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Hearing about one of chrish's stories about a trip to san fran was the first time I had heard of the love festival. Sounded fun. But, being there was a whole different thing.
I guess some people get in the groove and build floats (really DJ stages loaded with concert sized speakers) to parade around san francisco until they reach the civic center. There, the floats circle the perimeter while proceeding to blast the entire area with 'rave' music. House, Trance, Drum & Bass... you know the drill.
anyway, I crossed the bay bridge early in the morning. it was nice out. felt like it was low 70's. slight breeze. the clouds looked like they were just decorations for the blue sky.
I didn't get a chance to see the parade. I was having lunch in dolores park with a friend. by the way, this was the *one* saturday out of the year where the park was completely empty. seriously, I have the pictures to prove it. Dolores Park
After finishing lunch, we headed over the love festival via BART. $1.50 each way. beats walkin'! the train was pretty empty. immediately after exiting BART, screams from people exiting the metro were echoing through the hallways. ravers were filing out of the metro by the thousands. no exaggeration. check out this photo of the stairs/escalator:
after walking through the entrance I was surprised at how many people showed up for the event. I was a little overwhelmed. The first float we walked up on, the DJ was a familiar face. and the music was bumpin EVERYWHERE.
I'm not sure exactly how many floats there were, seemed like there were more than 20. I have been to a 'mega' raves in LA and orange county, but i've never seen this many people congregate for one even. it was amazing.
we had arrived around 1:45pm, and were able to walk the entire perimeter to see every float. I took pictures of the ones I thought were interesting.
as we toured the floats, ravers continued to arrive by the hundreds of thousands. the crowd was barely manuverable. as we completed our first round, I started taking pictures of how big the crowd was. oceans of pink fuzzy pants, green hair, and flyers covered the streets and sidewalks.
I had taken pictures from the 5th floor of the library, but, they turned out to be junk. combination of the window glass and direct sunlight. =(
my friend left after we took pics from the library. I stayed to people watch and sms friends/twitter.
T-Mobile's EDGE network was completely unusable. I was also having serious reception/data issues the entire time. I sent some tweets (twitter.com talk for microblog) via sms. but, noticed that some didn't come through later on. argh!
so, I grabbed a $9 beer (heiniken blah!) and sat on the grass in the middle to listen to a few stages (all at one time) and tweet away. a student from SFSU who was sitting next to me introduced himself. we chatted for a bit. i'll blog more on that later.
anyway, I pointed out another boy (prolly another SFSU student) unconcious on the ground behind us and how nobody seemed to care or have any concern. I had said something to a girl who seemed to be the passed out kids friend. she explained that everything was okay because he is still breathing. *thanks*
someone took off his shoes and pulled his wallet out and laid it on the grass. I though of calling in an ambulance, but, I'm not sure if they would be able to get in. I didn't see any clear emergency response teams around. I don't know how much time passed. 20-40 minutes. maybe an hour. I decided to take some action.
as soon as I stood up the boy moved for the first time. shook his head a bit. drugged and confused, he grasped for a water from his backpack and spilled most of it as he tried to drink. he seemed okay, I guess. I sat back down and though, fuck it. sorta glad I didn't get involved. but, the parental side of me is getting stronger. i can feel it.
I left a short time later feeling a little old and was getting hungry. I met back up with my friend and 2 new people I hadn't met. one was the cousin (visiting from out of town) of my friend, and the other was the cousin's biz partner (also visiting). nice peeps.
after a couple of beers and some curry fries at Johnny foleys. we walked the cousin and his friend back to their hotel. said our goodbyes and went back to my friends place. we watch a movie about a stay-at-home mom and stay-at-home dad having an affair. through tragedy they both realized they only wanted to be with their original nuclear families. I may have dozed off a few times. =P
overall, I had a great day. spent quality time with a friend. broke my 'love festival' cherry. and spent most of the day smiling and genuinely enjoying myself.
