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Concert Report: Area 2 (Moby, David Bowie, Busta Rhymes, Blue Man Group, Ash, Tiesto, Digweed...)

To continue my little trend, we missed Ash and Blue Man Group by the time we got there. Who decides to have shows that start at 3pm on a weekday, anyways? Maybe I am just bothered because I couldn't take off of work. Anyways, we got there just after Blue Man Group had finished, so I decided to go check out the DJ Tent and see what it was like.

From anywhere in the area you could hear the thump-thump-thump-thump of the bass of the tent (officially the "Playstation 2 Dancing Tent", and yes, they did actually have some playstation 2s inside as well) and when we walked in there was some smoke effects by the entrance, and then a huge crowd of people dancing and lights and some screens with flame effects. It seemed like walking into a scene from a movie (although the only one we could think of was the opening scene to Blade) because it just seemed so cool. We made our way through the crowd and actually found our friends that were already there. And so I tried to dance, and it was really fun. I'm not really much of a dancer at all, but there was such a good energy from the crowd and the music that it was just fun going along with it. And Tiesto was doing a good job bringing the crowd up, then letting them cool off a bit before bringing it back up. Very well done. But I felt like I should go and check out some of Busta Rhymes's set, so we snuck out...

And that was probably not the right move. Busta was ok, but I only heard one song where he was doing the really crazyfast rapping, and he had some weird crowd banter in between songs. It seemed almost laughably low-energy after the Tiesto set, though. The crowd was kind of in to it, but you can't generate the same energy at a huge amphitheater. And the final song he did seemed to end a little abruptly - maybe if I had known the song I would have liked it more? And visually, not much was going on, and you could barely see anything from so far back. It wasn't really as bad as I am making it out to be, I think, but it was just not what I needed at that point.

So we waited around for David Bowie. Now, I am not a huge David Bowie fan by any stretch of the imagination, but he has some songs I like and he is something of a "legend", so I figured I should see him before he stops touring. And it turns out that in concert things are not much different than when I listened to his music on CD. He played a couple of songs I knew, and it wasn't very exciting - it seemed like he wasn't very genuine and wasn't trying very hard because he didn't have to be. Maybe I'm biased. Other people seemed to like it. But we all decided to go back and try the DJ tent.

We went back, and it was not as cool. The music wasn't as gripping, the people weren't moving much, and it was much emptier. I think these things all are related. We stuck it out for a while, and things picked up a little, and then John Digweed started his set and things picked up some. We danced for a while, but I didn't really start to feel that understanding of how people could dance like that for so long like I had earlier. I was willing to wait and stay to see if that feeling came back, but everyone else wanted to leave to see Moby's set, so I went with. Peer pressure!

Moby's set turned out to be pretty neat. Much better stage show - modern lighting effects, a lot more energy, more seemingly genuine crowd banter. And the music was more energetic. He played a lot of songs I recognized, but the James Bond Theme cover was maybe my favorite? At least of the ones I could name. He kept teasing us with clips of other cover songs while talking about his desire to play in a wedding cover band. Heh! The set passed quickly, though, and all of a sudden it was time for an encore. We decided to take off, but luckily (and I really admire this) he came back on stage fairly quickly to play the encore. And it was a ramones song! Very cool. Not sure if he played anything else because we began the long trek back to find the car.

Overall, a good show. I enjoyed getting to try out the dj tent experience. And Moby was better than I expected. Busta Rhymes was OK, and I got to see David Bowie. Who would have thought?