First, happy birthday to my Babe!!

So last weekend was Dave weekend. The band had said that they weren't touring this year, but they did do four 3-day music festivals around the country, where there were other bands that could be seen each day as well. The Gorge was the only western location. Highlights for me were the John Butler Trio, Josh Ritter, and Devotchka. Devotchka was my favorite non-Dave band. They were so much fun! It was dancing music, and lots of people were silly-dancing, which is fun to watch as well.

It seems like the crowd has gotten more silly altogether over the years. 10 years ago you could see a few people in a costume or funny outfit, but it seemed like that is way more commonplace nowadays and there are tons of people who are doing it. I like the funny outfits and how people are being wacky. What I don't like are the people who come (especially when the weather is hot) "dressed to impress". I'd had about enough of aviator sunglasses with stupid straw cowboy hats this year. I did like the guy whose torso was covered in some sort of purple paint and glitter though.

Another thing that has changed over the last few years is the use of glowsticks. LeRoi the saxophone player died in 2008 about two weeks before the Gorge weekend and that year there were tons of glowsticks. They showed his photo for a few minutes at one point during the show and the crowd went nuts. They threw the glowsticks and this went on for about 10 minutes. It was touching and amazing. They were thoughts for LeRoi. The next year there weren't very many glowsticks at the show, then there were some more last year. This year there were TONS! Once it got dark you could look across the crowd and it was just about a sea of neon. Then people get creative with them. Last year someone made stick life-sized stick people out of them, like puppets, and they danced and moved. People throw gobs of them into the air all at once, like fireworks. They attach them all over their bodies. On Sunday people were attaching them together end to end and this "snake" got so big it stretched almost all the way across the lawn, like maybe 200 yards. It was made of hundreds and hundreds of glowsticks, all being held up by dozens of people at the same time. The snake went all the way across, then it moved horizontally up the hill (being walked by people), then down and around, across the fence, and finally down in the floor crowd, where it circled around and around. All of this took well over an hour, and it was fun to watch its progression. We could see it well from our place on the lawn off to the side. The people in front of us on Sunday also brought a few hundred glowsticks, and before the show started they snapped them all to activate them, but then put them back in the backpack. Once it got dark the backpack was open a little and it was all glowing from the inside. Those people shared handfuls at a time with their neighbors, including us. The second photo below is of my parents wearing their glowstick headbands shared by our neighbors.

On Saturday we had obnoxious and rude neighbors. This usually entails people who are drunk and think that it's fun to mostly interact with each other rather than enjoy the music. They shout to each other because the music is loud and all of this is very distracting to those nearby. They also tend to move around a lot, getting in the way of others who are trying to see. Yes, actually, now that I think about it, that's what it is: people who came to see the concert and enjoy the music versus people who came to party with their friends. I'd rather the partiers just stay in the campground. On Sunday, however, all of our neighbors were respectful, enjoying the concert, and just fun. Lots of laughing and singing and dancing, and glowstick-throwing. With that atmosphere, and hanging out with my folks who were having a great time, and the music was amazing, that was the most FUN concert I have ever experienced. It was my 39th Dave concert.