I am still exhausted from the awesomeness that was the Norman Music Festival yesterday. It was such an exciting, crazy, and tiring day.
I started things off fairly poorly. I only got about 3 hours of sleep Friday night, and was already dead tired when I headed off to the festival a little after 11 a.m. The first band I saw was the 2009 Buzz March Bandness winner Welcome the Silence. I thankfully only caught one song, but that one song was quite hilarious. The chorus was something like “I met my baby at the Canadian County Jail.” Classy. Their music and the way they were dressed made it seem like the last 10 years of music never happened and that their realm of influences consists of only what's played on rock radio.
From there I just walked around the festival until El Paso Hot Button started at the main stage. It was weird to see Mickey on such a huge stage in broad daylight. It wasn't exactly the ideal place to see him, but he was great nonetheless. The first half of his set was pretty much all new stuff that I am quite anxious to hear recorded versions of.
After El Paso Hot Button I walked across the railroad tracks to the Red Room, where all the comedy would be taking place. I had to make sure everything was set up for the other comics. While I was there I got to check out Traindodge, whom I've never seen but had heard great things about. They aren't exactly my thing, but I certainly understand their appeal.
Then I headed back to the main stage for Student Film. Their new record is really fantastic and I hadn't seen them do a full set in quite some time. Their crowd was solid despite how early they played. But I still had to wonder why organizers put probably the two best local bands on the main stage so early. Both El Paso Hot Button and Student Film definitely deserved to be later in the day. Minor quibble.
I then headed back to the Red Room to check out the first comedian of the day, Anthony Cavazos. The crowd was pretty small, but Anthony still did well. Though the fact that he went over his time had me worried that the Red Room stage would be behind all day. Thankfully that wasn't the case.
After Anthony I walked over the Opolis to catch the tail end of Dead Sea Choir's set. Still not impressed with this band. They are talented certainly, but they just seem to be trying waaay too hard to be Radiohead. But I was happy to see the Opolis so packed so early in the day, especially considering that my favorite new local band, Gentle Ghost, was next. They killed it, with the highlight being their cover of Cheyenne's “The Whale.” I've yet to not really love a band that Sethy McCarroll has been involved with (which is really saying something considering the amount of bands he's been with).
(It was about this time that I started to neglect to fully document the day with photos. Bummer.)
After Gentle Ghost I made my way back to the Red Room hoping to catch part of Spencer Hick's set. Sadly I got there right after he was done. Apparently the crowd for the comedy was still pretty light, which had me worried for the rest of the day. After that I walked next door to Coach's to see Depth and Current. I was excited to see them because a) it was their first show, b) I was a big fan of the members' previous projects, and c) they are super cool dudes. They sounded great, but I was a bit disappointed in the way Coach's was set up. They had tables set up right up to the front of the stage, which created a bit of a disconnect between the band and audience.
It was at this point that I got a phone call from my grandma telling me that she and my aunt, who is in from out of town, were coming down to see me. My aunt had seen me perform before, but my grandma had not. It was going to be a bit weird.
I then headed down near the main stage to be interviewed on OU's The Wire. I was once again talking with Adam Croom, who I had on my podcast and whose show I was on for the The Wire earlier this week. While I was interviewed, my friend and comic Derek Smith walked by right as The Lost Ogle dudes came up to get a picture of me with cardboard Jim Trabor. This is notable because last week The Lost Ogle blogged about how awful Derek's podcast is. I had a good time on The Wire, but I imagine it was horrible radio. I kept referencing things in front of The Wire booth that listeners obviously couldn't see. Good job me.
Then I headed back to the Red Room to catch Leah Kayajanian's set. She had a pretty good sized crowd and did really well. Leah is just so fucking good. I swear I've never seen her have a bad set.
After a hanging out a bit at the Red Room watching 8 Bit Cynics, my grandma and aunt arrived. We walked around the festival a bit and I answered questions about what exactly was going on. I don't think my grandma was used to that type of thing at all and was a bit overwhelmed.
Then I made my way back to the Red Room stopping to check out a bit of Stardeath and White Dwarfs' set. I've never been that big of fan of them, but the two songs they've released from their upcoming album really impressed me. I wish I was able to see more of them, but I had some things I had to go over before going on stage.
