everyone deserves music. and ice water.

As Kathleen mentioned, we are very sorry for being so delinquent the past few days. It may not seem like it, but blogging is stressful! Sometimes you just don’t want to blog, but then your millions of fans (or your sister) are all “Heeey why no blogging the past few days?? I’m angry! Write more!”

The reason for my lack of blogging is that I had a visitor this past weekend and was out actually living my life. Exciting, right? (I was extremely proud of myself for not looking at the blog for a full three days…normally I can’t last three minutes). My friend Katie was visiting from Maine, so we were running around doing lots of fun things. Most notably, we attended the Mile High Music Festival, which was absolutely amazing but also absolutely exhausting. Sitting out for hours in 95 degree heat is not exactly relaxing.

The first day of the concert, Kelsey, my sister Maddy, Katie, and I came — we thought — well-prepared, with snacks, flasks hidden under our dresses, and plenty of water. We didn’t consider the fact that water warms up pretty quickly when it has no ice in it, and so by about 2:00 p.m., our water was a few degrees away from boiling. From 3:00 to 4:00, I actually thought I might die. I was sort of limping from stage to stage, clutching my throat, and begging every beer man I saw for some of the ice that was keeping the beers cold. (“Please sir! Can I have some ice?!”)

Though my martyrdom was reaching epic proportions, I was aware that I wasn’t the only one at the concert who was dying of heat. It was very entertaining to see people fighting for the tiniest amounts of shade in the strangest of places: under a large pole, behind a row of porta-potties, beside a trash can, etc. People were getting desperate, man.

Luckily, things cooled off by about 5:00, and then everyone stepped away from the porta-potties, regained their senses, and focused on the music. It was about this time that we were upgraded to VIP tickets, which means we got free beer and wine, free food, a nice cool tent to sit in, and shuttle rides from stage to stage. Baaaaaller. Then we got to see Spoon, which got us all going (read: dancing like crazy, unashamed hippies). It was Michael Franti and Spearhead, however, that made the weekend for me.

Now, I’m not a huge Michael Franti fan. It’s not that I don’t like him; I just don’t know a lot of his stuff. But Katie, being the best fake hippie among us, wanted us all to go, and we obliged. His show was awesome. He had that intangible thing that only a few artists have that makes a concert truly kickass, whether or not you know the music. He had everyone in the crowd dancing like maniacs, and he was clearly having a great time, which makes a huge difference. After his performance, we were all blissfully happy and more or less remained that way for the rest of the weekend.

I won’t go through every single performance we saw over the course of the weekend (that could take a while), but let’s talk about John Mayer for a second.

The entire festival was extremely well-organized, and as part of that, all of the artists were very punctual. They started and ended exactly when they were supposed to, every time. So we’re all lounging around waiting for John Mayer to come on at 6:00 on Sunday, and at 5:30 people start cheering. We stand up and see that some dude has taken the stage and has begun to sing “Start Me Up.” We were confused. Our conversation went a little something like this:

“Wait, that can’t be John Mayer.”

“Yeah, why would he start so early?”

“And why would he be wearing a tank top?”

“And why would he open with a cover?”

“And since when is his entire left arm tattooed?”

“It must just be some random filler guy that they put onstage to kill time.”

“It really sounds like John Mayer, though.”

“Oh my god, is he wearing CAPRIS?”

The stranger onstage was, indeed, John Mayer, and he was, indeed, wearing a tank top, manpris, and black tennis shoes. Ouch. Other than the frightening wardrobe choice (where’s the womanly influence, Jen?), he was looking pretty good. Especially when he took his shirt off for the last song (sure, it was a little unnecessary, but who am I to complain?):

John, have you been working out?

Anyway…the concert was fabulous and you should all come next year. We’ll have a special SWTCTW section, with lots of ice and Coors Light.

Before I wrap this up, I have to recognize the two MVP’s of the concert. First, Mr. Michael Franti for reasons stated above:

Okay one more of him, courtesy of Katie, just because these are cool photos:

The second MVP award goes to Dave Matthews’ drummer, Carter Beauford, for being the jolliest human I have ever seen:

Carter, I dig you.

[Posted by Mallory]