Nice, love a good ska show
The festival in Vermont last weekend was SO much fun. Maybe one of the best concerts of the year for me, and that's saying something. Just the quality and quantity were really high here. Show started with Matisyahu, who is alright. I'd say he has some good reggae music, but also does some rap and a lot of beat blasting. It was pretty cool, he has a full band and for the opener, had a decent crowd there already for him. He did an encore, which is odd for an opener, and I was standing right in front of the sound booth and when he left the stage, the next bands sound crew came into the booth and I could hear them arguing about having 5 more minutes
(you can hear them arguing in my video). He did his hit single One Day, but he did it very differently. I guess for essentially a one hit wonder, it's not that odd to change up the one song he plays every single day. But I didn't really enjoy it, neither did my gf who was quite dissapointed with this version. Either way, solid way to start the day.
Then came Pepper, who maybe did my favorite set of the day. They just joke around so much on stage and interact with the crowds. Lots of lol moments on that set, but their rock/reggae/ska sound is just so awesome and chill. For their last song, a huge blow up joint was thrown into the crowd which got everyone going nuts since Vermont had just legalized so there was lots of that going on already, now through a huge J into the crowd and well, yea.
The third band was probably my least interested artist, Lupe Fiasco. But it became clear that a large amount of the audience came for him. He has a few hit singles that blow away anything from anyone else had recently released performing at the festival. It was also my first time seeing a rap artist live. His rapping was good, he put the effort in and I respect that. I just have a hard time loving a DJ vs. a full band. Some of his music was clearly something a band could play (wasn't all technoy, some of the music the DJ was playing was funky and cool) which kind of makes it dissapointing to see almost everything besides his own vocals pumped in. However, the crowd loved it. He did seem a bit unprepared though. A couple times he mentioned having too much time and was killing it by talking between songs and then ended a bit early. The second half of his set was pretty enjoyable overall, and my gf loved it. She wanted to see him the most.
Then was intermission essentially as the first 3 bands got 3 hours and the last two bands got 3 hours. We ate some delicious food, lobster rolls and fresh waffles with chocolate. The booze was flowing, it was sponsored by Angry Orchards and you could only buy their products which was kind of crappy as I can't have more than one cider without getting an upset stomach, but the had their Truly vodka soda drinks that were pretty good. I had A LOT of that
They also had an arcade tent which was a blast playing ski ball. It was free too. I got to say the arcade truck was a total shit show. Screaming laughing and drinking was out of control in there. Those 15 minutes were some of the most fun of the day.
Then came Dirty Heads. I would say I like half of their songs that I've heard. They do a rap reggae type of music as well as acoustic beach type music. Their set started with a lot more of the rappy type stuff, but what I love and respect even more is a full band. A drummer, a percussionist, two keyboard, a bass, and a guitar. They could play their music which brings so much more life to the live show. I've seen them before so there was nothing new here besides knowing their music more now. They were fun and it was disappointing that Matisyahu didn't come out for their song with him. Apparently he had to leave the show early to get to his next gig. They did do Lay Me Down with Rome from Sublime though which was probably the highlight of their set for me.
And finally when it got dark Sublime with Rome came on. The crowd had kind of died a bit by then which was nice as there were A LOT of people there overall. I was really happy with their set. We saw them a couple months ago, but they actually changed things up a bit and played a few more original songs (not old Sublime songs) which I found to be really good overall. However, I think it was pretty clear Rome and Eric were really messed up. Romes guitar playing was a bit sloppy and Eric was actually singing (who knows what though) multiple times. I overall liked their set though because it was different when i expected it to be the same. For once, they surprised me a bit.
Angry Orchard Rock The Roots Festival @ Mount Snow, Dover VTGot two weeks before the next show, Rob Zombie and Marilyn Manson. I'm just going to that for shits and giggles