The festival fell on a pretty bad weekend. It was in the mid-90's in the city, plus the humidity was pretty damn high, too. I didn't go to the first night, and I only arrived around 3.30 on the second day, staying to merely 7.30, due to the heat and humidity. I missed most of the good bands and workshops, but I did see a few good things, like Oxes. I think they are a Philly band, although I am not entirely sure, but they did rock out. They were an instrumental outfit, sounding alot like Don Caballero, plus they were very weird guys. The two guitarist would walk out into the crowd and circle around, looking at people, resting on their shoulders and so on. I think these were people that the band knew, hence me thinking it was a Philly band. The bottom line is that Oxes rock and I am going to have my eye out for upcoming shows.

A little later, Jeff Guntzel and a young Asian woman gave a talk about Voices in the Wilderness, a group opposed to American sanctions on Iraq. They are a grassroots oragnization and have been to Iraq over twenty times (it is illegal to go to Iraq) to distribute food and medical supplies. There will be more about this group onmy site and the zine soon, plus soemthing by Jeff about VitW and things you can do to help.

After VitW, the Radiotowers played, they were a two piece: a guy on guitar and a girl on occssional guitar and vocals. I don't know what they were doing or trying to do. They had more than a few mistakes on songs, even giving up in a few because they couldn't figure them out. I think they were folk, but they didn't go down quite right with me. The next band (I didn't catch their name), was even worse. Their equipment wasn't set up properly when they started, and the first few minutes of the ste was just a wall of noise that got very annoying as the room filled and the temperature rose. There was not any air conditioning or fans. It was so unbearable that I had to leave. I was hoping on going back on Sunday to see more bands (Discount and Engine Down were playing), but I opted to do homework instead.