So now, back to that mud jacuzzi. This weekend's All Points West Festival was quite muddy. It rained a lot on Friday, then was nice on Saturday and again, rained a lot on Sunday and of course, we had tickets for Sunday... we gathered all our rain-gear and headed out to Liberty State Park in New Jersey in the afternoon. By the time we got on the ferry in Battery Park, the sun was out - I am convinced it was the collective result of all those people carrying rain-coats and umbrellas - and after a wonderful ride across the Hudson (or some sort of bay I guess) we arrived in Jersey. The view from the park was spectacular, although my phone's camera doesn't do it any justice - I left my camera home just to be safe with all the water.
I didn't know most of the bands that were playing, we were really there for MGMT and Coldplay, which, it turned out, were playing at the same time, argh! Well, I saw MGMT last year at Sziget in Budapest and they are a smaller Brooklyn band so I will have many more chances to see them. Probably not true for Coldplay... so, it was a pretty easy choice. To go back a bit to our arrival: even from the ferry to the park entrance, it wasn't an easy walk, through wet grass and thick mud, but we had no idea what was waiting at the entrance and inside. People were ditching their sandals and flip-flops left and right, it was so hard to walk in the mud. We had sneakers on but by the time we made it inside, they all looked the same: brown. For some time, we tried to navigate around the deeper parts, but after a couple of hours, we just gave up.
The area in front of the main stage was pretty bad too, but we found a nice spot that was relatively easy to stand/dance on for Coldplay. They put on a really good show! Chris Martin was actually the one who coined the term "mud jacuzzi" as he was up on the dry stage with the spectacular views of the skyline of Manhattan and the Statue of Liberty... in any case, they were great! At one point, they got off the stage and walked down the middle of the crowd to the little sound tent in the middle where there was a small, makeshift stage with just a couple of mics on it, very near where we were standing. Once people realized what was going on, the crowd in front of us turned around and started running towards the back, where they were standing. Holy shit that was a little scary! All of a sudden, a gang of 18-year old girls screaming "I love you, Chris!" were pushing us towards the back, through thick mud and deep water - I could feel mud splashing up on my head and going in my pants from the top. In the end, it was all worth it: after all the pushing and shoving, we found ourselves just meters away from the band who sang Billie Jean to tribute Michael Jackson and one other Coldplay song. I wish I had my camera... this is all I have:
I was just guessin, At numbers and figures, Pullin the puzzles apart
Questions of science, Science and progress, Do not speak as loud as my heart
Tell me you love me, Come back to haunt me, Oh when I rush to the start
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