VEGOOSE IN VEGAS: Finding Authenticity in Music and Vice

Last week, Rivalfish traveled to the American land of utmost vice -- Las Vegas -- to review Vegoose, a Halloween weekend jam festival that marks the convergence of great music, grand costumes, and characteristic temptations that are found by so many who pass through a strange desert town in the heart of Nevada. It was my very first time in this strange, magical land, and of course, through our coverage, we hoped to learn a little more about American culture in our ongoing series of comparing music fandom to sports fandom. -- Rivalfish Producer, Jonah Ansell

Before we'd even set a single bare foot into the festival gates, the somewhat barren parking lot caused our staff photographer to ponder aloud "Will there be another Vegoose next year?" After two days of amazing music, Rivalfish surely hopes there will be another Vegoose, and within this article are Rivalfish's recommendations to festival organizers on how they might maximize the experience for concert-goers at next year's show.

For those not privy to the latest stoner word forging its way into the American lexicon, Vegoose is a jam festival, now in its second year, run by the 4:20 marketing geniuses behind the vastly successful Bonnaroo. The reasons Vegoose ought to be a wild success are simple.

1. Simply leverage America's most potent vices to draw in music lovers, hippies and aging hipsters from across the country, and create an irresistible cocktail of music, costumes, gambling, drinking, drugs (shhh), prostitution, all within a stone's throw of the Vegas strip, set within the picturesque mountains to maximize concert-goers ability to escape their everyday monotony.

2. Start selling tickets.

Seems like a pretty sure-fire formula to me.

But as we stood in a reasonably short 2pm line and looked out over a relatively empty parking lot, I had to wonder if there were enough fans to justify a third Vegoose. If not, would the Vegoose organizers relocate the festival to Miami, not unlike a certain corrupt Cleveland Indians owner in the 1989 classic, Major League?

Having seen the drawing power of an arbitrary farm in Nowheretown, TN (Bonnaroo 2006) and the allure of music's biggest names in Chicago's Grant Park (Lollapalooza 2006), it seemed that Vegoose was starting well behind the eight ball. Was the Bellagio not enough?

We collected our tickets and walked barefoot into the venue: a series of tents and stages set on the manicured grasses alongside the UNLV football stadium, in Nevada's tranquil desert lowland, between small rolling mountains, the likes of which you'd never find within 300 miles of Rivalfish's Chicago headquarters.

Vegoose wasn't laid out over an extensive 700 acre field (a la Bonnaroo). Strangely, it was reminiscing of the Vegas strip itself. On the Strip, you can walk from New York to Paris to the Middle Ages (Excalibur) in a two block span.

At Vegoose, the stages were positioned to one another with similar proximity, giving the venue a "sitcom intimacy," that allowed concert-goers to traverse between stages with the ease of Full House's Danny Tanner walking from the living room to the kitchen. Although this peculiar intimacy was entirely Vegas in the way it put gluttonous vice (a new band) within arm's reach at any moment, it unfortunately kept the music to a decibel level that left the ears longing for more. Which in itself is so Vegas, because even at its highest point, Vegas keeps you longing for something genuine.

Mandalay Bay boasts a great white shark that, as you can imagine, probably isn't a natural inhabitant of the Nevada desert. New York New York is not New York City, despite its best attempt at a skyline. Paris is not Paris, despite a staggering Eiffel Tower replica out front. The Vegas Strip's short-hand, fast-food, sitcom setup prevents any one entity from truly unfolding into what it attempts to mimic.

The buildings of the New York, New York hotel/casino skyline lack any soot or grit that you'd find in the true New York, and exhibited the kind of vapid monotony that you'd find in Los Angeles, the kind of emptiness that people retrospectively find in the toothless pastel color schemes of the early 1990s Rollerblade Era. The waitstaff at the Paris hotel/casino didn't speak to me in French, but rather displayed accents of people who likely came to this country illegally, via way of Oaxaca. And George Bush thinks we need a border fence....

Which is one of the reasons that Vegas is SO American, that it slaps framework over content, and hopes you don't notice, or if you do notice, you don't care, because you're drunk and you're gambling, and there's a chance you'll win it all.

