Vegoose Wrap

Someone had to go first, so why not a Malian pop-meets-electric blues five-piece with a name that sounds like a spoof of 2 Live Crew? A few hundred dedicated souls took in North Carolina's Toubab Krewe as they kicked off Vegoose '06, grooving under a canopy of perfect sunny weather. A nice, mellow start to the weekend.

"Are you ready to have your asses rocked?" Gomez asked. "Rrrraaaaaannngh!" we answered. From "Shot Shot" and "Hangover" to "Fill My Cup" and rollicking closer "Devil Will Ride," the 'Mez got the crowd braying. Is it kosher to fist-pump along to an English-tinged groove band that boasts dual, triple, and occasionally quadruple vocal assaults?

Watching eccentro-pop artist Cat Power, a well-known local journalist says emphatically, "Wow, this is the longest I've seen her play without passing out drunk."

From the moment Buckethead strode to the stage following a seven-minute Bernie Worrell solo, Praxis' main attraction commanded all attention, not just with his playing and his attire—the KFC bucket on his head—but also during a short puppet show, a creepy robot dance and a bizarre nunchuck workout. He dazzled the crowd with an extended solo, performing three movements from John Williams' Star Wars score, then segueing neatly into Jimi Hendrix's "Machine Gun." But don't confuse Buckethead with showy peers like Steve Vai or Joe Satriani—dude has plenty of soul, as anyone in the head-bobbing sea of worshippers can surely attest.

I find myself wondering which Vegoose musician has played the most gigs in his life. Maybe ex-Grateful Dead bassist Phil Lesh. The Widespread Panic boys are always on the road. But the guess here is saxman Maceo Parker, James Brown's right-hand man, longtime Prince cohort and sometime collaborator with P-Funk. And that doesn't include a solo career dating to the 1970s.

"Is Vegas still in the house?" All the hands in the air, waved like we just didn't care, indicated yes. Dr. Octagon, aka Kool Keith, turned the cabaret clubs tent into the coolest big-top party this side of Circus Circus.

Dr. Octagon performed in front of a half-full tent of mostly white kids who were, by and large, unfamiliar with the legend's top hits.

With the 3:50 sun full in the crowd's face, Detroit's don't-call-us-a-supergroup The Raconteurs took to the Snake Eyes stage clad in more black than a Spinal Tap album. Sun-phobic frontman Jack White, his hair gaining disheveled height with every passing day, led the foursome (plus keyboardist Dean Fertita) in a frantic nine-song set crammed with stomping blues beats and snarling guitar solos. Low in stage chatter, high in raw garage squall, Jack and Co. boiled over where The White Stripes simmer. Then they all exchanged man-hugs and smiled fondly at each other.

I feel as though I've been physically assaulted. The Mars Volta did it to me, with the most exhausting set of music I've ever seen, and I've seen a lot. A 65-minute song—yes, you read that right—did most of the damage, but there was plenty more to come. I'm not really sure whether I loved it or hated it, but my sore back and aching feet tell me it was amazingly powerful.

Sitting around a table during a pre-show press conference in which everyone wanted to know what it was like to return to their hometown to perform in Vegoose, The Killers' Brandon Flowers said:

"Of course, the town has changed so much. But it's still Las Vegas, the town I was born and raised in. There's still the same hot wind, still the beautiful mountains, the sunsets are still pretty."

The other big question of the night revolved around some of the lukewarm and even unfavorable reviews Sam's Town has thus far received. To which Flowers said, unreserved: "We really love this album. So some of this criticism upset us a lot. ... I've learned that sometimes people judge what comes from my tongue [in interviews], and not the songs."

The Killers are a praiseworthy band, and they play damn good music. When the band performed tonight it was almost as if they wrapped each song in a blanket, like a baby, kissed it and sent it off to the crowd.

Which was rather small in size, and quite apathetic in response. When The Killers didn't play one of their radio hits, some in the crowd fell asleep. (Others got indignant: "Why won't they just play my song," a girl said after The Killers finished "Indie Rock and Roll," a song that should have ignited a tsunami in a festival like this.) But when they did play "Somebody Told Me," or "Mr. Brightside," or "All These Things that I've Done," or, from the new album, "When You Were Young," the crowd stayed, and they cheered as if The Killers were indeed their hometown band.

The Black Crowes do a mean version of The Band's "Up on Cripple Creek," with guitarist Rich Robinson on vocals, and close with the strong sequence of "Jealous Again," "By Your Side" and "Remedy," but the middle of the set is marred by too many meandering jams, including a pointless drum solo on "My Morning Song."

