It’s supposed to be the middle of summer on the East Coast, but if you were at New Jersey’s Liberty State Park on the opening day of All Points West, you’d swear you were on a monsoon-stricken tropical island.
At 4 o’clock in the afternoon, the sky was dark grey, the air was misty and humid, and raindrops the sizes of small goblins were dropping hard on the assembled festival goers. If you were a style-hound looking for some fashion inspiration, good luck – because all you saw around you were waterproof ponchos and people wearing black garbage bags to insulate themselves from the steady precipitation.
But when the music started to kick in, moods quickly changed; partly due to the awesome bands assembled, and also equally due to the best live-concert, sound quality this side of The Metropolitan Opera. Brooklyn’s own The National set things off nicely with their gig at the Blue Comet stage, and the tandem of Organized Konfusion and The Pharcyde on the Bullet stage turned out to be the “quicker picker-upper” the people needed. By the end of the solid Pharcyde set, the rain had dwindled to a slight drizzle, fans were dancing, the smell of sweet bud was in the air, and once again, the rhythm showed it was the strongest force on earth – even the weather couldn’t compete.
