Free Isn't Always Good

So Teag unexpectedly acquired another four free tickets, this time to Jack Johnson. We invited Steve and Katie to go with us this time, and we were all looking forward to a really good show. Well, let's just say, we're still looking.

The show started at seven, and there were two opening bands. One thing we noticed right off was that the large screens that are usually present on either side of the stage were absent. There were several odd sized screens at the back of the stage though, so we figured we'd be able to see the band on those. The first warm up band, one whose name I can't remember, was alright, and played for a half hour. After he exited the stage, we waited almost another 30 minutes for the next act to show up. The second band, whose name was "Rogue Wave" (???), was downright awful. "Suckfest" would have been a more appropriate moniker. After they (thankfully) exited the stage, we waited ANOTHER half hour for Jack Johnson, who didn't start his set until after NINE! Because we had lawn tickets, we'd left fairly early in order to stake out a good spot on the grass. That means we'd been waiting for 2 1/2 hours already before he even took the stage.
Now let me take a moment to add in some commentary about the sort of people we were surrounded by: to our left we had the typical "high school" crowd being obnoxious, and yelling to their friends. Katie had a special dislike for one of these guys in particular. In front of us, we had a lady that had to be pushing forty but had decided she could still pull off pink streaks in her hair. She didn't bother us though, so all in all, not a big deal. No, the real treat came from the folks behind us, who managed to sneak in bottles of Yaeger Meister (sp?) and vodka. The more alcohol they consumed, the louder and crazier they got, and the show hadn't even started yet. I was blissfully unaware, and only found out later, that one girl threw up on herself. Lovely. I moved Teag's shoes in front of us, just in case.

As the warm up bands were playing, one particularly large, and very drunk, girl started oozing (to quote Teag's phrase) onto our blanket, to which Teag whispered "Would you please just pass out already?"

When Jack Johnson finally came out, we were dismayed to see that the screens behind him mostly showed random abstract pictures of rippling water, trees, and other lame stuff. This was especially bad considering that everyone stood as soon as he started playing, and me, being as short as I am, couldn't see a dang thing. The music was good, he played a lot of songs we all recognized, but I can honestly say that the highlight of my time there was our conversations with Steve and Katie, especially about "Drunk Girl".