America, Fuck Yeah!

So I went to the Sasquatch Music Festival in the beautiful Gorge (see picture above) this weekend and it was sweet!!!! The venue is beautiful. It is a stage set before the valley containing the Columbia River. It looked like someone had put up a giant Hollywood backdrop up behind the stage because it was so pretty it looked fake. So many good bands. The drive was really freakin' long though. We drove through Crowsnest pass down through Idaho to Washington. We stayed overnight in Sandpoint Idaho. The name Idaho is sweet. I'm completely lame but I could not stop saying "No You Da Ho" everytime someone said I-da-ho! I bought a sweet hat for $5 in Moses Lake that said "My Ex Wife's Car is a Broom". I got some interesting comments on that one!!!

After a 10 hour drive we arrived in a farmers field called "the Gorge". I was like, where the fuck is the stage? For god sakes we paid $100 US for 3 days of camping and we were camping under one of those giants irrigation things on wheels on a field that probably had cows cruisin' around it but a couple of days ago. So we set up our camp and freshened ourselves up in the port-a-potties. Allegedly there were showers somewhere, but I didn't see them all weekend. I guess they were an urban legend. We met some nice Americans from Spokane when we got there and proceeded to get obscenely drunk so that we could pretend to like Nine Inch Nails. As I was completely lame (a.k.a drank half a bottle of vodka), I passed out right after the concert in my giant tent (this tent has 2 rooms in it but there was only me and the boyfriend sleeping in it).

When I woke up the next morning, the tent was kind of wet, every pair of spare underwear I had was sitting in a giant pool of rain water, I discovered that the boyfriend had had a "Pants off - Dance Off" (this is where you take off your pants and dance, actually quite literally as the name implies) against one of the people from Spokane and a couple of people showed up at 2am from Victoria to meet my friend that I went up with (she goes to law school there).


I decided to get less drunk on the Saturday because the weather was shitty. We watched two bands and then the sky got really black. I decided to tempt fate, and fingered the storm cloud (see picture above) and then the heavens opened up on us, while we were stuck in a field watching a band, and it shit down rain. Then the rain started to hurt a bit and I was like "What the hell?" and it turns out the rain was hail. So it hailed for a good 15 minutes. It was seriously like a disaster area. Everyone was huddled, 4 under 1 umbrella. There were a bunch of stupid bitches who thought they were all hot in their short-ass skirts, they were freezing to death. I laughed at them. I wore a head-to-toe yellow rain suit. It was sweet. After it stopped hailing, I challenged a hippie, wearing a bright orange rain slicker, to a slip-and-slide off. He won, but barely. I maintain that had a been a bit more heavy, I would've kicked his ass. Should've ate more Chunky soup that morning! Dammit!

Anyways the hail stopped and then we stayed the rest of the afternoon to see the Tragically Hip, the Shins and Ben Harper. Ben Harper was really, really good. You cannot beat when 20,000 people are completely silent and holding lighters, its dark out and sings "With my Own Two Hands". Loved it. I was so tired and went back to the campsite and I missed the Flaming Lips who apparently had Santa's dancing on the stage. Lots of people said they were the best act.

The Sunday was the best day. I saw the Artic Monkeys, We Are Scientists, Queens of the Stone Age, Matisyahu (a Jewish Reggae singer), the Decemberists and Beck. Most of these names are likely foreign to you, but I assure you that they are kick-ass bands. The music was really good but the venue was falling apart. The port-a-potties had toilet paper coming out of the top of the toilet seats (i.e. you couldn't sit down), there was garbage everywhere, and you had to wait 1 hour in line for food for them to tell you all they have left is Nachos. Make a friggin' sign and save us all some time hos! My favorite band was Beck because, on the giant screens at the side of the stage, they had puppets reinacting all the songs that Beck was singing. I took me a long time to notice that the puppets were actually on the stage.

Then we drove to Spokane and stayed the night in a Best Western. We then drove back through Crownest Pass and spent the rest of trip trying to scope out places that BrokeBack Mountain was filmed. It's a really beautiful drive. There are rolling hills with mountains in the background. I hope I can go to Sasquatch again next year! We'll see.