Yesterday was April Fool's Day. Does it count as a holiday? If it does than it is my second favorite holiday next to Halloween. My one big prank yesterday was putting a pretty convincing Facebook post up stating that Bob Weir from the Grateful Dead had died and wondering what that meant for summer festival season. Man if you ever want to freak hippies out just convince them that one of the Dead's dead. So I got a lot of freaked out responses to this, most people saw the humor in it, but some people seemed genuinely hurt by it. I feel bad, but come on its April Fool's day. If there is one day to have your guard up and not believe anything you hear from anyone, that should be the day to do so. Anyway if someone reading this got upset by this than I am truly sorry to have upset you so badly, all of my jokes are done with the intent of everyone involved getting a laugh out of them in the long run.
Speaking of summer festival season I am getting really excited for the Hangout Music Festival next month in Gulf Shores Alabama on the beaches of the Gulf of Mexico. This is the second year they will be putting this on. The Hangout Festival came out of seemingly nowhere last year to put on what people have said was an amazing inaugural event. I have personally heard artists who played there speaking ecstatically about the event, which is not something that happens too often. It is a three day, beach themed music festival located on the beach! I hear that the water there is still thankfully clean, considering what BP did to the tourism industry in this area it is nice to see someone bringing the Awesome back, and I hope they have great success. Check out their website below!
CLICK HERE TO CHECK-OUT HANGOUT
So for their second year they have put together a lineup that would make a festie pimp out his grandmother to go see. Some of my all time favorite artists and bands like: Paul Simon, The Foo Fighters, Primus, The Flaming Lips, Ween, Galactic, Michael Franti and Spearhead, Matisyahu, Sound Tribe Sector 9, Medeski Martin And Wood, Umphreys McGee, and Xavier Rudd will be playing as well as some of my favorite recent newcomers: Pretty Lights, Girl Talk, Bassnectar. Cee-Lo Green(I know he's been around a while, but I never really listened to him until Gnarls Barkley), and the quite appropriately named Big Gigantic!
Unfortunately it seems that events like this can too often happen like a flash in the pan, think about Rothbury, Langerado when it was in the Everglades, or the Echo Project. They have one or two amazing but small shows and by the time everyone hears about how classic they are it is too late because they either gone, or in some cases like Bonnaroo, they do catch on but then they seem to succumb to their own success and become way too big or commercial. Right now Hangout seems to be in that perfect place where they have been able to capitalize on their last amazing show in order to put on what looks to be an even greater second event. Think AllGood!
The only issue that even kept me from going the first time was that they don't have on site camping. The reason for this is that the venue is on a public beach in a downtown area. Luckily this year we have rented a camp site at a state park only a mile and a half from the festival, and we plan on bringing bicycles to come and go as we please. Because the festival is located in the middle of the town it unfortunately has a noise curfew which requires the music to end at 11 each night. So to try and make the party last as long as possible the promoters have gone and done what most inner city festivals do these days, which is to book several of the top name bands playing to play extra indoor sets at local clubs. A lot of people on message boards seem to be confused about this concept, but to anyone reading this try to understand- Although you have to pay to go to these late night shows, this does not mean you will not be able to see these artists unless you purchase separate tickets. These late night shows are separate from the festival itself. All of these bands will be playing at the Hangout Festival itself, they will simply ALSO be playing additional late night shows at these clubs. I hope this alleviates any confusion or anger that may be present out there.
To finally take this whole thing full circle, yesterday I had already been having ridiculously awesome April Fool's day. I came home after turning in one of my last school papers for the semester. I got on my computer and logged on to Facebook, and I was treated to the coolest April Fool's day surprise I could imagine. The Facebook page for the Hangout music festival had decided to feature me as their fan of the week, and in honor of the occasion they had changed their Facebook profile picture to a picture of me with an awesome mustache, a big ass beer, and wearing a Ween shirt my friend made! I had to take a screen shot to immortalize the moment!
Rock On.
