Hey Indaba.  Normally on Monday I post a Monday showdown but this week is special so I am skipping it.  Instead I want to tell you about my weekend.  Why?  Because I was hosting the comedy tent at All Points West, a big 3-day music festival in Jersey City.  I say "two cities" in our title because the festival may have technically taken place in Jersey City but the backdrop to the whole thing is the beautiful Manhattan skyline. 

I had never truly attended a music festival before.  I have been to big concerts but they would only last a day and most were put on by local radio stations.  This was different.  There were about 50 bands playing with Coldplay, Tool and Jay-Z headlining so this was rather large.  On the first day myself and the rest of the comedy crew were ferried over from Manhattan and marched across a field to the comedy tent.  And when I say comedy tent what I really mean is comedy airplane hanger.  This thing was enormous.  I am used to preforming on small stages for 300 people.  This was a massive stage with two huge video screens and the "room" could hold a few thousand.  Nervously, my co-worker and I prepared.

At 1:30 on Friday the curtain went up and we were on.  I had no idea what to expect.  I figured there would be one or two people in the crowd who knew me and would laugh out of obligation but I couldn't pick them out.  I mostly just wanted to do my time and bring up the first headliner (a young comedy singer/songwriter, Bo Burnham).  To my great surprise the crowd was receptive and laughing, if a little small.  We started with 75 people maybe and had close to 100 when we were done.  No heckles, no mud thrown at me, none of the things I had been expecting when I signed up for this gig a few months ago.  All in all, the first day went well.  But as soon as the comedy tent ended at 4:30 and the big bands started to take the stage God decided he had had enough of the muggy, humid weather hanging over the festival and it began to rain.  This would become more important as the festival went on. 

Day two turned out to be bright and sunny, a perfect day to enjoy some bands outside.  However, Fridays rain had turned the festival grounds into a huge mud puddle.  Discarded pants and sandals littered the walk to the grounds and god help you if you stepped in tire treads (a girl we were with went in up to her knee).  My part of day two went very well and ended with Tim and Eric (of Adult Swim) packing the comedy tent to capacity for one of the weirdest acts I've ever seen.  Since it was a nice day I decided to check out some more of the festival.  I caught a few bands and tried in vain to find this secret "Artist's Village" where we had heard they had free food and alcohol.  For the life of me I could not find it and ended up eating a disgusting philly cheese steak for dinner that sat like a cannon ball in my stomach.  I think the festival was handled very well and nothing immediately jumps out as terrible except the food.  Perhaps it was just the places I was eating at but good lord, get a few decent venders in there next year. 

By Sunday, the last day, things had gotten fairly disgusting and the weather had turned terrible.  The gates weren't opened until many hours after they were supposed to and thousands of people were kept standing in the rain, waiting to get in.  When they finally did open the gates we were so behind schedule that we did a real quick comedy show - watching huge comedians do ten minute sets is almost depressing - and then were cut loose.  And that's when we found it.  The Artist's Village.  It was real and it lived behind the main stage and, furthermore, it was amazing.  Free drinks from Grey Goose (they even named one after me: The Streeter - a vodka tonic with a splash of cranberry), free food from actual chefs (I ate three servings of crab linguine) and air conditioned tents where they had, no joke, live 3-D TVs.  It was a trip.  All the bands had their trailers back there and Coldplay, Sunday's headliner, had an entire village to themselves.  It was a trip and I'm sure I will never find myself in a place like that again, where anything I want is free and people treat me as if I am better than normal people.  Amazing.

Anyway, that was my time at All Points West.  I didn't get to see as many bands as i would have wanted (mostly because I was working for 4 hours each day) but I had a great time.  The crowd was actually very receptive to comedy which was a surprise and hopefully we'll be back next year. And who knows, maybe you'll come by next year and, if you do, I promise to sneak you into the Artist's Village where you can have all the crab linguine you want.