I’ve gone to a number of music festivals over the years, including covering SXSW for this site, in 2009. Generally, it’s a super-fun time: music, the great outdoors, friends. But I recently turned thirty, and this past weekend at the Governors Ball Music Festival felt a little different. Here are some things I saw and how my feelings about them have changed:
Arriving at Randall’s Island, the security guards help us off the ferry by saying, “Watch your step. Now get fucked up.”
Twenty-year-old me thinks, “Even the security guards like partying—sick!”
Thirty-year-old me thinks, “Who allowed this to happen? My life is in the hands of drug addicts!”
As I’m walking through the festival entrance, a man casually vomits before continuing on, unfazed.
Twenty-year-old me thinks, “Dope. That guy knows how to get faded like a champ!”
Thirty-year-old me thinks, “I’m concerned for the boy’s health and the general sanitation of this festival. Where are the comment cards located?!”
St. Vincent opens her show with an announcement read by a Siri-like computer voice stating, “Please refrain from capturing your digital experience.”
Twenty-year-old me thinks, “Boo! How am I supposed to enjoy this show if I can’t hold up my phone to record it, thereby blocking everyone’s view, and then never watch it again?!”
Thirty-year-old me thinks, “Sensible and pragmatic. I approve.”
For the second time in Gov Ball history, rain converts the fields to swampy mud pits.
Twenty-year-old me thinks, “Whoa—even the dirt here likes to party!”
Thirty-year-old me thinks, “I want to go home.”
The bathrooms are so overcrowded and filthy that some people relieve themselves in the muddy fields.
Twenty-year-old me thinks, “Hey, man, when you gotta go, you gotta go.”
Thirty-year-old me thinks, “I’d call security if I didn’t think they’d just high-five these scofflaws for having ‘on-point pee game.’ ”
Vaporizers outnumber fire-based smoking devices.
Twenty-year-old me thinks, “The future is now. Vape on!”
Thirty-year-old me thinks, “I know that secondhand vaporizer smoke has yet to be shown harmful, but without an F.D.A. ruling and proper long-term studies, I’m nervous to be anywhere near it.”
A drunk couple wearing parody Dr. Seuss jerseys that read “Turnt 1” and “Turnt 2” mark the second and third times I see someone vomiting.
Twenty-year-old me thinks, “Power couple.”
Thirty-year-old me thinks, “I can’t even appreciate the irony of their shirts because I’m too worried that there aren’t enough medical tents here.”
Ratatat uses some kind of 3-D projector to display rotating images in a cloud of smoke above the stage.
Twenty-year-old me thinks, “This is the most amazing work of art I have ever seen, and I have been to the Louvre.”
Thirty-year-old me thinks, “I hope they have copyrights for those images.”
Perhaps in a nod to “[#image: /photos/59096e20c14b3c606c107931]
Twenty-year-old me thinks, “Hello, future wife!”
Thirty-year-old me thinks, “I should inform the evening news about this disturbing trend.”
Samuel Herring, the lead singer of Future Islands, catches a view of the back of his balding head on the big screen and says, “I keep freaking out when I turn around. Who is that old guy?”
Twenty-year-old me thinks, “Haha—stinks to be you, gramps. Time will never age me!”
Thirty-year-old me thinks, “I feel you.”
