Here's the rub about covering a rock festival: Writing about what you've seen always takes time away from actually seeing anything—and therefore the first day will always be the best. In my case, Saturday's bounty of interviews and copious notes on every act I caught were the albatross hanging around my neck on my midnight drive back to Moses Lake, with my actual work day beginning somewhere around 1 a.m. as I tried desperately to make sense of unhelpful notes like "Supremely noisy—I see what you did there." Add to that the taped ramblings of various rock stars—none of whom speak in the rapid, His Girl Friday pace that it translates to in text, by the way—and you're looking at hours and hours of constant rewinding, typing, and staring at the slowly rising sun like a prisoner about to be hanged.
I say this not as a ploy for sympathy, but as an explanation for why Saturday's "insanely long" (to quote Josh Modell) entry will probably be my most thorough work of the weekend. After nabbing only four hours of guilt-ridden sleep early Sunday morning, I still find myself pounding away as the clock passes 2 p.m. and I miss my scheduled interview with Rogue Wave. Near 3 p.m., I finally throw a Hail Mary pass to Josh and ask him to finish polishing my fevered scribblings while I book it out the festival grounds. Then it's a series of one middle class disaster after another: I realize I accidentally left the window of my rental car cracked last night, and the rain has soaked the leather seats, so I waste even more time wiping that down (and worrying that maybe I should have bought the extra insurance). Then I flip open my phone to find that I forgot to charge it, so I'm going to have to survive on less than half a battery today. Then I remember that I've forgotten my wedding ring on my hotel room nightstand, near a sign that says the hotel is not responsible for stolen valuables (including, oddly enough, "railroad deeds") —so all day I get to worry about the maids at the Ramada Inn and their apparent carte blanche to take whatever the fuck they want. Then my wife calls to say that my dad just dropped her an email to say he just got remarried. All in all, it feels like the world is spinning far too fast for me and I have no chance of catching up. Today is going to be tough, I can already tell.
4:15pm I finally arrive at the Gorge, having missed both Cold War Kids and White Rabbits, the only two bands besides The Cure I actually wanted to see today. (Of course, by some cruel twist on the programmer's part, these two bands who definitely appeal to the same fanbase were scheduled concurrently anyway, so I would have had to make a difficult choice.) I'm a little depressed and more than a little exhausted as I check in, but I get an extra boost from seeing that my What Made Milwaukee Famous buddies have left me a backstage pass for today. Even better, it comes with an extra ticket I don't need, which I sell to some desperate kid outside for an easy $70. OK, maybe this day is looking up already.
4:25pm I head over to the backstage area near the Wookie to find the Milwaukee guys, and by way of thanks, I play the tape of yesterday's Kathleen Edwards interview for Michael, which is sort of like the rock journalist equivalent of passing notes in junior high. If these two wreck their marriages for each other, it's going to be all my fault.
4:40pm I find White Rabbits hanging out near their tour van, looking expectedly natty in their pressed slacks and Ray-Bans, and—since I've already spoken to Greg Roberts and Stephen Patterson in the past—I grab bassist Adam Russell for an interview next to a creek that's alive with burping frogs.
AVC: How's the festival going for you?
Adam Russell: It's been going all right. We had kind of a long night because we finished our set at 1 a.m. last night, got to where we were staying at 2 a.m., then had to be back up at 6 a.m. So yeah, it's been a long day. But Sasquatch is really beautiful, and it was amazing that we played to that many people. I think that was the most amount of people we've ever played to, ever.
AVC: When I interviewed you guys last year for the New What's Next, you were just sort of up-and-coming. What has the rise to being a bona fide festival band been like?
AR: It's like a rectal thermometer. We were the band that opened up for everyone, the one that sussed out the crowd, the ones who would stick it in just to see what's going on. It was all right, but of course it's much more rewarding to go out and headline your own thing. There's merits to both.
AVC: Are you finally able to step on people on your way up?
AR: [Laughs.] Oh, no. We're not that type of band. We always find something we like in the bands we tour with, because it's always better to get along with people you're going to be around 24/7 than to start forming grudges.
AVC: Have you made any new friends out here yet?
AR: Not yet. I really haven't had time, and I haven't eaten yet, so that's really all I'm focused on. I went down to the VIP area and found some fruit, which is really all I can eat, and that's what I'm thinking about mostly. Getting food.