"The house always wins" because the watered-down drinks, the absence of clocks, perpetual daylight interiors and maze-like casinos pumped with oxygen and opportunity keep visitors trapped, tempted, and and at bay. The Mandalay Bay, to be exact, gang-banging your eye sockets with a real, live shark. All behind the safety of 6-inch thick glass, all within reach of the nickel slots.

Vegas is Horatio Alger, without the legwork, an architectural infomercial, where you too can earn $80,000 in just two days, working from home, sitting next to a busty bleached blonde, in front of a glimmering pool, wearing a yellow, unbranded leisure shirt. THAT.....is Vegas. But, was THAT Vegoose?

From first glance, no. The drunken lights of the Vegas strip remained a full nine miles out of sight, giving me the momentary hope that this Vegoose "trip" wouldn't be limited by the plug and play confines of American consumption. Sure, Vegoose offered a seasonal pumpkin patch, a Vegas-inspired cabaret tent, a makeshift marriage chapel, and even a ferris wheel, but its offerings generally seemed more "festival-y" than "Vegas-y."

And our staff's pondering was quickly put to rest as soon as Medeski, Martin and Wood opened up with a mid afternoon electric number that engulfed the crowd -- guaranteeing the 600 or so onlookers that leaving the blackjack table was a great idea. I was so consumed by the music that by the time I turned around 45 minutes later, I saw that a few thousand Vegas hangovers had finally worn off, and had joined me for Maceo Parker's stellar saxophone accompaniment.

But as fans began to clap, I again pondered, just what was genuine, here at Vegoose? I wondered just how many of my fellow concert-goers were applauding Parker for his saxophone playing or for his Blackness, a condition not too unlike the over-appreciation of Samuel L. Jackson, who is broadly lauded by whites who unconsciously appreciate not only his acting, but his palatable "Black Actor" persona. Jackson offers moviegoers a tamed Blackness, a cinematic exaggeration of how Whites perceive the Black experience, a level of limited appreciation that sadly equalizes his sense of oddity/style with his actual talent, making it impossible for a White person to ever truly appreciate his performance alone, without subconsciously considering and applauding his Blackness. In an SAT analogy, Maceo Parker : Medeski, Martin and Wood :: Samuel L. Jackson : The ensemble cast of Pulp Fiction. Did we clap for his sax or his Blackness? The world may never know.

The crowd that clapped for Maceo and MMW was still reasonably small, but the late afternoon mass arrivals reminded me that I'd forgotten to ask myself a very simple, rational question, that would explain why the early afternoon crowds were minimal: Just who is God's name is awake in Vegas at 1 pm? Trick question -- there is no God in Vegas. Still, by asking myself this question, I realized the obvious: rational thought and reasoning simply CANNOT exist in Vegas because the city is constructed with the sole intention to unravel rationality.

But momentary rationality revealed that if you were up gambling till 5 am, and you slept until noon, the few people who WERE awake when the Vegoose festival gates opened, were less concerned with seeing Cat Power's dynamic Saturday performance because they were still dealing with the after-effects of Friday night: i.e. safely pulling their friend out of that prostitute's orifice, and devouring a mid afternoon prime rib brunch at the New York, New York casino buffet. I call this simple calculation, the Vegas math, and neither I nor the Vegoose promoters had done our homework.

But maybe Vegoose organizers knew more than this lowly journalist, because despite the smaller than anticipated crowds, an on-stage videographer prowled around, capturing MMW's fury as it happened, suggesting that Vegoose organizers had a backup plan to generate revenue, in case the gate numbers weren't as strong as they'd hoped. Although I've previously pondered whether or not Bonnaroo was the Next NASCAR, Vegoose suggested that jam festivals were not so much like NASCAR, but rather were becoming oddly similar to Hollywood blockbusters -- and just like a major film with a subpar opening weekend, a studio (Vegoose organizers) could recoup their investment through DVD sales.

The very reason people go to see live music is to be transported to a different place, but when they aren't physically there to be transported, entrepreneurial organizers use DVDs to transport the experience to tapestry-adorned living rooms around the country. DVD distribution isn't the Vegas way, it's the American way.

But the Experience can't be transported digitally. You can't recreate it on an iPod. At least not yet. And in those few moments that you tap into the Experience, be it a walk-off home run at a baseball game, or during Fiona Apple's raw, raucous performance at this past weekend's Vegoose, all your doubts about the falsity in the world fall to the wayside and you're briefly exalted to the heavens.

