Northwest Trip Part 1: Sasquatch

Jun 7, 2011

I'm hopin to make time to eventually post our entire trip to Washington, but making time to blog these past few days has been pretttyyyyyyyyy difficult. So I believe I will tackle it in portions...

Part 1: Sasquatch

Thankfully, my PA school "Skills Week" finished on a Thursday, so we were able to fly out that next Friday morning for Seattle. Josh and I both are pretty into music festivals, and for a few years we have been drooling over the Sasquatch Music Festival. We are both in love with Washington state, The Gorge, and music festivals that you can camp at, so this one was ideal. For the first time (which just so happened to be the 10th year anniversary of Sasquatch) we were finally able to fit it in our schedules! Josh was particularly super pumped because for once my PA school didn't affect his travel plans.

Here's a sweet view of one of our favorite cities in the world, Seattle, from the plane...


After we dealt with the lovely rental car people (again) and picked up a hot new red Ford Focus, we made a quick stop at Wal-Mart for all the camping essentials that didn't fit in our luggage...


The drive to the Gorge is one of my favorite drives in the world



We made the three hour drive to The Gorge (aka Heaven's Amphitheater) and got there just in time for the first shows of the weekend. We stayed for aboutttttttt 3 seconds of the Foo Fighters show, grabbed shirts and posters, and peaced out.


That first night we were welcomed to the Gorge with temps in the 30s. We were unprepared to say the least (we are used to camping at the Gorge during Labor Day), but I am very thankful for the insanely warm sleeping bag (North Face Cat's Meow) that Josh got me for some special occasion a few months back.

We got a campsite in a great location (close, but not too far from the porta-potties, close to the entrance, and right next to some pretty cool peeps from Texas!)






Day 2 of the festival was the one I was most excited about (The Head & The Heart and Local Natives!)
Both shows blewwww myyyyy mindddddddddd. I'm already dying to see them both again and again and again. Josh was most concerned about Modest Mouse. He's pretty obsessed....as for me, Isaac Brock terrifies me.


The days of getting to the venue as soon as the gates open, sprinting to the front row of the main stage and holding down our spot for the entire day are long gone. We prefer the lawn seats with ample space.




You can actually listen to most of the shows from the weekend in full on NPR's website right here. They have Local Natives, The Head & The Heart, Iron & Wine, The Antlers, Wolf Parade, Gayngs, Modest Mouse, S. Carey, Wilco, and The Decemberists shows on there. Not sure why Cold War Kids, The Flaming Lips, and Surfer Blood aren't on there though :(

I didn't think this guy quite fit into the Sasquatch vibe...


George comma Washington!


They were giving away free Pop Chips and Soy Joy Bars, and allowed two per person. But somehow, everytime Josh went to the bathroom, he returned with around 8 Soy Joy Bars. We accumulated quite the collection. My personal fav was Mango Coconut!


Of all the festivals and concerts we've been to, we have never been searched as hardcore as we were at Sasquatch. I tried to "sneak" in my DSLR camera twice and majorly failed both times. They checked every last nook and cranny of every inch of my backpack. They emptied out a bottle of advil into their nasty hand, put them back in the jar, shook it, and then re-emptied it into their hand again. They checked my gum packets, they checked Josh's glucometer strips, they even taste tested my secret stash of pistachios to make sure they weren't dusted with cocaine. Just kidding, but seriously, they were that crazy. Josh overheard an employee telling another employee to be sure and check the binoculars by shaking them next to your head, and that if they heard anything rattle then do not let them enter. Really. (Which reminded me of the awesome binocular flask I saw at an LSU game this past season, which I thought was pretty brilliant.)






So needless to say, I didn't get any amazzzzzzing pics using my good camera, but I did get my little Sony camera into the venue (which they told me was "borderline" and that I shouldn't be allowed to bring in, but they would let me...how kind)

Anyways, here's some pics and videos (from our phones) from some of the shows we saw and loved:

The Head & The Heart:

They put on an such an amazing show. What I would give to be Charity Thielen...or is the saying "what i wouldn't give..." Oh well, you know what I mean. OBSESSED.





Local Natives:

Here's the boys singing Sun Hands. I mainly recorded this to send to Maggie :)








Smith Westerns:

S. Carey:

I'm gonna be honest, I've never given Sean a chance until I saw him at Sasquatch. I really only went to their show with the hopes of seeing Justin Vernon and Mikey from Bon Iver (while Josh held down the fort at the main stage). Well, needless to say there was no Bon Iver reunion, but I did fall in love with Sean's music.



Some of the Gayngs boys were backstage & in the crowd watchin Sean:


Tokyo Police Club:

Some dudes that looked famous with "artist" wrist bands on, but I couldn't figure out which band. At first we thought The Antlers, but we aren't sure...does anybody know?



Beach House:

Absolutely lovvvvvved this show



Cold War Kids:

Here they are singing "We Used to Vacation" from their old cd (with some ballin dance moves for no extra charge):







Gayngs:

The Flaming Lips:







Unfortunately, the camera and phones died before we were able to get any good pics of Modest Mouse, Surfer Blood, The Decemberists, and Deerhunter

Bear with me if Part 2 (Kayaking the San Juan Islands) and Part 3 (Seattle) take their time getting posted, because my class started our first of 12 rotations yesterday...and I'm kindaaaaaaaa freakin

1 comment:

The Ugly Homemaker said...

I'm currently blog stalking, and loving life. I want to go to Sasquatch so bad this year! Pickwick and Allen Stone make me do cartwheels and feel like a little girl again and they will both be there. If I didn't have a baby addicted to breastfeeding I would be there. Are you going again?

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