After taking the Senior Capstone last semester, I wanted to
make sure that I got my cultural events done this semester since I slacked on
them a bit in the previous semester. The
first cultural event that I attended was a music festival called Music Midtown.
I was told about this
event during the summer by my friend and boss.
She thought that it would be cool to go to and it happen to be occurring
around her birthday so she was trying to get a group of friends to go with her. I had never been to a music festival before
and after using looking at the lineup.
I didn’t buy my ticket until probably
a week or 2 before the festival because the plans were still up in the air. The final group were me, my boss, and a
mutual friend. We decided to leave at
4am Friday morning from Shepherdstown to try to make it to Atlanta by the time
the festival started at 5pm. We should
have left earlier.
We began from Shepherdstown and
headed toward Martinsburg to get on I81 headed south. When we got to Winchester, we stopped for breakfast
at Dunkin’ Donuts. We got our food and
then headed back on the road. The first
thing that I learned on this trip was being the third wheel with a group of
girls gets SUPER weird. I may have
forgot to mention that the 2 friends I went with were girls and they must have
been super comfortable with me because I heard some really odd thing about
them. Thank god I have the ability to
sleep anywhere because I was able to doze on and off for some it. The next thing that I learned was Virginia is
WAY TOO BIG!
For just one of the states that we
had to drive though, it felt as if we spend 12 hours to just get through
it. That part of the trip was fairly
uneventful. We talked, jammed out to
music of artist that we gonna hear at the festival, and in my case, caught up
on my beauty rest. Once we got through Virginia
and into North Carolina we all started to feel a bit famished so we decided to
grab a bite someone. We decided not to
go to some chain restaurant and instead try somewhere new so M, who apparently
is a master of finding delicious restaurants off of the beaten track. Her search led us to Spartanburg, N. Carolina
to a restaurant called Mon Amie Morning Cafe.
Mon Amie is a creperie (that title alone clinched it for me) and French Café. The food there was pretty good! I, myself, got a Chien Chaud which was a
French Hot Dog and with that, since I was not driving, a drink called a Poinsettia
which was a Mimosa but with cranberry juice instead of orange juice.
The rest of the trip to the hotel
was pretty much the same as the rest other than getting lost trying to find out
hotel in Alpharetta, GA. When we finally
made it there, we were running later than we wanted to so we just dropped our
gear off, freshened up, and headed out.
We drove a little bit down the interstate to the North Spring MARTA
Station, the MARTA being their version of the Metro in DC. We rode the MARTA to the Midtown Station
where we then walked the rest of the way to Piedmont Park where the festival
was held. The walk there was awesome (other
than all the scalpers) because the area really seem like the “Art District” of
the city which is something I had only seen a TV.
By the time that we had gotten to Piedmont
Park, everyone must have been running on the same time as we were because it
took forever to get into the park. It
probably took us 30 – 45 minutes to get into the festival, though we were in a
spot to see and hear the Run DMC show. By
the time we finally got in to the festival, we rushed to one of the other
stages to see Iggy Azalea, who was an artist all three of us really wanted to
see. Unfortunately, we only caught the
end of her last song so that was kind of disappointing. Afterwards, we went to the other side of the
park to check out everything else and get a good spot for the next artist we
wanted to see, which happen to be John Mayer.
We actually got decent spots for that show and seeing it live was
great. His performance was the last of
the evening so we headed back to the MARTA to go back to the hotel because we
all were tired from the day’s activities and wanted to get some sleep.
The next morning we all slept in a little
longer than we should have. When we all
finally go up, ready and headed out, we decided to grab breakfast before
heading to the festival. This time, M
found a place called BB’s Bagels, a New York bagel place down south. When we got there, we know that it must have
been good because the place was packed.
Again, M lived up to her reputation because the food there was delightful
and quite filling. So we ate and headed
back to Atlanta. The journey back to the
park was pretty much the same as the day before except it took a lot less time
to get through the gates which was nice.
When we got there, we had some time until the next artist we wanted see
so we decided to explore a bit more than we did the previous night. We visited the Dunkin’ Donuts booth got our
picture taken, stopped at the Coke Zero
both to try some samples, and went to a tent sponsored by some kind of apple
cider that was real good. While at that
tent, we recognized some songs playing but they were not by any of the artist
at the festival so we decided to go investigate. When we got to the Electric Ballroom Stage, we
saw it was an artist by the name of Vic Mensa.