Although the recent buzz around The Killers or the longstanding reputation of Phil and Trey might've drawn people to the gates, it was Apple whose performance reminded me why I go to see live music in the first place. Her resounding voice and mountainous stage presence carried a gravity that no other performer could muster. On stage, she seemed to channel the combined energy of Jesus Christ, Janis Joplin, Tinkerbell, and an unnamed demon from Night of the Living Dead. With tragic makeup, unbridled off-mic shrieks and stares to a source unknown, she was The Pumpkin King on this Vegoose Halloween stage.

Her rawness triumphantly bled through the ornate Vegas monotony, but it was so shockingly raw, her stage lighted so blue, so perfectly tragic, that I began to wonder, was this too fake? Was Fiona Apple Vegoose's rendition of Vegas' real live shark? Do we awe at her rawness from behind the line that separates performer and fan, just as we drunkenly ogle the Great White, behind the safety of that glass? We sat like San Francisco Giants fans, wondering if Bonds' latest 502-foot home run was legit, or a cleverly staged Steroid creation. Music and sports really aren't that different, as upon first glance, we can no longer trust what is genuine in either.

I'll never know if Apple's pained stage tragedy was true, or something Shakespearean, an act intended to wow, on par with a Tuesday night Celine Dion finale at Caesar's Palace, but something in my gut tells me Apple was genuine and heartfelt. Maybe it was her performance or perhaps how she allowed the audience to connect back to the original intentions from where the lyrics first sprang. Either way, it made my escape to Vegas something far greater than drunkenly staring at some transplanted shark behind the safety of 6-inch glass.

Vegoose drew some great sports costumes from festival goers. I saw one Rex Grossman and a lanky white guy accepted his fate and put on the best Larry Bird costume this world has ever seen. Perhaps, the most telling shirt was worn by a spiky haired 20-something who double fisted two drinks. The shirt read: I LOVE LAS VEGAS AND I WANT TO FUCK IT.

One week removed from my first time to Vegas, I've concluded the obvious: Las Vegas may a city to fuck, but not one to marry. Unlike Samuel L. Jackson, when I clap for Vegas, I know exactly why I clap, and I know why I'll never give it a standing ovation. Vegoose however, deserves a near-standing "O."

Which finally, brings me to:
Rivalfish's Three Recommendations for Vegoose organizers.

1. Open the festival gates at 3pm, not 11 am.

No matter the headliner, you'll never compete with the allure of the almighty dollar.

If you're worried that you'll lose the all-too significant lunchtime food sales, how about heeding this:

2. Next year, launch the inaugural Vegoose buffet.

Give Vegas' food-starved masses a reason to fill themselves on-site. Keep the buffet open for only an hour interval for each paying customer to guard your profits against even the savviest stoner. Split the profits amongst all your vendors. This won't keep people from gambling till 5 am, but it might give reason for them to make their inevitable buffet stop on the actual concert grounds.

And consider this:

3. Timing is everything. Make Vegoose a SPRING BREAK festival!

Although Halloween in Vegas seems like a party no college kid can refuse, there weren't a lot of college kids at Vegoose. At least the percentages didn't match Bonnaroo or Lollapalooza. Why? Summer music festivals work b/c kids are out of school and usually have disposable income at hand, and relatively empty jobs they can sneak away from for a good 4-5 days.

It's enough to be competing w/ the allure of the Vegas Strip, but a Vegoose festival over Halloween weekend is also competing with the low-cost, high-fun opportunities on college campuses across the country. Vegoose likely drew only the most die-hard fans, and festivals like Bonnaroo and Vegoose thrive on those fringe fans, whose social identities are on the line when they fork over $150+ for a ticket.

Vegoose offered a much older crowd. Dancers were few and far between and even the ubiquitous head-bobbers didn't make much of an appearance. There was widespread standing, and the music was too damn good for the crowd to be simply standing. Sure the ability to escape from a cubicle, remove your wingtips, and stand barefoot on grass, hundreds of miles from home is justification enough....but I would've liked to see a few more legs shaken.

So again, host Vegoose over a prime Spring Break weekend to draw thousands more, during a time when college kids are actively seeking an escape, away from campus.

Whatever you decide, we'll be there next year.