Sunday, June 08, 2008

Hookahville XXIX

Well, I finally managed to find some time to post about Hookahville. Yeah, it took me two weeks to recall the weekend, WHAT?!?!? This first picture is just the view from our campsite. Nothing special, but it gives you an idea of our scenery for the weekend. It was a pretty nice spot, but it was way too far from the parking lot and the stage for my taste, so we will no longer be camping in the area referred to as Mars at Legend Valley anymore. We called it Mars because our new friends we met in the line called it that. There are huge holes everywhere, and what looks like graphite or something like that all over the ground and the walking paths. It made for a few interesting walks back to the tent in the dark, for sure :-)





As you keep scrolling through pictures, you will notice the man with the canvas (Steve-O) painting away. By then end of the evening, he had created a really cool, bright colored painting that was sold on e-bay to benefit the Hookah Fans for Food group that donates money to their local food shelters. It sold for a little over $1,000.00. NICE!!!!!! It was kind of a collaboration of the arts.



Of course, Ryan and I were right up front for most of the show, so I did the best I could with my cheap little digi cam. This is John Mullins, or "Muffins," as some of us refer to him. If you look in the background, you can see Steve-O's painting coming right along.There's my man, Eric. I believe this was just before they started playing Saturday night. I was happy to get to hang out with Eric a little, and even hassle him a little over the weekend. By giving Eric hell, however, I got myself a chance to get on stage with the band at the end of the second night............keep reading.
This is our buddy, Shane. We always have a lot of fun when he's around. We met him through Dave and Kelly last spring at Hookahville, and we've seen a lot of shows together since then. These crazy glasses he had on had me tripping out all night. They were flashing, and I have no idea how he could even see to walk.

It is so funny to see some of the stuff you can get by with as an adult at Hookahville. Those hippies love stuff that glows. I'm sure the glow stick companies love it when hookahville rolls around. Shoot, even I broke down and bought some this year. I would say probably half the crowd had something attached to them that was glowing.
As I was sitting by the fire the first night, I kept noticing this little swirly spot in the fire. It looked like a Schwa, or an upside down, lower case "E." That's Ekoostik Hookah's logo....pretty crazy, huh? I thought maybe I was hallucinating, even though I hadn't taken any of the many options of hallucinogenics floating around, so I took a picture. Sure enough, I was really seeing what I thought I was seeing......a Schwa in our fire.....it made me smile.Ryan didn't know which way to look :-) I guess we were taking a lot of pictures at this time. That's Julie on the left, and Nick on the right......he looks really enthused, doesn't he?Here's Dave Cheesing really hard for me. I said "Cheese real hard for me," and this is what I got. Isn't he cute?!!?We unfortuantely had a huge line we stood in for nearly five hours to get into the venue. They were trying a new system with bracelets you had to get scanned each time you went in and out of the venue to the parking area. Normally, everyone makes a few trips because you can't park where you camp. There have been problems in the past with people cutting their bracelets or sneaking them through the fence to let their friends in for free, so this was supposed to deter that from happening anymore.


It turned out to be a big mess, and they ditched the whole scanning of bracelets idea by the middle of the day Saturday. However, if you look at the bright side of things, we met a lot of fun people and gained a couple new friends out of the deal. So, the picture above is our new line friends, Ashley and Heather. They were a ton of fun. I really hope see them again soon. Maybe the show in Indy this weekend....who knows.This is my sweet baby angel with his kickball shirt on.....notice his nickname..................Just chillin' with my baby :-)
This was pretty late in the evening the second night. If you can't tell, we were all feeling pretty good by this time....oh yeah, and I got laid HA HA!!!!!
Dave, Caitlin, and Ryan were trying to snap a pic when some crazy hippie threw out the peace sign...those crazy hippies!!!! I'm pretty sure Caitlin is totally in LA LA land............but honestly, we all were :-)Here's the painting that Steve-O did on stage. I think it turned out great for a few hours of work that was done on stage, in the middle of a concert, with a few thousand people watching.


Now for the highlight of my weekend........
You all probably know by now that I have a little soft spot in my heart for Eric, the drummer. Well, the hassels I threw his way the first night we were there actually turned out to be my lucky charm.

