Cruel World Music Festival

A month or so ago, Ted read that one of our favorite bands, ‘Til Tuesday, was reuniting for the Cruel World music festival in Los Angeles. They haven’t played together in decades, and with the all original lineup, it’s been about 35 years I think. We looked at the lineup for the concert, and it looked like a lot of fun, and the price wasn’t horrible, so we decided to go. We drove down on Friday, and came home on Sunday, so it was a quick trip for sure. We considered flying, but couldn’t find any flights that made money sense, especially since we would need to rent a car once we got there.

I’ve been to concerts before, and all day lineups with several bands, but never a festival like this where you have multiple bands playing simultaneously. With 2 or 3 bands plus a ‘club room’ (DJ) all playing at the same time, you need a big space, so this is on a golf course.

We didn’t know the early bands, and wanted to pace ourselves a bit, so while the festival started at 11:45, the first band we saw was Midge Ure at 2pm. I had never heard of Midge Ure before, but he was one of the bandleaders of Ultravox (who I did know), and co-organized the charity concerts Band Aid and Live Aid in the 80s. This guy kicked ass, and I would go see him again in a heartbeat. I thought, THIS is the highlight of this concert. What a voice, what a presence, what a charming Scottish accent.

After that, Ted wanted to see Nation of Language, which was on the other side of the golf course, near the Rose Bowl. I had to find the bathrooms, and when I got back I didn’t want to search the crowd for Ted, so I waited for him at our pre-agreed upon meeting place under a tree. I didn’t get any pictures of Nation of Language, but they are not an old 80s band, they are current and they are great.

Then it was back across the course to see Alison Moyet, singer of the band Yaz/Yazoo. OMG, she was so good! She said she’s usually pretty chatty during her concerts, but she only had 45 minutes, so she mostly stuck to music. I liked her dancing, she leads with her hips and shoulders, and I enjoyed imagining that that’s how she walks around the house. **Dances into room – “We’re having pancakes today” – Dances out.** (No one else thinks that’s as funny as I do.) I was a big fan of Yaz back in the day, and really enjoyed singing along to songs like Only You and Nobody’s Diary.

Now the event we came to see, ‘Til Tuesday. At this point it had started to rain a little harder (I didn’t mention that it was drizzling, did I? It was drizzling) and I kind of wished that I hadn’t left my hat in the car. Oh well, it was just a heavy drizzle. Aimee Mann has the most amazing voice, and this was for sure the highlight of the day for me. My favorite of their 3 albums is Everything’s Different Now, which came out in 1988 and was on heavy rotation at Ted’s little apartment in San Francisco. I wish they had played more songs from that album, but when they played The Other End (Of the Telescope), I had a George Bailey moment and started crying.

Ted used to sing this song to Maya when she was a colicky baby, and thinking about that, and about how we used to listen to it when we were first falling in love, and then about how we were here, together, celebrating Ted’s 60th birthday, I had a moment…I thought, “Wow, you’ve really had a wonderful life!” I was so happy. Ted saw me crying happy tears and knew (at least partly) why, and put his arm around me. His friend John took this picture. My hair is kind of wavy because we’re getting rained on and that’s what my hair looks like in a little bit of rain. The stage is a revolving stage, so one band can have their gear set up while another is playing, because the schedule is pretty tight. ‘Til Tuesday ran out of time at the end of their final song, Voices Carry, and were spun off stage, which seemed fitting as she was signing the final verses of ‘He said, Shut Up’.

We got a little bit of flack from FB friends for seeing ‘Til Tuesday instead of The Buzzcocks, which were playing at the same time. Obviously I have no regrets on this one.

Now is where a festival is not as good as other concerts. Our feet are hurting, we are hungry, and we want to sit down. If we want to sit, the ground is wet, and if we want to eat, we’re going to be in the middle of the venue, which means we will hear music from multiple stages at once, which sucks. We went and got something to eat, because who wants to be hangry? We missed OMD and Madness, who were both really good. I would have especially liked to see OMD, but I wanted a bathroom and some food even more. If it were a venue with seats, we could have gone, gotten our food, and come back. If it were a venue with just one band at a time, we would have been able to hear them better rather than the mixture that we did hear.

One benefit though was that the food trucks where we landed were close to one of the other stages, and we heard She Wants Revenge, which is a new to us band that were great.

