By late afternoon, the mud had solidified from yesterday’s flood, and now the various lizard and bird corpses were being scavenged by hungry concert-goers. Trash cans became burners, and the smell of singed lizard-fat clogged nostrils throughout the sodden parkland. Mudstock it was.

The rain shifted from “mucho” to “poco” and back again on a whim. I hustled from tent to tent, huddling with concert-goers and musicians alike. Shoes caked to the top with mud. Any slope with an incline of more than 2% was a serious threat. I stood in line for the free “artist” beer area, found they only had Miller (wtf?), and got my jacket soaked for that. There was no backstage area. However, while Jimmy, Pete and Mark hunkered down on some struts under the stage, the band Broadcast made it as tolerable as possible, spreading benevolent psychedelic vibes topped with vocal expertise.

Of course when we started setting up, Pete’s drum pedal was missing and neither bass nor guitar amp would work (we were using back-line for the fest). We’re all wet. Most of the stage is soaked. There is no where to sit. The only lights are blazing spotlights so you’d go from two different extremes of blindness. It was a totally surreally fukt environment to be expected to produce rock music in. It was the first time we’d ever felt that we might not actually be able to play. Bizarrely enough, though, we got all the amps working (the stage crew really did help us out as much as they could), and, against all odds, the rain halted (mostly) and we played a rather spirited set. Weird. And to the credit of the concert-goers, the crowd maintained position from stage-front to the back fence through-out the entire ordeal.

Later in the eve I was the only band-member either 1. brave; 2. stupid; 3. duty-driven; or 4. ego-maniacal (choose any of the above) to do the Q+A after they showed “Not a Photograph” at a theatre in another part of town. Mark drove me there, and while I sipped highly-hopped beverages waiting for our film to end, he slipped in and out of two different screening rooms, alternately watching the Michael Jackson film “This is it”, and “Not a Photograph.” He said it was an interesting juxtaposition.