Firefly 2014: Festival roundup

The third annual Firefly Music Festival in Dover, Del. has come and gone once again, leaving the humble state capital buzzing in the afterglow of 100-plus ground-shaking performances and 80,000 attendees, most of them on drugs, all of them filthy and covered in dust.

Not only is Firefly the only multi-day, camp-able, gigantic musical festival on the East Coast pulling huge musical acts, but Firefly's the kind of festival where you can customize your experience in terms of both lodging and the genre of musicians you want to see. There's something for everybody, as long as you can stand crowds. I’ve gone each year, and this was the absolute best one to date. Looking back on the weekend, my recap:

Best music moments:

• Anna Bulbrook of The Airborne Toxic Event opens the band’s song “Sometime Around Midnight” with a haunting violin solo that brought goosebumps. 
• After the Foo Fighter’s two-hour set, during which they played pretty much every one of their best hits, the stage-side video screens showed the guys backstage, making a show of pointing to their throats like they couldn’t possibly sing one more, and then they burst back on stage with a backdrop reading “The Holy Shits,” which Dave Grohl called “a bar band playing classic rock.” They opened with Alice Cooper’s “School’s Out” and ended with Queen’s “Under Pressure.” Pretty cool. Grohl also talked about how much he loves Grotto Pizza. How could he not? 
• It was great to see so many Philly bands (Amos Lee and Cruiser are from the city), particularly on the side stages inside the "hubs" in the campgrounds, which Red Bull sets up. Philly artists Mike Taylor, DRGN King, Weekender, Nothing, S.T.S. and Downtown Club brought their sets to the morning crowds inside the grounds. 
• Jack Johnson’s accordion solo. JJ's, um, showmanship is arguable, but c’mon, when’s the last time you saw an accordion solo?
• During NYC duo Ghost Beach's set, they said they needed something to crowd-surf, and took some potted plants off the stage. They circulated around the crowd for awhile. 
• Weezer’s drum solo during “Pink Triangle.” Patrick Wilson crushed it for over a minute.
• Beck’s video screens during the entire performance. The colorful, swirling graphics were as much fun to behold as his dancing during “Sexx Laws.” Beck was another who satisfied the crowd by filling his set with all the chart-toppers in his oeuvre. Man's still got it. Big Gigantic’s screens were also great — cartoon cat heads floating around, shooting lasers out of their eyes. Naturally.
• Girl Talk (who had a scheduled interview with me, but there was some miscommunication and we missed one another) always puts on, I think, a really fun show, pulling dozens of people from the crowd onstage. He brought on Philly rapper Freeway for a song (the two collaborated this year on the Broken Ankles EP) — Freeway shouted out to “motherfucking Philly.”
• Big Gigantic’s set, where two performers accompany their samples and eyeball-throbbing beats with live drums and saxophone, was a glittering, glowing way to close the festival, especially with the crowd participation — every single time the bass dropped, hundreds of people threw glow sticks into the air like luminescent confetti. BG’s show also followed Firefly’s final-night fireworks display after Jack Johnson’s set: The combination was like the aural and visual equivalent of eating an upper-infused strawberry sundae.
• Andre 3000’s outfit: 

I posted on our blog on Saturday that Firefly was turning out to be a festival that had artists performing tons of cover songs. Here are the ones I heard:

• Portugal. The Man played "Dayman" from "It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia." Magical.
• Amos Lee played the "Game of Thrones" theme song and everyone lost their minds. Almost as much as when he played Beyonce's "Single Ladies."
• Local Natives played a posthumously-released Johnny Cash tune called "Out Among the Stars."
• Airborne Toxic Event’s lead singer Mikel Jollett lamented the U.S. justice system for its ever-increasing marijuana convictions, said that "even the cops are smoking weed," and then played "I Fought the Law."
• Jack Johnson covered Led Zeppelin’s “Whole Lotta Love.” He also brought The Lumineers on stage at one point for a group duet.
• Weezer played Blur’s “Song 2.” (You know, that “Woo Hoo” song.)
• Beck covered Michael Jackson’s “Billie Jean.” He did not, as far as I can tell, Moonwalk.
• Imagine Dragons played “Tom Sawyer” by Rush.
• Grouplove also honored Beyonce with her “Drunk in Love.” Singer Hannah Hooper was looking pretty Bey-tastic in her black lace jumpsuit as well.

 Memorable camping moments:

• To pass the time in the mornings before music starts, everyone played the beanbag-and-board game cornhole. This is cornhole: 
• They also played this Frisbee bucket game, KanJam.
• Some drunk guy walked up to our neighbor’s tent and pissed on the side of it. A giant screaming match ensued, with the tent owners nicknaming the pisser, “Pencil Dick.”
• From within our campsite, I listened to a 100+ person game of Flip Cup a few sites down (incidentally, my brother was part of it) and late at night, could hear the discussion during the acid-dropping experience of the group in the tent next to mine. Lots of “I know what the world’s really about, man,” type of stuff, and then tears. When in Rome.
• One of our neighbors burnt the hell out of his hand (skin peeling and all) on bacon grease while cooking breakfast on the camping stove. Be careful, folks.
• Our other neighbors, Randy and Jana, are a long-distance couple who have been together since last year’s Firefly, where they met. Aww. Firefly love.
• The campsite: 

 Inside the festival moments:

• Wannabe-hippie flowered headbands are to be expected at every festival. But haven’t we moved past the sketchy cultural appropriation of enormous Native American headdresses? They are particularly jackassy when the wearer is also wearing an Abercrombie tee. I saw around five this year. Maybe that’s a decline. Let’s hope.
• Dave Grohl burped really, really loudly during “Monkey Wrench,” and not in a way like he meant it or was trying to be funny, but just, like, in the middle of the song. Everyone around us kind of looked at each other all, "Uh?" 
• People make giant signs they carry around so their parties can locate them. They’re usually celebrity faces. This year I kept running into John Stamos, Bob Saget, "Crazy Eyes" from “Orange is the New Black,” and Bill Murray. 
• We watched some girl on molly (presumably) stumble up to a security guard and ask him, “Do you want your nipples tweaked?” Before he could answer, she twirled away, giggling.
• People brought hammocks this year, since the whole campground is packed with treelines. You actually can get a really great view of the stage while suspended in the trees. There's also a Firefly-official "Hammock Hangout." 
• Firefly is also just really, really pretty. Everything is decorated in shades of green, well-lit, colorful and dreamy, like a true country backyard oasis.

The worst part of Firefly this year:

The dust. Holy mother of god, the dust—80,000 pairs of feet kicking up gravel and dry dirt does not make for an enjoyable experience. People actually brought those paper cup masks or bandanas for their faces this year. Prep accordingly, or pray for rain.

Here’s one of the recaps of each day that Firefly’s posted to YouTube.

Check out my snapshots from the festival on our Instagram using the hashtag #citypaperatfirefly.

Firefly 2015 is going to be June 18-21, and you can start buying tickets on Wednesday for $199. Get ‘em before the price climbs to close to $300.

And look for blog posts later on for on-site interviews with NYC band Ghost Beach and Australian group Boy & Bear.