I burn for Coheed: Atlanta Music Midtown 2005 wrap-up

June 10 - 12, 2005
12th Annual Music Midtown festival
Atlanta, GA

Huge thanks to Ms. dW for taking this crazy trip, letting me use her camera, and putting up with all my crap!

Friday
-flight was fine, got lost walking the one block from MARTA to the hotel (don't even ask)
-Interpol - pretty cool, very mellow, trippy rock. All songs the same
-White Stripes - I'm not a huge fan of theirs, but they put on a great show. 1.5 hour set included the song about Wichita and that one I hate about buttons. It's really amazing that there are only two of them (unless those potted plants were the rest of the band)

Saturday
-did some shopping at the gigantic Lennox Square mall (I bought a huge dragonfly necklace, some sandals, and a bunch of stuff at Sephora)
-heavy rains, due to tropical storm Arlene, made us almost just stay in the hotel eating Pizza Hut's new Dippin' Strips and watching Secretary (what a weird movie...), but we did manage to limp our way to MARTA and through the Music Midtown lot for Black Eyed Peas
-missed Keane and The Killers, but I heard the sound was terrible for them anyway
-We ran into Josh "Keg Party" Eppard and Claudio "No Dirt" Sanchez, which totally made all the walking in the rain worth it for me (at least up to that point)
-Watching BEP there were some hott Marines and several other sexy buff men (the guy with the 'fro was probably the second hottest guy I have ever seen...and he only loses points because he wasn't wearing a towel...)

Sunday
-the wonderful Mrs. McG took us to Agnes and Muriel's for a very tasty brunch. A&M's is a kitchy retro place that serves homestyle southern cooking. We both had bacon-y items and red velvet cake, which was excellent (comparable to Magnolia Bakery, but the frosting was better)
-we also did some high class shopping - Tiffany's, Manolo, etc. Next time I will get the dragonfly bracelet at Tiffany's (i.e. the next time I have $9,750 to spend on a bracelet; i.e. never).
-got to MM in time to get up front for the Coheed set (not that there was much clamoring, sadly); set list included two new songs, Favor House, Blood Red Summer, IKSSE, Devil in Jersey City (Scion Ara's theme song) and Three Evils (my theme song/MoS tagline). Even though it was only 45 minutes it was awesome and this time (the 19th) I actually have photographic evidence (thanks to dW's camera). There was some teeth-guitar interaction, behind-the-head guitar action, and what I would dub my fantasy homoerotic guitar solo. HoYay!
-I introduced myself to the new Co&Ca guitar tech (Johnny?) - very cute and nice, going on the whole summer tour
-I waited in the stupid sun some more for the Coheed promo line and talked to some nice local kids and a dude from LA. I gave Josh a MoS business card. Hopefully he'll come check this out...
-and then, finally DEF LEPPARD. Man, they rock but some of their songs are just so dumb...who keeps sugar in a bottle?...they did play 'Rock of Ages' though, so I was supremely happy (and I got a retro-Leppard shirt that I can now wear non-ironically to metal shows)
-monkey-rection!
-we also checked out Devo. They are older and fatter, but still wear the red hats and yellow haz-mat suits. We are Devo! The festival pole with the red devo hat was the best one I saw (too bad I didn't get around to making one with a Claudio-fro on it, because that would have kicked serious ass)
-on the way out we caught a couple Kid Rock songs at what appeared to be some kind of biker party in the mud. I only really like the song where he talks about how he's Kid Rock and he does something with the rock...actually that might be most of his songs. I don't like that truck commercial one though. He's got a huge stage set up with pyro and four exotic dancers with poles and all kinds of stuff going on. No potted plants though...

Random Crap:
-too much walking on my already blistered feet; too much sunburn (not as bad as last April though)
-we drove by Tattletale's strip club (made famous by Motley Crue's 'Girls, Girls, Girls')
-Ms. dW and I both smell and taste like coconut now (but not like cupcakes...yet)
- here's a stupid radio station interview with Coheed