Hey all you hep-cats and -girls, the first (and maybe last) Pemberton Music Festival is underway here in beautiful B.C. People started arriving Thursday, got stranded by the side of the road overnight, and continued to arrive in droves yesterday. Pemberton is located half an hour north of Whistler, the playground of the rich and the snowboarding, but traffic was so slow yesterday (Friday) that the drive took about two hours. Naturally, with the first edition of a festival of this kind and size (40,000 expected each day), there are going to be some growing pains. Yet for all the disorganization, overpriced beer ($7 for a Coors Light? Gimme a break!), and dust, the vibe was positive on the festival grounds. I’m sure this was due a great deal to the natural beauty of the surroundings–mountains on all sides. The grounds are located in a valley, though maybe dustbowl would be more accurate, making it hard to watch, say, top-hatted bore Serj Tankian (of the Armenian-American political hard-rock band System of a Down) or angry man Trent Reznor and his Nine Inch Nails when you could be looking at the gorgeous scenery.
And, as usual with these kinds of things, you never know who you’re going to run into–although it’s a safe bet you’re going to run into some music industry types, recognizable by their search for free booze. I ran into Robin Esrock, who hosts a travel show on OTN I believe, backstage at the Bacardi B-Live tent, and who I haven’t seen since the infamous Global Warming pool party in March. (Overheard just now in the Fairmont Whistler Hotel lounge: “We came all the way from Chicago to see bears. What is the best way to do it?”) Also hanging out–actually lying recumbent on one of the canopied beds set up outside–was Janine Jankowski, she of the nice stems, while her DJ boyfriend Jesse James did the rounds. Nearby, the B-Live tent, devoted to electronica and dancebeats, was a frenzied, sweaty barn-dance the couple of times I looked in on it. The musical highlight of the day was easily Kathleen Edwards rocking out (in a black evening dress, no less) on her great, funny, killer post-revenge track “Back to Me.” This lady can rock, no doubt.
Meanwhile, the girlfriend-type-thing (a phrase coined by her own friend Rachel!) is also in Whistler, where I’m staying when not at the festival. But she’s with five other girls as part of a stagette party. I’m hoping, so I have something interesting to report next time, for stories of decadence and debauchery with lingerie and battery-operated toys.
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