I’ve been to Lollapalooza. At least twice that I remember. I remember it being hot, muddy, aggro-hippie commerce central. I wasn’t wise enough to heap full helpings of disdain on the spectacle like I could now, and I will say that until this weekend, the thought of throwing sunscreen on and standing on concrete and sludge for 14 hours was about as close to hell as anything I could have conjured. But things change.
I heard back in January that the Flaming Lips were coming to Maine. Yeah, I have seen them before, but when a band like the Flaming Lips comes to Maine, you go. You just fucking go. Because if you don’t, well, you know what they say about he or she who hesitates. There’s no venue that can hold the Lips or comparable bands anywhere in Maine. Not anywhere. So if they find a way to get here, you find a way to get there.
If you’re me, anyway.
But I eventually sussed out the Lips’ show was in conjunction with something called the Nateva Festival. It sounded like your standard festival to me – initially slated to be held at the Oxford Plains Speedway, now moved a few miles down the road to the Oxford County Fairgrounds, basically a giant open space with a smattering of buildings. The only name of any note I heard associated with the festival back then was the Lips, and despite what I said about going to see the Lips if they came to Maine – NO MATTER WHAT – the entire concept of this festival, upon closer inspection, ran counter to another of my big rules: no more camping.
Nateva’s a three-day extravaganza where people apparently are supposed to…bring tents. And sleep in them. Outside. Unlike a lot of other Mainers – a lot of other humans, actually – I’d need a powerful incentive to do that. Something like a begging 7-year-old daughter. The Lips weren’t cutting it. And so I let the festival drift freely in and out of my mind, not minding that I was going to miss the show and any of the accoutrements.
But I do have a band to promote and play with, and I saw an opportunity when i saw this. If you are not into clicking through, WCYY, a local radio station, ran a contest to find one local band to get an early slot at the festival. The deal: submit one song, mp3-style, and wait. In the intervening months, the festival had actually taken on a decidedly more intriguing flavor with the addition of Grizzly Bear, She & Him, and the Drive-By Truckers. That was a lineup I could get behind.
After technical difficulties and some helpful conversations with WCYY staff, I got a song in on the first day of the contest. And waited. And thought, “you know, there’s no way in hell we’ll get this. But if we did, it’d be fucking awesome and I might actually lose bladder control at the thought of being anywhere close to Wayne Coyne and M. Ward. So that might suck if that happened but it’s worth the chance. But it’ll never happen. So why worry about it? It’ll never happen.”
Friday night, I was getting ready to leave the house and head into Portland for an afternoon of overcaffeination before a show for my bandmates’ rock camp kids at Mayo Street Arts. And as happens at the climax of every modern story, I got a text. (txt? text message? SMS? screen bellow?) My bandmate Hannah said she got a call from the radio station. My head immediately said “they’re calling to tell us we had no business submitting that song, and we should be ashamed of ourselves for wasting their time. There is no other explanation.”
But no, there was another explanation somehow. They picked us. Out of 100+ submissions, they picked us. We are playing Nateva. On the same stage as the Flaming Lips and Grizzly Bear. Only 9-12 hours earlier. But so what. We are playing Nateva.
And after all this time has passed and after I no longer thought I had the urge to stand in grime for a whole day getting baked both physically and through inhalation for the pleasure of seeing a band at a significant distance, well, I’m going to see the Lips. Many hours after rocking the shit out of the main stage during the very hottest hours of the morning. Because that’s what you do. That’s what I do, anyway. When they come here, I get there. Even if I have to con my way onto the stage.
Now if I can only get my hands to start shaking and keep a bathroom nearby…