AVC: Are you looking forward to catching anyone?
AR: I think Stephen Malkmus is an intelligent guy. I haven't really heard his new record yet, though. I saw him back when he opened for Radiohead after Hail To The Thief came out, but I only saw the last half of his set. If we stick around, I'd really like to see him.
AVC: If you had to share a tent with anyone playing, who would it be?
AR: Tegan And Sara. I want to know what goes on backstage.
AVC: Yeah, what does go on backstage with them? Do you think they're really sisters?
AR: That's what I'm saying. They're perplexing. One of the most perplexing things in music in the past year to me was those spots they did for MTV. You know, where MTV set up some shitty digital camera and let them talk about stuff that had nothing to do with MTV—like, "crows." "'Yeah, you know. Crows. Don't you like crows?' Then, boom: MTV." Like, what the fuck? How about, "What goes on in your songwriting process?" Normally bands drink beers and write set lists—do they do that? That would be interesting to me, to find that out.
AVC: Do you want to someday get to the point where somebody just wants to hear you talk about crows?
AR: Um…Not really. Getting to the level of Tegan And Sara…I don't know.
AVC: You'd have to get your music on Grey's Anatomy first.
AR: Exactly. You have to shake a lot of hands and sell your souls to a lot of people to get to the level of Tegan And Sara.
AVC: If this were Woodstock, who would White Rabbits be?
AR: Didn't The Band play Woodstock? The Band. I mean, I don't think we have enough chops or anything, but that's the pinnacle band, collectively, for all of us. Those first two albums and most of Stage Fright are so amazing.
AVC: If you were The Band, though, one of you would have to get throat cancer.
AR: Yeah. And I'm sure one of us is going to have some sort of affliction down the road and be a stereotype. It's gonna happen.
AVC: But hopefully not this weekend.
AR: No, I don't think we'll be hospitalized this week.
AVC: Well, that's a good goal to shoot for.
AR: Yeah, right?
5:15pm I'm making my way down to the yurt (that word still sounds like an inside joke, by the way) in search of my daily sustenance of Busch Light and pita bread when a security guard stops me and suggests I take off my "Media" sticker, since they don't take kindly to my type 'round these parts. "You've got that backstage pass, so you're all right, but we don't want people to get the wrong impression about who can be back here." Right. God forbid us journalists be allowed to mingle with the musicians, and then help justify their huge opinions of themselves by asking them questions and publishing their answers for all the world to see so people can say, "Wow, he's so down to earth!" "Thanks for the tip," I say.
5:30pm The scene outside the yurt is crawling with cuteness: The Ice Cream Man is passing out Pink Panthers while an impromptu round of double dutch lures in kids and rock stars and kids of rock stars. Adding to the saccharine overload, Tegan And Sara are taking photos with fans over by the gate looking pixie cute as ever. That's when I get a hot tip from an inside source that settles my earlier debate with Adam from White Rabbits: Their former soundman, who leans over to me and says, "You know, I asked them once if they were really sisters, and they said, 'No.' Then I asked them if they were really gay, and they said, 'Sometimes.' Seriously. It's a great marketing technique, but that's all it is." You heard it here first?
5:45pm Here's another revelation: The Presidents Of The United States Of America are still a band—commanding a plum late-afternoon slot on the main stage, no less. Apparently they've even been putting out albums within this decade. Who knew? Of course, nobody gives a shit about that; they want to hear "Lump," and on that the band delivers. I'm not going to sit here and grade the merits of "Lump"—it's a dumb song, and I'm not going to pretend otherwise—but to their credit, POTUSA seem perfectly ecstatic to be playing it. On my recent side trip to Seattle, I visited the Experience Music Project for the first time—a semi-interesting way to kill an hour, by the way, but still basically a glorified Hard Rock Café—and was somewhat amused to see so much space dedicated to POTUSA, including various props and instruments and (the Holy Grail of POTUSA arcana) the handwritten lyrics to "Lump," encased in bulletproof glass. I guess they command more respect in the Northwest than I knew. Me, the only other song I know is the dreaded "Peaches," which the band turns into a long wankfest that ends in a pretty terrible cover of "Kick Out The Jams." Sadly, there was no surprise appearance of Sir Mix-A-Lot to do a few Subset songs.
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