Live 8 Recap

Hey everyone! I-66 back in Northern Virginia after a treeeeeemendous weekend... allow me to try to do it justice. (float over pictures for captions)

We left on Friday night and arrived, after a slight Route 40-related detour, in Bellmawr, NJ shortly after midnight. We checked in and plotted out the travel for the next day. Yours truly, after much hand-wringing, overtook the planning process and reserved the hotel rooms in the end... so you'd better believe I got one of the 2 beds in our 5-person room.

We woke up early on Saturday and got some crappy continental breakfast. We then gathered the troops (7 in total) and headed to the PATCO (NJ public trans) station to take the train to 16th and Locust in Philly where we'd walk to the concert. The train went well and the walk was somewhat lengthy but not too bad overall.



So we get to a decent clearing more or less down the middle of the area and try to walk up and get somewhat closer to the stage after setting up. It seems we should've tried something else...



So it was back to the base for now. The Kaiser Chiefs came out first for some reason and made way for the host of the whole thing, Philly's own Will Smith. He kicked things off and brought out the Black Eyed Peas who played a pretty good set. Unfortunately I don't have a great picture of them (or Fergie for that matter) but I got one of Jon Bon Jovi on the big screen:



If you look above the stage you see a board with names scrolling across it. Throughout the day you could text message your name to a dedicated number and they'd put it up on the screen scrolling throughout the day. One might imagine that it wasn't just real names going across...




I wasn't able to get pictures of Hugh Jass, Jacques Strapp or Haywood Jablowme - but evidently they were also in attendance. My efforts to get "I-66 and The Captain" up there were futile, but we did make our mark on one of the many beach balls flying around:



Others on stage:

(I don't particularly care either way about DMB, but since The Blonde and Brunette seem to...)


Jay-Z...


Stevie Wonder brings the concert home... (taken from atop a Penske truck)



Other random photos:

I'm not sure what assouline is, but I'm pretty sure I don't want to eat it.


The Captain tells us how we feel about the Eagles



Some generation gaps should not be bridged.. that woman had to be 40, the guy in his early 20s..

Because some folks will do anything for a good seat...


Truck rooftop dancing at its finest...


...and what happens when too many people are on top of a truck


*******

So how big was the crowd?





*****

So after the concert it was to The Black Sheep - an Irish bar not far from the concert for beer darts and appetizers. We got someone to take a picture of all of us out front:

(top: Rif, House, The Captain, bottom: Deep Cover, M, AJ, I-66 [my hat is saWEET])


Then it was back to the hotel for drinks and various other things. On the way back there's more evidence of the saWEET hat on me...


The drive home this morning was relatively tame.. til we came upon some cute girls in a Celica with Pennsylvania plates.



Now for some reason someone decided to tell Deep Cover to moon them - and you don't have to tell him twice, so he did. They seemed to dig it and the girl in the passenger seat tried to return the favor. Later on they came up on our passenger side and it was my turn to do the honors:



We wrote out and showed them a sign that said "WE LOVE PA!" and they returned with a "WE LOVE YOUR ASSES" sign. I showed a "VA IS FOR LOVERS" sign and they returned with "PA IS FOR FUCKERS" which I'm sure we can all appreciate.

So we're back after one of the best concerts in history, I say. Philly did a good job hosting and we'll remember it for a long time I'm sure... too bad you didn't go, don't kick yourselves for it or anything...