I had never heard before the festival but he put on a one hell of a
show. He DJ’d in the beginning which is
what we heard and got the crowd pumped up and then he started performing his
own stuff which wasn’t bad. His show definitely
got you into the music festival spirit.
After his set was finished, we
wanted to go see Twenty One Pilots, because we had heard that they put on a
good show by several people who had seen them at Firefly this past summer. We watched this show from a far because we
didn’t have to fight the crowd that was already there since it started before
Vic’s set was over. The show was pretty
decent from where we were though we missed the best part, when the lead singer
climbed the scaffolding of the stage, to go back to the Electric Ballroom Stage
for the next 6 hours.
 |
| Lana Del Ray |
Back at the Electric Ballroom
Stage, we got ready for the B.O.B show. I
have been a fan of B.O.B for years so I was excited for his set. He did not disappoint. His whole show was pretty live, he had great
crowd involvement, even having a twerking contest and crowd jumping several
times. At one point he jumped in the
group that I was in so I got to help him crowd surf witch was exciting. After his show, we got caught in a mad rush
toward the stage for the Lana Del Ray show.
I, myself have never been to into Lana, but I decide I should stay so I
could have decent spots for the Eminem show.
Lana Del Ray was very talented vocalist but I personally was not really
into her show. It was just not the kind
of music that I am into and I don’t think you got the crowd into her show as
some of the artist did. After her show,
there was another bum rush to the stage so we got pushed up even farther. This also meant though that we were completely
packed in there like sardines. By this
point, we had been standing in the Atlanta heat plus the heat of the crowd for
4 straight hour, and that part was very unpleasant. They did start to spray us with water as we
waited for the Eminem show to start and after what felt like an eternity, it
began.
 |
| Panorama during B.O.B |
Eminem was the artist that I was
the most excited to see. I have been an
Eminem fan for many years and I probably would have paid the price I did just
to see him perform. His show was amazing
and you could feel how much most of the people in the crowd wanted to see
it. Everyone were rapping along with
him. He had a full band with him instead
of just a DJ which I thought was a great touch.
I was so hype to be there and I just could not believe that I was seeing
him. M. and C. were not as starstruck as
I was though and didn’t like the show as much.
Eminem’s show was the last one of the festival so afterwards, we started
our trek back to the MARTA to go back to the hotel.
As we headed back to the MARTA we
realized how pack it was going to be because there were people everywhere
around us as we were leaving so we decided to stop in one of the clubs on the
main street to pass some time and let the crowds die down. The girls decide on a club that almost looked
like an Italian eatery and I was fine with it.
As we walk in, there was no cover they were just checking IDs which was
nice, we turned the corner and I realized that we were at a gay club. I came to this realization when I looked
around to see guys covered in glow in the dark body paint wearing nothing but briefs
dancing on stages. Thankfully Shepherd
has made me fairly tolerant of this so I was like, “Whatever, at least the
music was pretty good.” So we were there
for a little while until we decided we just wanted to get home so we left and
went back to the MARTA station.
The crowd was still pretty pack so
it took some time to get a train but after a while we were finally able to get
on one and get back to the station. When
we left the station, we were hungry so we decided to go to a Steak 'n Shake since none of us had ever been to one. I
know this is going to sound pretty obvious but they had awesome steakburgers
and great shakes, I was really impressed with all the food. While there, M got some bad news which kind
of upset her so while there, they made the decision to drive through the night
instead of sleeping at the hotel like we originally planned.
So we headed back to the hotel to
get showered and dress for the trip back to the Wild and Wonderful. I’m going to be honest, I fell asleep for the
first part of the trip back, only drifting in and out a few times. I did wake up when we stopped at a rest stop
so the driver could sleep for an hour or two a few hours in. In all reality, we all were so tired during
the ride back that it was not as fun as the trip down. We only stopped a few times and the restaurant
that we stopped at, I was not as impressed with as Mon Amie. We finally got back to Shepherd and we all
went our separate ways to get back to life.
In
the end, I loved the trip. I was such a
create I opening adventure with so many new experiences. Even with the ups and downs, I was probably one
of the greatest experiences in my college career and even in my life.
No comments:
Post a Comment