Pictureblog: The Virgin Music Festival

A few weeks ago a colleague at work told me about the Virgin Music Festival at Baltimore scheduled for the 23rd of last month. I checked out the lineup online which included, among others,

The Raconteurs
The Killers
Keane (Who finally didn't turn up because of, what else, drug problems)
The Who
and above all RHCP

and needless to say I was hooked!

So Ze Rock (Yes, he still insists on being called that!) flew down to Atlanta on the thursday before. I left work at around 4pm on Friday. RM took off from work earlier than me. By the time we finished lunch, packed, rented a car it was close to 6pm. We started on the 700 mile drive to Baltimore. Expectedly we got caught up in the infamous Atlanta weekend traffic and with the mandatory breaks it was close to 5AM on saturday morning when we finally reached our motel. Mr.B had already come in from NY the previous night. We caught a few quick hours of shut-eye and were at the venue around 12PM.

The festival was at the spacious Pimlico race course grounds in Baltimore. There was one grand stage where the all big guns were playing and two smaller ones. We were pretty excited but I thought getting a little more excitement in before we start off wouldn't do us any harm. So we went to the bar and gulped down a round of tequilas. We then scouted for a good place, spread the bedsheets that RM had thoughtfully brought, as close to the mainstage as we could, and settled down. We were right behing a couple of excited teenagers who were trying to peddle some dope. And they tried selling some of it to Ze Rock!

A view of the main stage from where we were

Two really hot women who were settled right behind us. Oh and that's the four of us in front!

Wonder why the teenagers thought Ze Rock would be interested in their dope?

It was pretty different from the handful of concerts I have been to in India. A lot of the people here were not bothered about the music and were just spread out on the grass and having a good time. But still it was quite mellow compared to the usual stories you hear of these shows - girls weren't fainting and being passed out over people's heads and unfortunately they weren't girls flashing either!

Wolf mother were playing when we came in and they were followed by The Raconteurs and later Gnarls Barkley (dressed like characters from Chariots of Fire). The four of us made quite a few trips to the bar in between. The Killers came on later in the evening as it was getting a little dark. They were pretty good and managed to get quite a few of the sleepers up & jumping to their music.

The Who were the penultimate act for the evening and they were surprisingly good for their age. They played with gusto and put on a great show. In fact their performance was better then even the Peppers who followed them. Part of it could be because the peppers played a lot of their relatively lesser known numbers. But it still was fantastic to hear one of my most favourite acts live. The show finished with a very energetic perfomance of 'Give it Away' by the Peppers.

A general idea of what was happening around

The Who on stage. That's Pete Townshend on the screens

Now you can see both Townshend and Roger Daltrey on stage

The Peppers on stage. Thats John Frusciante on the screen

We woke up the next day, had lunch at an Indian place in Baltimore and dropped Mr. B off to catch his bus. The drive back was pretty fun and Ze Rock and myself were reminscing about all the fun trips we had back in India. The entire trip was great fun and inspite of the drive really relaxing. It was very much the kind of getaway that I was talking about here. The only flipside was the amount of money I blew. Well... good times don't come cheap, do they?