Hangout Review

The Hangout was pretty solid, but I just don't think I'm cut out for festivals anymore.

I want to get all the negatives out of the way and then talk about the positive aspects of the fest.

1. It was hot.

2. There were almost 3 times as many people at this years festival as there was last year and they didn't expand the area enough.

3. The beach is too narrow to have a headliner play and for people to actually be able to move about. Instead of going out around when you had to go to the bathroom, you had to barrel straight back and try to get back to your spot afterwards. It was a constant battle of "lets try to get closer...okay looks like this is as close as we are gonna get, now lets guard our turf.

4. The were not enough cellphone towers to handle that amount of people, which made it really hard to meet up with people.

5. They didn't have enough headliner matchups to spread people out. At a good festival you are just going to have to miss some bands, but when it came to the later shows, there were never any solid matchups to spread the crowd out.

Positives.

1. The bus system. They had charter buses running at all times and it was only $20 to ride all weekend. We only road the buses twice, because we had rides, but I never had to drive to the festival and it was nice to not have to worry about driving.

2. The fact that you were on the beach really was awesome. Every single band I saw commented during their set on how awesome it was to play at the beach. The later shows with the cool breeze coming off the water was pretty solid.

3. The music was pretty solid. My favorites were
My Morning Jacket - Definitely want to see them again, but they are coming the same day Ben Folds is going to be in town and I already have Ben Folds Tix.

Flaming Lips - Brought their A game, like they always do.

Foo Fighters - Rocked everyones faces

Black Keys - they did their thing and it was pretty sweet but I was busy guarding my territory and I didn't know too many of their songs.

Unfortunately Paul Simon really took a digger at this festival. Not only did he fail to play "Graceland" in its entirety, but he also forgot backup singers. Simon was set up to play a finesse/singer songwriter show, but we needed him to crank it up to eleven and bring the wind pipes. Simon is old, and so is his voice. Once he was on stage he realized that he was going to have to sing louder, and he definitely cracked a good bit. On top of that he only played one song I knew in the first 7 songs and I my ride wanted to leave so I really couldn't talk him into staying longer.

I really wanted to see Pretty Lights and Girl Talk but I missed both shows because they played "The Boom Boom Room" which was basically a tent with the sides closed in so it gave you the club atmosphere once you were in there, but it did not have AC like the club does. This 100 yrd by 50 yrd tent was overflowing with smelly hippies and I just couldn't bring myself to trying to get in there.

Other positives where that I never had to wait too long on a beer.

THE MEGADROP - 130 ft straight up and then 0-65-0 in 5 seconds and it was only $5

The cops really didn't mess with too many people until the last night that I saw.

It was overall a really cool experience and it was great to see so many of my friends that I don't get to see on a usual basis.