Monday 19 December 2016 / music, travel
The Top Five Moments of Desert Trip*
A blanket would have been nice to offset that hard, hard ground beneath the tent. Oh, and one of those little gazebo things that campers smarter than me were utilising might have allowed me to stay in my tent after the sun started working its evil magic at around 6.30am, when it suddenly went from unbearably cold to surface-of-the-sun hot. But this post isn't about my camping mishaps - if it was, I'd mention how many times I tripped over the neon orange guylines and landed flat on my face in front of my attractive Norwegian neighbours. So, without further ado, I present to you my top five moments from the inaugural Desert Trip.
1. Neil Young performing Harvest Moon under the full moon
Of the acts I was most excited to see at Desert Trip, Neil Young fell somewhere around fourth. He's written some of the most glorious songs of the last century, but I was never mad to see him. He turned out to be an absolute lunatic, in the best possible way. A true outlaw. His performance of the classic 'Harvest Moon' ended up being the most beautiful and poetic musical experience of my life.
Picture the scene: A hundred thousand people gathered in the middle of the desert, bonded by their mutual love for music, fall silent. Neil Young has begun to sing. As the gorgeous melody of Harvest Moon starts up, an actual full moon begins to rise. In fact, many quietly acknowledge that it's the fastest they've ever seen the moon move. As he croons the lyric, 'there's a full moon rising...' and the screens switch to spectacular shots of the one rapidly ascending above us, the crowd whoops softly. When Neil strums his guitar for the final time, the moon is hanging huge and bright immediately over him. Around me, people are crying at the ethereal beauty of what they've just witnessed. Goosebumps. Incidentally, Paul McCartney was also quite excited by the moon and repeatedly led the audience in mass werewolf howls during his set.
Picture the scene: A hundred thousand people gathered in the middle of the desert, bonded by their mutual love for music, fall silent. Neil Young has begun to sing. As the gorgeous melody of Harvest Moon starts up, an actual full moon begins to rise. In fact, many quietly acknowledge that it's the fastest they've ever seen the moon move. As he croons the lyric, 'there's a full moon rising...' and the screens switch to spectacular shots of the one rapidly ascending above us, the crowd whoops softly. When Neil strums his guitar for the final time, the moon is hanging huge and bright immediately over him. Around me, people are crying at the ethereal beauty of what they've just witnessed. Goosebumps. Incidentally, Paul McCartney was also quite excited by the moon and repeatedly led the audience in mass werewolf howls during his set.
2. Waking up to the actual Roger Waters singing Shine On You Crazy Diamond
Sounds bizarre, doesn't it? Unfortunately, desert dust and contact lenses aren't exactly cosy bedfellows, and by the final day of the festival, I was basically temporarily blinded. I was in agony. I had to get my eyes flushed in the medical tent. I had no choice but to remove the lenses, which is unfortunate because I'm severely myopic. Long story (kind of) short, the fact that I made it to the venue, back to the campsite in the dark, travelled to LAX, navigated one of the world's busiest airport on a day they experienced technical issues and changed terminals, then made it through Heathrow arrivals while alone and unable to see a foot in front of my face is probably my life's greatest achievement. Only casualty: my favourite hat, accidentally abandoned in the airport bathroom post-wee.
Anyway, the point is that due to my blindness, I missed Roger Waters' set. This was really upsetting because I'd heard how incredible it was from Weekend One folks, and just about anyone who has ever seen him perform. I've seen footage since and it's stupendous. Miraculously, I managed to get back to my tent in one piece after the Who, and fell asleep feeling sorry for myself before he even came on stage. A while later, I faded into consciousness to the sound of Roger Waters performing Shine on You Crazy Diamond. Not through my earphones or my gramophone - the actual Roger Waters actually singing the actual classic Shine on You Crazy Diamond for real. Even though I didn't get to see him, lying in my tent alone in the desert and taking that in - still dazed with sleep - ended up being one of the most surreal and incredible experiences I could have hoped for.
Anyway, the point is that due to my blindness, I missed Roger Waters' set. This was really upsetting because I'd heard how incredible it was from Weekend One folks, and just about anyone who has ever seen him perform. I've seen footage since and it's stupendous. Miraculously, I managed to get back to my tent in one piece after the Who, and fell asleep feeling sorry for myself before he even came on stage. A while later, I faded into consciousness to the sound of Roger Waters performing Shine on You Crazy Diamond. Not through my earphones or my gramophone - the actual Roger Waters actually singing the actual classic Shine on You Crazy Diamond for real. Even though I didn't get to see him, lying in my tent alone in the desert and taking that in - still dazed with sleep - ended up being one of the most surreal and incredible experiences I could have hoped for.
