The Area 2 Festival was great! Let me run down what it was like.

First I came in and barely missed Dieselboy's set in the Playstation 2 DJ tent, which was disappointing since I generally prefer jungle to trance, but then DJ Tiësto came in and was pretty good, but I decided to leave to see the entire Blue Man Group show on the main stage. Their show was pretty good, full of crazy percussion madness, although the audience participation doesn't work with that size of an audience. It was a little awkward at times. Hungry, I ate an expensive and misnomered "Chicken Sandwich Deluxe", which consisted of a slab of tough chicken on a bun. Hits the spot every time. After we learned that Busta Rhymes wasn't going to show, Tucker, Dan, and I returned to the tent to see John Digweed, the number-one-rated DJ in the world by most accounts. He was really good, and I found myself able to enjoy his style of music, even though I'm usually not up for it. I was dancing pretty heavily, so my glasses flew off my face twice. After I was sufficiently tired Dan and I caught the end of David Bowie's set. A lot of people there completely loved it, but I just sorta liked it. I'm not the Bowie type but it was good. After that I caught some Carl Cox in the tent which was also quite fun, but only stayed for a few minutes because of the important matter at hand:

Moby.

Moby was great, as usual. I've seen him before, with Bush in the Campus Invasion tour in Norman, OK. This time around he was a lot funnier. He had a Krusty sticker from the Simpsons on his guitar. He also put on a wig and acted like a metal guy for a while. He was a lot more interesting this time around, even if he didn't play "All I Need Is To Be Loved" or "Oil 1", two of my favorite songs. He didn't jump on top of his keyboard or play a very long guitar solo, but otherwise it was Moby at his best. The first encore he played was a quick cover of the "Hey ho! Let's go!" punk song. The whole night you could tell he really wanted to cover something (other than just the "James Bond Theme" as usual) He ended with "Feeling So Real" just like last time, so I was happy to say the least.

Right now after the show Dan, Leighton, Chris and I are drinking virgin margaritas and listening to mellow jazz on 'GBH. All and all a very good day, although expensive for sure.

August 5, 2002
The song Moby covered was "Blitzkrieg Bop" by The Ramones.
Grant Hutchins @nertzy
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