I Went To The Four Chord Music Festival And All I Got Was This Pile Of Waffles

     The Four Chord Music Festival was on Sunday, August 26^th.  It was a long and weird day and the weirdness started as soon as I got into the neighborhood where the club is located.

     Early entry for the festival began at 10am but I was planning on dragging my feet to get down there much later.  That is until there was a social media post stating that there would be a waffle bar involved with the early entry festivities.  The plan changed from heading down later to leaving immediately to make an attempt at eating an amount of waffles that equaled the cost of my ticket.

     The club is located in the Strip District and is in the same spot that used to house Metropol/Rosebud.  I would mention the current name of the facility but it's so stupid that I can't bring myself to type it for fear of my brain leaking out of my ear.

     The club had gone through some structural changes since the last time I was in the building. Somehow the shitty sight lines and $4.00 water were still intact.  I guess some things will never change.

     On my way to the Strip District, I encountered a large mass of people riding bicycles.  They all seemed to have numbers pinned to their shirts that said “Bike PGH.”  For some reason, a city that has an overabundance of hills and poorly designed traffic flow has decided to plaster bike lanes all over the place as if we were Portland.  Regardless of how people feel about the presence of these bike lanes, it would be helpful if those who ride bikes in the city would actually use the bike lanes.   These assholes took up the entire two lanes of a street instead of using the bike lane that was ten feet to their left.  The really strange thing was how none of these bike riders noticed a person yelling from their car, “Hey, shitheads, use the bike lane!!!  There are waffles that need to be eaten!!!”  I guess they were pedaling too loudly.

     After more waffles than I care to admit were jammed down my gullet, the Four Chord Music Festival was officially under way.   I should have my head examined for buying a ticket to a festival where the lineup features only one band that I was familiar with.   I had heard of Bayside and Less Than Jake but I had never crossed paths with them.  Other than Anti-Flag, I had no idea what I was getting into but at least I had a belly full of waffles and coffee to get me through it.

     Three bands into the day and I had come to the conclusion that the festival should be renamed “Whiny White Boy Fest.”  Lyrically, it was a lot of “I kinda like this girl/I wonder if she kinda likes me/Oh wait, now she's gone.”   And whatever the vocal equivalent to a shoulder shrug would be.

     Throughout the course of the day, the bands started blending together to the point where they all sounded the same.  The different configuration of man buns, facial hair and trucker hats were the only clues that helped me to notice that I wasn't hearing the same two bands on both stages.

     By 2pm I felt as if I had made a horrible mistake and should have gone home until 5:30 when the club cut off reentry to the venue.  By 4pm a band hit stage that was so disingenuous with their approach that it sent me running outside to the Blue Sparrow food truck that pulled up for the event.

     Bibimbap with tofu caught my eye on their menu and I was greatly rewarded for my choice.  And the guys working in the truck almost fell over when I ordered it because I actually pronounced Bibimbap correctly.  I've been imagining the butchered attempts that yinzers throw at them.   So far my favorite is “Bibby Bap.”

     I thought I had killed enough time at the food truck for the band that chased me outside to be done but I was incorrect in that assumption.  They played for another ten minutes before they left stage.

     There was so much room left open for one of the younger bands to take the festival by the throat but the majority of them didn't seem willing or able to do so.  Nowadays, it seems that instead of forming jam bands, like everyone used to do, they've all started Emo bands.

     It was a day full of dual harmonies that were slightly off and drummers that were seemingly lost in their own drum kits.  There was a large lack of savagery and precision but a whole lot of posing and mugging for the audience.  There was also a large lack of women and color on stage.

     I knew I was out of my element when the crowd started singing along to Blink-182 when one of their songs came on over the PA.  Next year, if I'm up for some sort of bullshit endurance test to see how much I can put up with, maybe Skullfest would be a better fit for me.

     The biggest let down of the night was the PA company not knowing how their PA worked when it came to handling the top three bands on the bill.  Less Than Jake, Bayside and Anti-Flag are all headliners and run pretty tight operations that are self-contained.  There was a massive delay before Anti-Flag's set due to the fact that the folks running the PA couldn't figure out how to patch over the band's set up to the monitors and the PA at the same time.

     This left no time for an actual soundcheck so the mix was done on the fly.  Anti-Flag muscled through it and turned in their usual great set.  This was their first hometown show since the murder of Antwon Rose so “Fuck Police Brutality” had quite a bit of extra emphasis to it from both the band and the crowd.  They finished their set with Pat playing drums in the middle of the pit and Chris #2 standing on top of his kick drum belting out the end of "Brandenburg Gate."  As many times as I've seen that bit it never gets old and made the day out of the house completely worth it.

     I was planning on bailing after Anti-Flag due to the length of the day and my desire for quiet and sleep but as I was walking past the loading dock, I noticed the band loading out from the stage, through the stage door and directly onto the sidewalk.  I said what I thought were my hellos and goodbyes but ended up lending a hand to get their gear off of the sidewalk and into the trailer.  I forgot how much I hated moving bass amps and was given a very blunt reminder especially since all of their equipment is packed in road cases.  Back in my day, all of the bands I worked for were small time and we just jammed everything into the back of the van and hoped for the best.

     After load out, I caught the end of Bayside and hung around for Less Than Jake before calling it a night.  Punk with a horn section was never my thing but Less Than Jake sure was entertaining.  The toilet paper guns were a nice touch.

     I have learned my lesson in all of this and will certainly think twice before I buy a ticket for an all day festival even if there is a mountain of waffles, a food truck and Anti-Flag involved.  I'm not sure why I thought it would be a good idea to drop myself into a situation that I knew I no longer had a tolerance for for no other reason than to see if I could write something about it.  Hopefully it was worth reading.