As I was getting ready to go on, The Red Room was really filling up. I purposefully put myself right before The Non because I knew they drew quite well, but I still didn't expect it to be that packed. I just had to totally block out that this was probably the biggest crowd I've ever performed in front of and that family members were present.
My set definitely could have gone a bit better. I got some good laughs, but not nearly as many as I always hope for. It was a bit weird that my new material is the stuff that hit whereas, my older, safe material fell flat. Maybe I'm a bit tired of telling those jokes, and I subconsciously let it show on stage. I ended with my infamous Flava Flav joke (a joke which I vowed to retire for a while after that show). People either go with that joke or they don't, sadly the NMF crowd didn't. It sucked to end on a bad note, but oh well. I still had a ton of fun on stage though.
Right after I got off stage some random guy started talking to me. He said he was a local stand up and was surprised that he had never seen me before. Now, keep in mind that I'm either attending or performing at nearly every comedy show/open mic in the area. The OKC/Norman scene is small enough that I either know or at least know of every single comic, yet I had never seen this guy before in my life. He told me that I should try to "be more self-deprecating with my jokes, because audiences love that." He also basically accused me of stealing material by saying my jokes “sounded sampled from other comics.” Nice. He then told me I should "try to go up at the Loony Bin." The Loony Bin is essentially my home club, I go up there all the time and hang out there a ton as well. It was really insulting to me to not only be getting awful, unwanted advice, but to get it from someone who was either totally full of shit, or who had JUST started and has no right to be giving advice to anyone. It was just frustrating.
My aunt and grandma's reaction to my set was predictably positive despite “all the swearing.”
After my set I just kind of took a breather and hung out with friends. In addition to all the great music, NMF was really great for hanging with friends. Pretty much everyone I knew was out having fun. I never drink before I perform, so it was nice to start boozing it up as well.
After chilling with friends for a while I headed back to the Red Room to see Derek Smith. Derek just has such a natural charisma about him. The Red Room crowd had thinned out a bit, but he had everyone there in the palm of his hand.
Next I saw Sugar and Gold on the main stage. I knew absolutely nothing about the band except that they were on tour with Of Montreal. I was not impressed. I just hung at the main stage after their set and tried to get as close as I could for Man Man. Man Man is one of my absolute favorite live bands. I actually missed NMF last year because I was visiting my parents in Birmingham, but got to see Man Man while down there. They definitely didn't disappoint. They played everything I wanted them to and were just so much fun.
By that point I was so exhausted, so I decided to walk back to my apartment to get some food and rest a bit. I had planned to chill for about an hour and then head back in time for the end of the Starlight Mints' set. I wound up falling asleep on my couch and didn't wake up until Midnight, completely missing both the Mints and headliners Of Montreal. Bummer. Thankfully I had seen both bands fairly recently, so I wasn't too disappointed.
After waking up, I headed over to Justin's for the Fucked Up dance pary like I do every Saturday night. I always like to support my DJ friends Phillip Bjorklund and Blake Ward, plus I expected it to be crazier than usual as they pumped it up as the “Official NMF After Party.” Unfortunately it was kind of lame, and fewer of my friends were there than usual.
From there I headed back to the Red Room for the VIP after party. It was super fun to just hang with friends, eat the really delicious free food (maybe it was because I had barely eaten all day, but Benvenuti's brisket was amazing), drink the free drinks, and gawk at Kevin Barnes. At one point, Barnes (still in stage makeup) got up on top of some ladder for no apparent reason. It was one of the most surreal things I've ever seen in my entire life.
(photo courtesy Matt Duckworth)
At about 3:30 a.m. I decided to finally head out and said my goodbyes. As I was walking back to my car my friend and festival organizer Dylan Mackey scared the crap out me by pulling up to me quickly in a golf cart. I hopped in with him and we spent the next half an hour driving down downtown Norman alleyways and doing doughnuts in gravel parking lots. It's no secret that Dylan is just a little bit crazy, so it was quite terrifying riding with him. It was so much fun and pretty much the perfect way to end an incredibly amazing day.
The whole day was just so much fun. I want to give a huge thanks to Quentin Bomgardner, Dylan Mackey, and all the other organizers, all the bands and performers, and all 25,000 people who came out. I'm already really looking forward to next year.
