Yes, I did say fiance…!!
Mud wasn’t exactly the image that came to mind when I pictured my vacation to Governor’s Ball 2013. Neither were tropical storm conditions or the sight of my favorite shoes in a garbage can. I guess in my mind it was all rainbows and sunshine. Oh, the naïveté of youth.
What I got instead were a lot of laughs with my new fiancé (that happened on the trip too!), a new pair of friends who stressed their obsession with the southern lifestyle and continually referred to us as “country people,” some great music, and a good story to tell our future children.
For those of you who don’t already know, Governor’s Ball is a three-day music festival held on Randall’s Island in New York City this past weekend. Accurately renamed by social media aficionados as #mudball, it ended up as three days of music in conditions comparable to a swamp. But, with big name artists like Kanye West, Kings of Leon, and The Lumineers, festival-goers still suited up to face the mud and hear the music.
After Tropical Storm Andrea made her presence known in New York on Friday, the festival ultimately canceled Kings of Leon and Pretty Lights on Friday night and asked those who were brave enough (I was not one of them) to have made the trek at all to get home safely. With the sun brightly shining Saturday, though, the festival was back on and the fans were ready!
As an out-of-towner who had to throw her shoes away, one day of the festival was enough for me to handle, but I have to admit that one-day was incredible. Mud or no mud, I am a music lover, and the music I saw on Saturday was amazing. The best part of the festival had to be the incredible variety of music. Genres spanned from Rap, to DJ Sets, Hard Rock to Classic Rock, Americana to Indie Rock, Pop to Punk, and the list goes on.
RIP shoes. You served me well.
While I imagine it would have been much more fun in perfect conditions, the mud did not seem to stop the fans from partying, and it made for some pretty funny images! I saw everything from people walking from the festival into Harlem barefoot, to a girl who literally had to have her friends pull her stuck foot out of the mud.
If there is one thing I learned from my first music festival it’s this: PACK RAINBOOTS.
But for me it was all worth it when I saw Edward Sharpe & The Magnetic Zeros‘ set live. To say they were incredible would be an understatement, but even more amazing than that was the image of standing on a fence to look out at the crowd. Thousands of people, muddy and hot, waving their hands in unison to the music. That’s really what music is all about.
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