We Played Some Festivals Recently

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We, The Pity Party, do hereby declare that We Played Some Festivals Recently. And for the benefit of LosAnjealous readers and the LosAnjealous Corporate Powers that Be, we will herein compare and contrast these festivals, which are, in historical order: Sunset Junction Street Fair in Silverlake, LA Weekly’s Detour Fest downtown, and the Eagle Rock Music Festival in, you guessed it, Eagle Rock, Califor-nigh-ay.

Festivals will be analyzed on three different fronts:

1) our backstage experience,
2) audience attendance/reaction, and
3) our performance in general.

BACKSTAGE TREATMENT

LA Weekly’s Detour Fest takes the Blue Ribbon for Absolute Rock Star treatement of The Pity Party. Upon arrival, we found an air-conditioned trailer with OUR NAME ON IT stocked with beer, VITAMIN WATER, regular water, MONSTER ENERGY DRINK, cookies, chips’n’salsa, and chocolate. We hastily squirrelled the cases of Vitamin, Reg water, energy drinks, and chocolates into my Honda Element. The Pity Party rarely finds itself surrounded by such bounty! The energy drinks were post-hastily donated to our friends in ESKIMOHUNTER and the chocolates were put out in a dish at my knitting shop for ladies to gnaw on. The Vitamin Waters currently live in my fridge. And the beer was guzzled by TK, Darren Ravel, and Mark Sovel of Indie 103.1. Ah, the various fates of backstage swag. Detour also provided dinner, which we could not stick around for as we had to high-tail it north-easterly to Eagle Rock that very day.

Eagle Rock takes second place in the awesomeness-of-backstage-spread category, though M can testify more accurately to this, as, by the time we got to Eagle Rock, I was too drunk and surly to take advantage of the fresh turkey sandwiches and JAMBA JUICE smoothies provided for the talent. Yes, Jamba Juice smoothies. Now THAT is class. And did I not live by the creed “FOOD plus ROCK equals VOMIT” I would have inhaled several of them, as Jamba Juice is my weakness.

Um… Sunset Junction had a cooler full of water bottles that were hard to get to.

AUDIENCE

The best turn out we had of all three festivals was definitely Eagle Rock. Were I forced to find causality, I would say the free ticket price combined with our juicy set time (8 o’clock in the p.m.) contributed heavily to this. The audience was young and psyched except for one guy who hated me personally, as evidenced by his spewing “You fucking suck” several times before one of our songs. I am ashamed to say that I responded in kind with, “YOU fucking suck,” etc. I am not proud of this behaviour and neither is my father.

The Detour audience was great – pretty well filled out for the starting time slot of the day (2 p.m.). I think they were supportive, but I was so distracted by the walking bridge between two of the City Hall buildings right in front of me, that I was hardly aware of an audience. Post-set we drifted into the anonymity of the festival and a middle-aged lady came up to me and told me how great I was and had this advice: “Never give up!” Now, I fear the implication in “Never give up” is “I can tell you’re thinking of giving up, because, honestly, you probably should, but I want to cheer you on anyway.” Or maybe what she was really saying was, “I know you’re getting a little old and you’ve been at this for a while, but still, you shouldn’t give it up.” Or maybe “No one else supports you really at all, and no one else hardly even cares, but I, Middle-Aged Lady at Detour Fest care enough to tell you not to give up.” Either way, I don’t know how to take a compliment. Thanks, lady.

The crowd at Sunset Junction was supportive in spite of M’s technological problems. They handled the interactive Conversation-With-Heisenflei that resulted with aplomb. Thanks to them. Honestly, and I probably shouldn’t say this, but I think we knew every single person there. You’re all great. Let’s go hiking. Call me later.

PERFORMANCE

Well, unfortunately due to the aformentioned technological problems, Sunset Junction hardly qualifies to be considered in this category. At the end of the day, we played only four songs, and begrudgingly. I was just waiting for the moment our set was over so I could throw a proper tantrum and then feel bad about myself. I kept thinking the whole time, “I can’t believe this is our set at Sunset Junction.” I’d been training for that one, harnessing all my kick-ass, world-dominating powers for that show. And this was it. Thank god for the Mojitos at MALO and pleasant conversation with the members of DIVISION DAY that followed.

Two, two, TWO shows in one day: Our performance at Detour went off without a hitch. The sounds system was supreme, everybody so professional, and we even got to add a song onto our set because we actually had time. I had a great time performing at Detour. It was so early in the day, and I was so effectively using mind over matter to defeat a hangover from activities the night before, that I felt IN CHARGE.

By the time we got to Eagle Rock, I felt tired, but optimistic. However, halfway through our set (predating the Evil Heckler) I developed a splitting headache on the left side of my head, and tried to push my thoughts away from potential brain tumor and towards Rawk Ruling For The Sake Of The People. M thought the performance was great, but had screamed most of his voice out at Detour and was feeling vocally inferior. All told, however, M believes firmly that we 3/4 killed it at Eagle Rock. And I’ll settle for that.

In summation, Eagle Rock is the girl you marry who is perfect for you and keeps you in line and makes you happy and fills you up, Detour is the total knock-out all your friends want to fuck that you secretly don’t think you’re good enough for, and Sunset Junction is the girl next door; when you move houses you don’t really talk to her anymore much, but she was nice to have around at the time.

The End,
Heisenflei of The Pity Party

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Top photo: Heisenflei at Sunset Junction by Shane.
Bottom photos: The Pity Party @ Detour Festival by Jeannette.
The Pity Party play the Detroit Bar with Gram Rabbit October 25, and are at the Viper November 5 [Check One Two Mondays from Indie 103.1 and Losanjealous]. Check back closer to date of show for RSVP info.