Heartbreakers in tow, Thomas Earl Petty gave the crowd a gen-u-wine rock 'n' roll religious experience. Clad in faded jeans, fringed suede jacket and a festive scarf patterned with grinning skeletons, Petty expanded such classic cuts as "Refugee," "You Wreck Me," "Don't Come Around Here No More" and "American Girl" with building guitar duels and call-and-response chants. Despite a lyrical flub in "Saving Grace" and exaggerated messianic poses, the set never felt overblown, even during ambitious covers of "Oh Well" and "I'm a Man."

"I'd like to introduce you to my band," UK vocalist Jamie Lidell announced to a confused, sparse Clubs Tent crowd around 1 p.m. Why the confusion? Because Lidell was alone onstage, pointing to a table covered in machinery. "They're well-behaved. We always get along." The idea of Lidell essentially performing karaoke sounded lame, until he set up a self-made backing track for second number "The City," via looped vocal sounds not unlike beatboxing. Of course, the main attraction was Lidell's super-soulful vocal chops, but his "band" didn't sound too shabby, either.

Boasting influences from folk to Caribbean, Guster delivered a tight, earnest and sunny set that proved even lead singers decked out in mullet wigs demand to be taken seriously.

A raving loony she may be, but Fiona Apple is also one of the most intense, dynamic live performers out there. Though her set decor included a "Dogs Playing Poker" print, and her backing band looked like they were hired from central casting, Apple brought twilight on in style with her impossibly mature, lovelorn purr. Veering from angsty and snarling to lilting and sultry, the too-short hour-15 hit its high point with the one-two gut-punch of "Paper Bag" and "Sleep to Dream."

Jen Durkin has a fine voice and Steve Kimock blazes on guitar, but it's a bit disconcerting hearing them fill in for Jerry Garcia when The Rhythm Devils play Grateful Dead songs like "New Speedway Boogie" and "Fire on the Mountain." Much better was the makeshift band's version of Phish's underperformed cut, "The Wedge," which found Mike Gordon, ex-bassist for the popular Vermont jam band, singing comfortably during the Devils' set.

Exiting her first Grateful Dead show, a friend of mine once remarked, "It was like watching grass grow." Tonight watching Phil and Trey, it was more like watching a gardener mull over which seed to buy. Lesh and Anastasio showed few glimpses of the musical chemistry that once ignited the hottest jams by their former bands, the Dead and Phish. "Shakedown Street" devolved into a train wreck, while a lethargic take on "Row Jimmy" sent much of the crowd straight to a cold grassy seat. And was that really John Medeski on keys? Because he was almost nonexistent in the mix. The group redeemed itself somewhat during a late "Help on the Way"/"Slipknot"/"Franklin's Tower," but on the whole, it felt like a sad attempt to revisit a bygone era best left in memories.

The Roots brought the most energy I saw all weekend, especially early in their performance, when they raced through cuts from their latest two albums, Game Theory and The Tipping Point. From there, the set took an instrumental turn, as each member of the hip-hop band played an extended solo piece. MC Black Thought sounded as good as he has in years, and his fellow musicians reminded their fans once again why they're more like the JBs or P-Funk than any of their hip-hop contemporaries.

I am a diehard Rilo Kiley fan, but this "American Gothic"-serious, Branson wax museum-hokey side project frontwoman Jenny Lewis cooked up is impossible to take seriously. The tunes are flat and reaching, and Lewis' sunny-sweet voice is buried under dull rhythms. And those black-clad Watson Twins are just far too creepy for words.

Julie wasn't down with the whole Watson Twins thing, but perhaps my extreme stage left position, which obscured my view of half of the backup singers, alleviated the creep-out factor. If Jenny Lewis wants to get her kicks with a retro-kitschy side project, who am I to tell her otherwise? Especially if they rock, which they did on Sunday night.

Songs from Lewis' solo effort, Rabbit Fur Coat, translated bigger and bolder in live format, and the crowd (sparse as it was) responded to her one kinda-hit, "Rise Up With Fists," and the encore, a cover of the Traveling Wilburys' "Handle With Care" (which sounded better without the pretentious vocals of Conor Oberst).

Conversation overheard at any Ben Folds concert the past 10 years, and probably the next 20 as well ...

Dude 1: Dude, like, we're listening to piano music.

Dude 2: Yeah, but it's okay, because it's ironic. He drops f-bombs and pounds on his keyboard and plays dissonant chords that often devolve into chaotic interludes that would make Burt Bacharach break out in hives. Plus, he dresses like a slacker. So it's cool, man.

