gogol Bordello. I've listened and listened to this band but only a faint flicker of stoke was ever aroused. This all changed when I saw the band play live - resulting in one of the more memorable and energetic performances of the day. Their fiddle player wore only a flack jacket which poorly contained his fifty-something belly. He looked rugged, as if he were into Harleys or Harley gangs. The minor-key accordion player was around the same age but looked more like a mischievous bar fight engager. A real mixer. The band seemed like a group of hardened veteran musicians, the type of band that'll be playing with the Pogues in some dingy club 20 years from now, maybe with a few new faces, maybe with different flair extremities, but still stoking the shit out of people. Gogol Bordello also had two backup dancer/singers that helped in entertaining the crowd by doing coordinated hip gyrations and odd "lalalalalalalalalala's" all while wearing matching trapeze spandex outfits. They had the audience in the palm of their ass.

The lead singer/guitarist Eugene Hutz was amazing. He would get so rambunctious that often time he'd frantically play his acoustic guitar with the strum hand only leaving his front hand to point around and be free. Then Hutz put on a wig and the popular "Start Wearing Purple" song started. Still over Gogol's sonic blaring, Lupe Fiasco's muffled rapping about doing grinds on his skateboard could be heard. He's doing for rapping what Ryan Sheckler did for reality T.V. (The Boneman won't be able to fuck-up this line, because he'll have no idea what I'm talking about.)

After that we migrated over to the Snake Eyes Stage where the delicate shoegazers Blonde Redhead was setting up. This New York Italian-Japanese trio have been around about fifteen years now and are well known for their random experimental Sonic Youth stylings. Two dudes and a girl play in this band. The girl plays guitar, sings and freaks out on the keyboard while the dudes play drums and bass and sometime additional guitar. They played the popular songs from the 2000 album Melody Of Certain Damaged Lemons like, "A Cure" and "In Particular." Those songs really stood out to me. That might be because those are really the only songs I'm familiar with. Which makes me what? A poseur very good. Still my posing was so genuine that I was embraced by their true fans - in other words totally alienated. Blonde Redhead impressed me with their wobbly guitar swagger set to the backdrop of their engaging keyboard lunacy.

Next was a giant leap in contrast, the mighty Mastodon. As we walked over to see the rest of Mastodon's set on the Double Down Stage I noticed the grass was turning a lighter shade of yellow. I also noticed lots of showing off of new ink and fresh arm bands, and even leg bands for that matter (leggins?) Brent Hinds' parting remarks were, "Vegas sucks." I wonder why, could it be that last time he was in Vegas for the VMA's he got beat down and hospitalized by the bassist of System of a Down? That will sour you on a town.

After that there was no music for about 45 minutes. It was like a lunch break. At this time we looked at all the booths and other attractions. Concert poster artist Michael Motorcycle was there selling rare original works. Cool shit, check it out on the interweb if you can. We chilled with real hippies and pro Frisbee tossers and noticed that there were a lot of tiny, minuscule Mohawks running amuck. Most of these Mohawks had the hair's roots strained and stretched into a contorted position that vaguely resembles a Mohawk. Some would argue that these were more "faux hawks" than anything else and I couldn't agree more. It's like a last minute Mohawk but don't want to shave one in or the hair aint long enough to prep a good one. I was also wondering where the hell Adam was with his sweet ass photo pass. We were playing phone tag and there were no Hawaiian print shirts in sight, besides all the Hunter S. Thompson look-a-likes. This costume probably burst into Halloween popularity from a recent Rolling Stone retrospective on Thompson, or for the sheer possibility the it's a drug induced romp in the Vegas desert with loud noises and scary visuals. For psycadelic reasons.

Back to the Joker's Wild Stage for Public Enemy. The hype man Flavor Flav was getting grimy, clock necklace and all. I checked my voicemail and Adam said he'd be over at the Atmosphere set. Atmosphere? Why would you want to see a group of Midwestern corn-fed whities when there's a veteran group of quasi-militant legends rocking next door? Chuck D gave shout-outs to DJ Muggs and the rest of the Cypress Hill crew. I looked over and saw a wave of smoke hovering above the Cypress crowd. You couldn't see clear to the stage. "Maybe they're conducting some kind of control burn" I thought. Public Enemy played a shitload of songs and got the audience chanting, "FUCK GEORGE BUSH, FUCK DICK CHENEY, FUCK CON-DOL-EEZZA. It was great fun. Flav was also talking about how awesome his TV ratings are right now, and that is about as thuggish as you can get. Flav you rebel, you outlaw, you street warrior. It's very possible that Flava Flav is the ugliest human being to ever have a TV show. He makes Jimmy Walker look like Denzel.

The sometimes eccentric band, The Shins played next but the Fest beer and afternoon sun was starting to take it's toll and I succombed to a little nap. The Shins are the perfect band to curl up with and snooze. Toward the end of their set I came to long enough to hum along to the popular tunes from the Garden State soundtrack and then split for Queens of the Stone Age. Still no Adam or sweet-ass photo pass. It looked like I was going to have to settle for some "peasant" shots. The kind where you point to little black spec and say, "that's Chuck D."

I guess sound checks are for pussies because with no more that a few quick guitar flicks, front man Josh Homme launched the band into a sea of riff peril with "No one knows." The Queens rocked ass. Homme was a nice fellow and actually talked with the audience, making it a more intimate performance. After that we chilled for what seemed like forever. We missed Iggy Pop and the Stooges because Daft Punk sounded like more of a rare sighting. Iggy's blowing up again, he'll soon be back around. Plus he was on the opposite side of the grounds, and I was feeling hot-stomach-rising from a bad pretzel. Both acts, "Bad Pretzel" and "Hot-Stomach-Rising" have tentatively signed on to next years festival roster. Sweet.

And last but not least Daft Punk put on a hell of a spectacle for their first U.S. tour ever. They wore spacesuits to hide their faces as their tricked-out techno marvel of a stage entertained the senses. Even enough to moisten my palette, or was that the pre-vomit saliva kicking-in? (in the UK Daft means crazy, but it's also the noise one produces while vomiting - Daaaaaaaft ft ft . . . ft) The Daft Punks were situated in a multifaceted pyramid that was the helm of their button pushing. Everything on the stage lit up or worked as a screen where raving imagery played until the crowd was totally tranced-out, and whipping the body into strange flowing robot motions. I suppose one could say that they were doing the "Robot Rock." As the Thievery Corporation died out in the distance, Daft Punk kept the energy going past midnight, their cyber-charismatic house music echoed off the valley walls for miles around. People went off. And like the cosmic explosion we arrived back at reality ready to sit in traffic for a few hours. Stuck in a bumper crawl with a bladder full of hydrocloric piss urine. I was only there for the first day, so you'll have to do some other research to hear the juicy turds of nerd news from the second day. Some band named RAGE played, I guess they were huge a few years ago and now their back with more up-to-date things to be enraged about. Merry Christmas