Next we had to decide between Garbage and Devo. Ted wanted to see Devo, and we had seen Garbage a couple of years ago when they opened for Tears for Fears. Devo put on a great performance, and I really enjoyed the songs that I knew, but it was a bit of ‘That was very interesting music Marty’ for me. (From ‘Back to the Future’) The highlight was watching the teenagers in front of us dance with their mom and how they knew EVERY single word.

Next was a bit of Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds. Cave had a lot of presence, and they put on a great show, but the only song I knew was Red Right Hand. I thought they were great, but not sure their music is my thing. Maybe I need to listen to more and find out. A lot of people were VERY into them though.

Now it was time for some upbeat fun, so we bailed on Nick and went to watch The Go-Go’s. It was great to see them, but they seemed muddled and the sound sucked and it was so shrill I had to plug my ears to hear them better. They were having some issues and seemed to be arguing a bit, which was too bad. Was I glad that I saw them? Sure, why not.

The last band was the headliner, New Order. I don’t have any pictures, we weren’t close, and at this point they are the only band playing, so instead of having the crowd divided, everyone is here. My feet hurt. My back hurt. When Ted whispered to me that he didn’t think he could do the entire hour set, let’s just stay for a few songs, I was quietly thrilled. I love New Order, we had a great time when we saw them in concert several many years ago, but this was not that day. So we left and I don’t regret it. As it was, we could hear several more songs as we made the long trek to our car.

What Worked

People Watching
I have never been a goth, but walking around I felt like, THESE ARE MY PEOPLE. I lived a few blocks from Haight Ashbury in San Francisco from ‘87 – ‘90, and there were always lots of goth folks hanging around. Also at school. Also downtown. Also on the bus. Also everywhere. It felt like youth to be in their presence.

There was so much black. So much mesh. Women in skirts so short that you could see the bottom of their butt cheeks. Lots of leather. Lots of face paint. The list of items you could bring included ‘black eyeliner’, which I thought was hilarious. No brown? Overall, IT WAS AWESOME.

I really liked being behind these young women at the Midge Ure performance, they were fun (and not too tall, which I appreciated, I spend a lot of time at concerts behind tall people).

The Food
There were a lot of options, and I chose to get my dinner from the Kogi food truck. I had the special, the Blackjack Quesadilla, which is described as: spicy pork, caramelized onions, cheddar and jack cheeses, and salsa verde. It was really delicious, a quesadilla with Korean flavors.

The Music (mostly)
If you have been reading and wish that you could have a glimpse of what we saw, Ted took some video and put together a highlight reel. The girls dancing to Whip It are near the end, at 9:22. I always think that live music is Ted’s thing (and it is). I always have to talk myself into going. But once I’m there, I always have a great time. Highlights for me were Midge Ure, ‘Til Tuesday, and Alison Moyet. Highlights for Ted were Devo, Midge Ure, Nick Cave, Alison Moyet, and Nation of Language.

The Weather
I know, it rained on us. Some of you might have resented this, but I absolutely did not. The previous Saturday it was 100 F, and a couple of years ago they had to evacuate due to lightning. A cool rainy day where I didn’t have to worry about sunburn? AWESOME, and so very goth.

What Didn’t Work

The Standing
We got there at about 1:30, and left at about 10:00. Between walking to and from our car, and back and forth across the course, my phone said we walked almost 11 miles on Saturday. Which is fine, but the standing still for hours on end watching a show is really hard on ones feet and back. I would have liked to stay and watch New Order, but we just couldn’t do it anymore.

The Lights and Noise
I know, that’s a ridiculous thing to say at a concert, but as the day became night, the noise seemed to get louder and more shrill, and the flashing lights and so on is just…a lot. It can feel overwhelming. And when you were too close to the middle of the venue (like when we were eating) you heard music from all 3 stages and sometimes the DJ/Dance area too. Unpleasant.

The Schedule
I didn’t like having to choose between bands when there was more than one I wanted to see.

Verdict

Am I glad we went? Abso-frikken-lutely, it was a lot of fun! Would I do it again? Ummm, MAYBE, depending on who is there. If I did, I would go in knowing that I was unlikely to stay until the end of the night. Overall, it was a great, great day.