3. Paul McCartney's entire set
I was kind of nervous seeing Paul. The Beatles have meant so much to me in my life. I have made some of my closest friends because of The Beatles, and at times The Beatles have been my closest friends. Even though John's my favourite, it was Paul who wrote the majority of the songs that have touched my life the most. My nerves came from the bad press he's received in recent years for his vocals, mainly from the scourge of humanity itself, the Daily Mail - but were these criticisms well founded? Would the pedestal I put him on be kicked down, my adoration tainted? As much as I have defended him over the years, it can't be denied that his voice hasn't aged as well as, say, Mick Jagger or Tom Jones.
It's worth saying that I was in extraordinary amounts of contact lens-related pain and had limited vision - and it was still one of the greatest nights of my life. I'm usually one of those infuriating people who doesn't move much during a concert. But I was singing, dancing, swaying, crying, yelling, clapping, screaming and generally behaving like an absolutely lunatic. I found a note in my phone recently, composed on the night of the concert, which simply read: Paul McCartney is a god amongst men. My standouts were Maybe I'm Amazed (his live version is always better than the recorded one), Helter Skelter, Being for the Benefit of Mr Kite (yeah, I know), the Abbey Road Medley, Jet (accompanied by an actual jet flying over) and A Day in the Life/Give Peace a Chance/Why Don't We Do It In The Road with Neil Young. Then again, I did miss my favourite Wings song - Nineteen Hundred and Eighty Five - while trying to fix my lenses in the toilet.
It's worth saying that I was in extraordinary amounts of contact lens-related pain and had limited vision - and it was still one of the greatest nights of my life. I'm usually one of those infuriating people who doesn't move much during a concert. But I was singing, dancing, swaying, crying, yelling, clapping, screaming and generally behaving like an absolutely lunatic. I found a note in my phone recently, composed on the night of the concert, which simply read: Paul McCartney is a god amongst men. My standouts were Maybe I'm Amazed (his live version is always better than the recorded one), Helter Skelter, Being for the Benefit of Mr Kite (yeah, I know), the Abbey Road Medley, Jet (accompanied by an actual jet flying over) and A Day in the Life/Give Peace a Chance/Why Don't We Do It In The Road with Neil Young. Then again, I did miss my favourite Wings song - Nineteen Hundred and Eighty Five - while trying to fix my lenses in the toilet.
4. All the cool people
I wasn't concerned about travelling alone because it makes you more approachable. I find that you tend to meet more interesting people when you're not already moving in tribes. Most of the fantastic, unusual, well-travelled people I met were considerably older than me. Minus the music, my Desert Trip experience seemed to happen in vignettes. In minutes, I'd meet and get to know people on a deeper level than I'd known anyone before and then we'd part like strangers. I'd discover what moves them, what brought them here, the parts of the world they'd travelled to, their feelings on the current political situation in the US, how they'd dressed in their youth. Small talk didn't exist for a weekend. I felt more interesting by default that these people thought I was worth conversing with. It helps that Americans are so much less reserved. I encountered such incredible generosity, from JR who sincerely offered me both money and guidance 20 minutes into our friendship after learning I was travelling with very little, to the Peruvians with the free pot, to the group of Australians who invited me to stay with them in their tent. So to everyone I met - Alex from Chile, JR from the Bronx, Bob from Northern California, the Aussies, the Peruvians, Ben, Jessica, Gabriel etc - thank you for making the experience what it was. You made Desert Trip.
5. The Photography Experience
Watching footage of Desert Trip has been weird because the energy of the show doesn't come through at all. Many people were so amazed by the festival that they walked around in a daze afterwards (though some of that was probably due to 'other' variables ;)), but on video the whole thing looked and sounded a little lacklustre. I once read an interview with famed rock photographer Bob Gruen on the subject. He said that "video hardly captured the excitement of rock and roll at all. To capture one peak moment in a still photograph that says so much about the energy and excitement, the mood of an artist - you can only do that in a photograph."
Gruen was one of the contributing photographers to the Photography Experience, which always seemed to have a large queue of people waiting to enter. Some of these people were inevitably mainly interested in gaining access to the only air conditioned building onsite, but everyone was blown away by the exhibition. It didn't matter that some of the photographs were already well-known to rock fans - nothing beats seeing over 200 of them together in an environment like this. I've never wanted to be a Stone more. Brilliant.
Honorary mentions: delicious vegan food, great vintage market, nice merch selection.
* from the POV of someone who was blind during The Who and missed Roger Waters completely.
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