once more with feeling

It was a Friday of craziness.
At the beginning of last week, Alice Tragedy and me decided that we could use a 24-hour break from Vienna and would go on a roadtrip to Kärnten to attend the first day of the Acoustic Lakeside Festival.
So there we were, Friday at noon: a car, lots of mixtapes, coffee, blankets and pillows, insect repellent, bikinis, toilet paper and rain ponchos.
After about 3.5 hours and me only losing the way once, we arrived at this little lake called Sonnegger See, where the festival’s organizers set up a stage with hay bales and sofas in front of it to sit and lean on. I really can’t say anything about the first bands, since we were still enjoying the sunshine and our first beer down at the lake and had to deal with attacking trees and bees (one even stung me in my finger, I think she wanted to steal my beer..).

However, we managed to get our lazy asses up and watch Deckchair Orange‘s acoustic set, which of course consisted of their old hits like Rose and Solid Lie, but also included some songs of their upcoming CD, which will be released somewhen at the beginning of next year (I think). As always, DCO convinced with their wonderful poppy indie-sound, which is only paused when Alex takes over the stage alone for his ballads Crossword and Facts & Fiction.
After only hearing them once, I really don’t want to weigh in already on their new songs – also, I’ve been told that when not in acoustic version, they will sound pretty different to everything we know from the band until now. So, let’s wait and see…

♥

After Deckchair Orange, Garish managed to completely fascinate and entertain the audience, so that nobody cared about the rain that started pouring down, but gathered in front of the stage and danced to the sound of guitars, drums, string bass, accordion, joined by the trumpet of Bernhard Eder and a choir of some friends (including the DCO boys for example) for Eisenherz and Dann fass ich mir ein Herz.

Next one was Ezra Furman and the Harpoons – a band, of which I only knew one song (Take Off Your Sunglasses) and didn’t expect anything spectacular. But isn’t it always like this: when you expect nothing, you will find the biggest surprises?! Well, Ezra immediately enchanted the audience with his Bob Dylan-like style, the folk music and his blues harp. So everybody in Vienna should go and check them out at their gig at the B72 in two weeks!

The highlight of the evening: Nada Surf. I never saw them live, since I am a bum and completely missed their album-release gig in Vienna some months ago, so I was more than excited to finally confess my endless love to Matthew. And – surprise surprise – THEY WERE AMAZING. Despite some fighting in the front row (in which Alice Tragedy was included, and even sustained an injury), everybody seemed to enjoy the acoustic version of hits as Always Love, I Like What You Say, Electrocution and Happy Kid. At the latest at the encore, Blankest Year, every single one sang along to “Oh fuck it, I’m gonna have a party!”…

matthew - by alice tragedy

… and we did have a party! After about 9 hours of straight drinking, it all ended in embarassing dancing to Indie-hits, making fun of others whose dance moves were even worse, trying to get rid of drunk creepy men that wanted to hit on us, giving boys nicknames (blue tiger is still my favorite one..) and waking up the next day in the living room of some stranger’s house with the parents sleeping upstairs and the Deckchair Orange boys in the other rooms downstairs. Oh, not to forget Mr. & Mrs. Santa, who watched us sleep and frightened me a little bit I have to admit…

All in all, the best one-day-festival of all times. Plus, I got to hear my favorite Nada Surf song: their cover of Enjoy The Silence. And having him (who? secret!!! hihi..) holding me in his hands during the song made it perfect. There were little hearts in my eyes and butterflies in my stomach. PERFECTION.

All I ever wanted
All I ever needed
Is here in my arms
Words are very unnecessary
They can only do harm.