ARCHIVED ARTICLE

August 20 , 2002



Musical Buffet (Not Jimmy.)
I've gorged this summer. Coachella as an appetizer. Glastonbury as the main course. And now, Area2 for dessert. If all this feasting is making me fat, then I'd better start paying double-fares on Southwest Airlines. I've stuffed my gullet with a smorgasbord of music and the only disappointment comes in thinking, "How are we gonna top this?"

Moby and David Bowie haven't shared musical billing other than both appearing on the Cool World and The Saint soundtracks, which is hardly the equivalent of seeing them on the same stage. So the idea of going to a festival to see a couple of my longtime musical heroes together was almost unfathomable, after already having seen other idols elsewhere... How did this come to be?

I didn't buy tickets for Coachella, yet ended up with a couple of backstage passes. Glastonbury? No way I could afford that on my salary. I won the trip courtesy of that wicked, evil music industry. So when I passed up the on-sale for Moby's (now) annual Area2 festival, I figured I wouldn't be going. After all, I'd used up all my luck this year, and there was no way tickets for this would land in my lap. Maybe I was wrong.

Not Quite the Same
Fortunately, I was given a comp ticket by a generous benefactor I'd met on SFRaves. Sometimes, being an Internet music nerd has its benefits. (It was also partially because I have a .Mac email address, so those of you who pooh-pooh'ed the new fees Apple has imposed on those accounts, you should reconsider.)

So while my fellow Mac geek/raver had to go and mingle with her coworkers, I had plenty of time to myself to explore the various stalls, down a few beers, and make new friends. Ok, two out of three isn't bad. While the stall-exploration went well (free TGIF Mudslides near the east fence!) and I certainly was able to consume beer, making friends was nowhere near as easy as it was in England. In fact, I probably had no more than a total of 45 seconds of conversation in the hour or so that I wandered around the festival grounds.

It seemed as though everyone had all of a sudden remembered their grade school lessons of not talking to strangers. I'd start talking to people nearby me, and I swear, nobody could talk for more than 10 seconds without finding something more important to do, like fumble in their pockets for a cigarette or walk away to throw away a beer cup. Has MTV really destroyed our attention spans? Perhaps I was wrong in thinking that people came to festivals to enjoy a large-scale social event. Quickly, I started to miss Europe.

Fear of a Dry Tent
Having only arrived after work, I had missed a good number of the acts that I would have liked to see - The Avalanches, Blue Man Group, and Dieselboy among them. But I knew I was really there to see the headliners, so I figured I'd kill time by checking out the electronica tent. After pounding my beer.

You see, you couldn't take a beer over to the electronica area. The very nice, air-conditioned, acoustically-balanced, smoke-free Playstation2 Tent, which hosted the big-name DJs gracing the bill, was technically located in the Shoreline Amphitheatre parking lot. And, as drinking in parking lots - even closed off ones - is illegal around here, one could not take a drink anywhere near the tent. I found myself missing Europe even more.

Slightly buzzed from killing 24 of my last 72 ounces of beer in under 10 seconds, I stumbled into the tent and bobbed my head to the sounds of DJ Tiestö. The set was soid, and I was impressed by the number of people packing the tent and dancing, many simply doing their own thing toward the back, going nuts to the four-on-the-floor beats and snare build-ups and all that jazz. I'm not as big a fan of trance (or progressive, as the euphemism now goes) as I used to be, but I do appreciate a little cheese on the side. Tiestö was serving up some fine cheese - not that Velveeta or Kraft garbage, but the kind that melts smoothly and goes great with wine. Speaking of which, I needed a refill, so it was time to leave the area.

Rhymin' an' Squealin'
I got to my seat in front of the main stage in time to catch Busta Rhymes busting into his hit "Pass the Courvoisier." I'll admit, I was dreading seeing this act, considering I grew tired of his videos years ago, and have read nothing but bad reviews of his shows.

