so, i made it through the field day fest. first of all, it rained all day. second of all, what was supposed to be a sort of celebration of the leftfield (sigur ros were headliners for cyring out loud) and in the tradition of brittain's great reading and glastonbury festivals, ended up being pretty much lollapalooza at giant's stadium. the concert was truncated to one day and the number of bands cut in half (with some shady decisions in that department-spiritualized over sigur ros? ours and gemma hayes (who ever heard of them?) over royksopp). there was noone on the main stage that wasn't on a major label. while it's always great seeing the alterna-rock greats, there was only one electronic act on the bill (underworld, who absolutely rocked and woke the crowd up), and absolutely noone representing the new garage rock stuff that the kids seem to dig these days.

which is not to say the concert sucked, because it didn't. it was actually pretty fun, and would have been really great if it weren't for the cold raininess and numerous technical difficulties that the cold raininess wrought (not the least of which was a stage hand hitting beck in the chest with a metal pipe right before his set, causing him to rush to the hospital and cancel his performance).

by the end of the day, people were pretty much exhausted, uncomfortable, and a bit underwhelmed by the whole thing. then radiohead decided to put on their best show in years. they were absolutely phenomenal, and by the end of their set the wet socks and five dollar ponchos didn't seem to matter so much.