fes-ti-vaaaal

Today marked the third year in a row I have gone out to the Siren Festival. It also marked the first time I've heard any music there. In past years, it was just so damn hot and crowded and sweaty that after 15 minutes I booked it out to Brighton to drink with the Russkies. This year, however, a friend I made in Ithaca who has just moved to the city was going, so I decided to tag along and actually experience the thing. It was still so damn hot and crowded and sweaty, but we made our afternoon quite manageable by watching one band, Ambulance Ltd (hot singer, pretty songs, my superdorky midwestern mother likes them,) then riding the Cyclone rollercoaster (extremely fast and violent and I think I have whiplash and bruises,) then taking a Nathan's break (superb hot dogs, but don't order a "large" beer unless you want the 64 ounce souvenir one and not the 16 ounce biggest one on the menu...oops,) and then checking out one more band, Dungen. The one more band pretty much flipped me into new obsession mode. I read about Dungen almost a year ago on Stereogum and downloaded some of their songs. I could never fully get into them because I felt embarassed listening to people singing in Swedish, even when I was alone. Swedish is just a ridiculous sounding language. But the guys in the band are so blonde and rockin', the lead singer has my exact same haircut and color, and during their second song he broke out a regular silver flute and played into the main microphone. I played flute for ten years growing up, and I would be in absolute heaven if I could play rock flute for the rest of my life. I know there's not much of a demand for this, so I'll settle for writing and corporate whoredom. But the flute pretty much sealed the deal for me. If you have either Itunes or no shame and still use Limewire, download the song "Festival" and you will not be disappointed.

I am now extremely intoxicated (a growing theme here on Viagina) and exhausted and have added on a good five years to my age by sunburning the heck out of my face, but it was so worth it. And, as has come to be usual anywhere in New York, I ran into some familiar faces including Alex in LA's little brother and Alex, the 39-year-old who borrows money from his father and dates 23-year-olds and can get away with it because he is cuuuuuuuuuuuuute. I also got lots of free band stickers and pins and a Garnier Fructis radio. It's quite amazing what having a reason to wake up in the morning and having friends to do stuff with will do to a person. I haven't been this extendedly happy since junior year of college. Is my quarterlife crisis really, actually, finally over???