However, Moby had said that he picked all the entertainers for the festival because of their talent as live performers, and Busta did not disappoint. First off, I was surprised that this year's version of the Flipmode Squad was a live band. There's something about fully live hip-hop that's great. Sure, I spend some of my time as a DJ and hide behind a pair of turntables, but there's something undeniably cooler about a sample-based genre of music being transformed into live drums, bass, guitar, etc. It was exciting. Secondly, Busta's ability to get people out of ther seats and moving was undeniable.

I don't know if it was the good seats, the great live set, or the hastily-consumed brew that had me so giddy, but I was feeling something. I certainly didn't need any Courvoisier!

Two Great Tastes That Taste Great Together
A few hip-hop tunes and a couple of overpriced beers later, it was time for the headliners. I say this in plural, as Moby and David Bowie were, in my book, the co-heads of this show. Of course, I would have put Bowie on last, out of resepect for a living legend.With Ziggy Stardust himself about to hit the stage, I could hardly believe I was there.

In fact, it wasn't until three songs into the set - after "Life on Mars," "Ashes to Ashes," and the cover of the Pixies' "Cactus" - that it sunk in. As the opening notes to "Little China Girl" rang in, it hit me that I was seeing one of the seminal artists who had gotten me into music in the first place, twenty years ago.

A dozen years after "Fame '90" was remixed, I was standing in front of it being played live - utter disbelief. Of course, newer tunes like a handful off of the new album Heathen and the surprising "I'm Afraid of Americans" reminded me that it was the same man, then and now, sounding just as good as he always has. And despite the strength of these newer tunes, it was his ability to get 20,000 people moving to the groove of classics like "Heroes," "Golden Years," "Let's Dance" and "Ziggy Stardust" that made for mindblowing moment after moment. As much as I lamented not trying to sneak my camera in, I was comfortable knowing that each second of this performance will likely be etched in my mind for years to come.

Topping David Bowie live is a tall order. And although Moby's set at the 400-person El Rey Theatre in Los Angeles a couple of years ago is undeniably one of the best gigs I've ever attended, I'd heard enough about the weakness of his Area2 sets to think that this closer would be anticlimactic.

Yet again, I was wrong, and glad for it. Despite the fact that I haven't listened to his mediocre rehash of Play (aka 18) since the day after I bought it, Moby showed that - like Bowie before him - success and great fortune haven't ruined him. He opened the set with "Extreme Ways," which was one of only two (if I remember correctly) new tunes that he played all night. Thank goodness.

The lack of new tunes meant more time dedicated to his frenetic live performances of older tunes like "Go," "Feeling So Real," and the James Bond theme. Of course, there were all the Play crowd-pleasers like "Porcelain," "Find My Baby," "Bodyrock," "Honey" - ok, the list of hits from that album goes on and on. Additionally, Moby got behind the decks for a live DJ battle (he lost, but nobody seemed to mind), and his introduction of the band members gave me an opportunity to fall in love (lust?) with Greta, his tall, blonde, so-not-my-type-but-she-rocks-so-hard-I-must-have-her bassist all over again.

With every Moby show being like an episode of VH1: Storytellers, the Mobe had plenty to say about his songs, all in a self-deprecating way. No, he didn't honor my request for "That's When I Reach For My Revolver" like he did at the El Rey show. (I swear, he had to have heard me, though.) Yes, he played a lot of snippets of covers (a little Metallica here, some Zeppelin there). He explained how "We Are All Made of Stars" was the only 18 song he wrote after 9/11. (We know that, man - you already recorded everything else during the Play sessions. Har har.) He thanked all the artists who were on the festival, especially (and I yelled it the same way he said it just before he did) David Fuckin' Bowie. A good time was had by all.

Omid is currently trying to find ONE more festival to weasel into for free before the summer is over, providing it's not one of those Star radio festivals featuring beacons of mediocrity like Ryan Adams or O-Town.