Last night, we had no real plans while down at the fest. Some friends came into town to go with us, so we were ready to play it by ear. We ended up seeing local cult hero Pat McCurdy perform a short set before the Lynyrd Skynyrd show at the Harley Davidson Stage. McCurdy combines comedy with his music, performing both original songs, such as “Sex and Beer” and “I Wish I Had a Monkey Paw,” as well as covers. He does a great bit where he plays several ‘80s or ‘90s songs and strings them together, creating a rapid-fire sing-a-long medley.
After that we headed to the U.S. Cellular Stage to catch a bit of Blue October. One of our friends (Joe) told me that they have a hit, “Hate Me,” but we weren’t around long enough to hear it. They have those thick guitars that are reminiscent of Linkin Park, Staind and Puddle of Mudd – I’m not a big fan. Joe tells me they sound much better on the CD, and from what I listened to on iTunes earlier in the day, I’d have to agree.
We headed over to see Everclear on the Mountain Dew Stage. Amy and I have always liked Everclear (stemming from the days of So Much For the Afterglow, one of the very best post-grunge albums of the mid-‘90s), but they have sounded progressively worse the past few times we’ve seen them. Unfortunately, Everclear is now just Art Alexakis with a backup band instead of the standard lineup of Craig Montoya and Greg Eklund.
The band actually sounded pretty good as they moved through hits like “Wonderful,” “I Will Buy You A New Life,” “Father of Mine” and “Santa Monica.” For an encore, Alexakis brought a ton of girls up on stage to dance and played “867-5309 (Jenny).” I’ve seen this encore before and it’s a little disturbing, but I’m not sure exactly why. Maybe it’s the scene, maybe it’s the song – I don’t know.
After the show, we raced to the shuttle hoping to find a reasonable wait. The previous night, we queued 45 minutes to get on a bus, but this time, there was no line. As we hopped on the bus, we tried to describe to our friends how fortunate they were, but they just don’t know how good they had it.