Dude 1: Whoa.

If I were an alien and my first experience on Earth was here, in the middle of these thousands of people watching Widespread Panic, young and old, bobbing and twirling and rocking, all with their eyes closed, I would think humans to be weird creatures. But beautiful ones, too. As if their heads were meant to bob to music, their torsos to twirl to it, and their feet to rock to the rhythms without pause. That is, as if they had bodies for the sole purpose of dancing.

The Costumes

Celebrities: Bono, Nicole Richie, Team Zissou, Lost's John Locke, Luigi (as in brother of Mario), The Pope, old-school Cheech and Chong, Britney and Kevin (only because K-Fed had a plastic baby strapped to this chest), Dead Steve Irwin, including stuffed manta ray through the heart, Justin Timberlake.

Miscellaneous: Vegoose Globetrotters (five white guys in afro wigs and matching gold basketball uniforms), three young ladies decked out as the Cannabis cheerleaders, a traffic cone, goose with vegetables stuck to it, an electrical outlet, deviled egg (giant fried egg on stomach, horns and tail).

The Dude showed up. Yup: some guy dressed as the Big Lebowski himself, alongside Walter Sobchack, Donny and even Da Jesus, in his purple jumpsuit and hairnet. So authentic did they look that folks not only stopped them to shoot photographs, but one young couple even asked for their signatures. I later approached the couple and asked why. With an European accent, the woman said to me:

"When else am I ever gonna get to meet Jeff Bridges and John Goodman?"

No kidding.

Q: Who would win in a fist fight, Jack White of The Raconteurs and The White Stripes or Jimmy Page of Led Zeppelin?

A: "Jimmy Page, because I don't know who Jack White is." (Teresa, Denver)

A: "Jimmy Page, because he's mildly Satanic." (Marc Hannel, Las Vegas)

A: "Jack White, because he's pissed off that he grew up in Detroit. Everyone I know who has lived in Detroit is pissed off." (Ashley Kingman, Zia Records manager, Las Vegas)

A: "Jack White, because he's brawnier." (Brandy Provenzano, promoter, Las Vegas)

A: "Jack White. He's such an angry young man and he's driven by middle-class rage." (Cheryl Brown, contest winner, Australia)

A: "Jimmy Page. I mean, did you see Page's guns back in the day?" (Casey Neely, Denver)

Rob Goll never thought he'd end up becoming a book seller. But situated between the cavalcade of transient tents selling fancy tie-dyed bongs and dubious-looking food stands at Vegoose, Goll's book stand stands out like a sore thumb.

Littered with titles from authors like Charles Bukowski, Ernest Hemingway and Hunter S. Thompson, Goll's book stand has circled the country every concert season—spring through fall—for six years.

"I started selling books in 1998 when Phil Lesh came back on tour after fighting cancer," Goll said. "His return really inspired me." Since then, Goll and his 1986 Winnebago, filled with his young wife, Niki, her 4-year-old son, Elijah, and their new baby son, have hit the road from New Jersey to make the rounds and sell books at music festival after music festival.

"I'm here for the books," Goll said. "But it all comes from the love of the music."

Goll, 43, is a veteran of the 1991-1994 Grateful Dead tours and most of the Phish tours, and has traveled with other jam bands, such as Widespread Panic and The String Cheese Incident. However it wasn't until 1998 that he realized he wanted to do more than just bum, get high and hang around with the bands.

"For me, [before 1998] I was just so thrilled with the experience thing. I was doing a lot of psychedelics, and I like being a part of the psychedelic aspect of shows. But [touring with] Phish really helped me get over the need to be in the psychedelic world and focusing my mind on something. That's why I started the bookstore."

Goll's love for books has motivated him to do more than simply sell them—he writes them, as well. His book The Bus is a chronicle of his life touring with the Grateful Dead. "I fell in love with the scene back with people like the Dead and ... it's a part of our American culture, and the book is about making [the tailgating lifestyle] work."

Goll is also looking at opening up an online store to sell the several thousands of books he's collected from yard sales, used-book stores and swap meets. "We're going to go back to Jersey after Vegoose and get started on the Internet project," Goll said. He hopes to make enough money that his family can move out of the Winnebago and into a small apartment or house back in Jersey.

"Right now, all we have is in the van, but we hope to change that soon," Goll said. That doesn't mean he'll give up the festival scene, though, not with all the new converts flocking in.

"It's more of a suburban youth that comes out to tour," Goll said. "A lot of them hit the road because they have no place to call home, or feel alienated from their families. To them, this lifestyle, this world is their home."