Tales of San Francisco: pt 2

Friday Afternoon:

After work, my sister and I headed down to Haight street. For those of you that did not pay attention in U.S. History or didn't watch the History Channel documentary on the Hippie Movement, that is where the hub of the hippie movement was. Haight and Ashbury.

Anyway, we walked around. I went to Wasteland and found a cool dress, so I bought it. We also headed to Amoeba Records, where I found a plethora of albums, but I didn't buy anything. Then, we went to this market and bought some snacks for the festival, and then we were off! We took the train, about 30 blocks, and it was crowded, of course. You couldn't move, and people were overflowing out the door.

Finally, we reached Golden Gate Park at 6 p.m. I caught a bit of Manu Chao, Benevento/Russo Duo, The Black Keys (who are really great, and really hold it together well for a two-piece), the very last couple of songs of Beck, and then of course RADIOHEAD. At first, we were in the back, and couldn't see much, but then I got the idea to climb the platform in the middle of the crowd, as did some other people, so I got to actually see Radiohead, and it was nice. The sound went out twice though. The first time it was probably 30 seconds. Then, it also went out during "All I Need", and I was kind of...not too thrilled "NOOOO! NOOOO! I LOVE THIS SONG!!!!" It probably didn't go out for more than 45 seconds, but it seemed like minutes, and anyway, 45 seconds is a good chunk of a song.

Thom Yorke danced around like a child. A girl next to started to cry immediately once she got on the platform and they started to play Videotape. I shan't lie, my eyes watered a bit during the beginning of that song, but no tear drops. Unlike that girl. It was water works, and that is perfectly fine. That's what music does! Oh, the power of music. She was so happy to see Radiohead, you could tell.

People were talking during the performance. This girl behind me got fed up with it, so she decided to tell everyone off who was talking. "I don't know if you know, but Radiohead is playing music...Radiohead...enjoy it and shut up."

Aside from all that, the light show was pretty cool, too. Seeing Radiohead made me happy.

An Observation:
Outside Lands was cool and all, but Coachella is better. The setting was in the middle of the park, which looks like a forest in some ways, but the layout of the festival wasn't the most logical. I will post more later

Saturday:
We went to the Sutro Baths, which was a bath house built in the late 19th century, and later burned down in 1966 and was abandoned. The ruins still remain. There is a cave there, and the story goes that if you light a candle in there, it will fall into the roaring waters of the tide. It's supposed to be haunted. That is one account of the hauntings. But who knows?

We then headed to North Beach, which is sort of like a little Italy. We went to Cafe Trieste and there was a show going on. All these people singing in Italian and playing instruments. It was great fun. City Lights Books is probably now my favorite bookstore. They sell books from local artists, as well as major novels and such. It's a three level shop, that I could spend the entire day in.

China Town was up next. I walked around a bit. Saw the sights.

Oh, and when we got home, we had a jam session, which was fun. I played the drums.

part three....coming up.