It started the first night when we were tackling our carts as they were falling over. We had overloaded our camping gear when we found out the line would be forever long. Just as Caitlin and I got into the gait and started moving, our cart tipped over. I was already irate from the wait, and the idiots running security, and then this happened. While were were picking everything up and re-stacking, a golf cart drove past us. Shortly there after, I heard this vioce of authority saying "STOP!! You're going the wrong way!!!" I thought to myself, "are you kidding me, I can NOT handle another person giving me a hard time!! I am going to kill this bastard." So, we stopped, I turned around, and low and behold, there sits my favorite drummer yelling these things at me. Now, normally, I take every opportunity I can get to talk to Eric, but by this time in the night, I was not feeling very friendly, so I yelled "SHUT UP...Can't you see we're struggling here?!?!?!" He just laughed and drove on. I wasn't laughing.

The next morning, I was walking away from the port-o-potty and I heard someone yell my name. It was Eric and some friends. I'm pretty easy to recognize from behind with those big cherries on my legs. For those in the family who have not seen them....please don't be too ovewhelmed by this story....I guess that's probably just Sissy. Anyway, he wanted me to explain the story behind my cherries on my legs to his friends. So, I told them all about my ex-husband working as a tattoo artist and how all my tattoos mean something. These tattoos are the biggest statement I have on my body....I refer to them as "My divorce cherries." My explanation for that is: it was kinda like getting my cherry back when I got divorced..HA HA!! So, it's a big slap in the face for Michael, just like me keeping his last name to spite him. I love my passive aggressiveness....it makes me smile. It made Eric and his friends smile too.

Eric then reminded me of how "rude" I was to him when I was pulling my cart to the campsite. So he got a hug of appology. It was then that one of the ladies he was with realized who I was. She hadn't made the connection that I was the same person who told him to "SHUT UP" the night before. So, she got out and shook my hand for "not being the typical fan who would drop everything just for Eric." I looked at Eric and said, "Screw Eric, I was pissed!!!" We shared a good laugh and went our seperate ways.

The next day, I ran into this lady again, showed my cherries to some of her friends, and got a huge surprise. She gave me a special bracelet that would allow me to go on stage for the encore. I was instructed to go the the gate after the end of the second set and wait for instructions. I was so excited....I couldn't believe this was actually happening.

There were several other girls who had been picked by various VIP's that had gotten bracelets also. Our job was to get on stage for the encore and shake it!!! So that's exactly what we did. It was probably one of the most exhilarating moments of my life. There were an estimated 6,000 people there, and I got to get up on stage in front of ALL of them....it was so awesome!!!

At first, I ran over to Sweney, the alien guitarist, and kinda got lost in watching him. Then the roar of the crowd hit me and I realized I was supposed to be dancing. In my heart, it was really special that I got to go up there when I did, because Eric always leaves his drum set and sings the last song of Hookahville. The encore is always his time to shine. So, I took full advatage of my position, and got right up next to Eric while he was singing. I have never had so much fun in a ten minute period in my life. Eric sang "Join Together" by The Who as his encore. So, that's what I got to dance to. It was so freaking awesome.

There were only a few people with cameras by that time of night, and Ryan wasn't much help because he had a few too many to drink, if ya know what I mean. So, most of these pictures are compliments of our fellow blogger Kelly Ann. Thanks again Kelly!! Next time you need to get up there with me!!!!

So, here ya go......little miss Alli-Gal on stage: I'm in the green skirt with the bandana on my head. Check me out, shakin' it:-)

I'm sure there are videos on youtube, but I can't view them here at work. If you look up Hookahville, you'll probably see me there too!!!



8 comments:

enN2sp said...

Looks like you had a Freakin' Great time!

KellyAnn said...

WOOOHOOO, good times, good times, I'm ready for the fall now. I guess I'll just have to contend with friday night at the vogue. See you there!!!!!!!!!! I guess we'll be staying with you and Ryan after the show saturday and Liz will prolly be coming with. Hope that's ok. Dave talked to Ryan I believe just so I don't look like I'm inviting myself. heehee

*Jen* said...

Looks like yet another kick ass time at Hookaville. Glad nothing got stolen this year!

alli-gal said...

well, nothing got stolen, but good ol' Cuz broke out new cart.....so that sucked.

alli-gal said...

That's awesome that Liz will be along with you!!! Wasn't her birthday the 5th of June? Tell her happy belated if that's right!!!

*Jen* said...

Yeah, you told me about the cart. What a jerk!

sela said...

That schwa is a freakin' trip!

I love the pictures of you on stage!!

Bitzky77 said...

The Cart! Argh!

Guess who didn't contact his dad on Father's Day? Guess who will be contacting his dad later on this month around his birthday?

You guessed it! The same one who needed his father about a year ago when he almost died.

He's out of the X-mas exchange. If he has a problem, tell him to talk to me.