Hardly Strictly

Yesterday, Summer and I spent the day at Hardly Strictly Bluegrass Festival, an annual, FREE festival in San Francisco's Golden Gate Park.

We had decided ahead of time to meet at the IKEA in Emeryville (next to Oakland), where I could unobtrusively park my car in the parking garage all day for free. I got there a few minutes early, so I went to the top of the garage and took a picture and video.

The City By the Bay and lots of freeway.

A few minutes later, I met up with Summer, and we set off to get all the way to the other side of those far-off San Francisco buildings to Golden Gate Park.

We arrived in time to look around, get some lunch (Indian food, and it was delicious), and make our way over to the Towers stage for Hugh Laurie.

Glitter Rainbow Man (he had on platform shoes). Only in San Francisco.

Yummy.

Hippie Girl selling headbands with flowers on them.
Because, you know, if you're going to San Francisco...

This guy was about 6'5" and covered in hair.

Waiting for Hugh Laurie.

Cali Swimmy was disappointed that he couldn't see.

Hugh Laurie (yes, Dr. House himself) was great--we sat on the hillside listening for a bit, before retreating to the shade because we were getting too much sun. The sound at this stage was pretty good, because the hills surrounding created an amphitheater. I took a couple of videos. Pardon Summer and I talking!

We wanted to hear Merle Haggard and Kris Kristofferson, so we set off towards the Star Stage. Unfortunately, we couldn't get anywhere near the stage, and even when we managed to get closer, it was more an exercise in standing there listening to people chatter and smoke weed. I could barely hear the music, which was disappointing.

There's only so much "Haha, only in San Francisco!" I can take in a day. There were over 200,000 people at the festival yesterday, and some great musicians playing. The festival is free, which is awesome, and it's a great way to hear some top-notch music in a beautiful setting. Thing is, the rules that had been posted on the Hardly Strictly web site--no smoking, as per park rules, all dogs must be on leashes, etc.--were being blatantly ignored everywhere I looked. I'm not the type that's going to point out every wrong-doer to the (very limited) police presence. But damn, it would have been nice to enjoy the promised smoke-free environment. I'm not all that fond of the smell of pot.

Not entirely sure why they brought a lawn ornament to
Hardly Strictly, but I suppose they had their reasons.
Hey, I brought a rubber duck.

I took this picture of Merle Haggard and Kris Kristofferson with the extreme
zoom on my camera in use. For all I know, Big Foot and Santa Claus could
have been playing up there.

We eventually settled over at the Rooster Stage, in the hopes of hearing a band I was interested in called The Punch Brothers. There was a great female musician (whose name is escaping me) that we got to hear, vaguely--again, the acoustics were rotten because it was outdoors in a big open park. Mostly we had to listen to the bearded hipsters playing guitar and accordion behind us (Mumford and Sons, they were not) and watch a lot of people in skinny jeans and flip-flops try to act cooler than us. Ahead of us, a girl stood among the crowd, twirling a hula hoop on her arm.

(Because when I think of bluegrass music, I think of pink sparkly hula hoops.)

(I really love my skinny jeans, but I am not a fan of hipsters.)

Anyway, we had both gotten a little complain-y. Turns out that now we're in our thirties, we don't really like crowds much. So after I spent ten minutes in line for a cold drink and only moved forward one spot, while also enduring the indignity of a man sticking his pointed finger three inches from my eye, then laughing with his companion about it, I returned in a huff to our miniscule patch of lawn. Summer said, "You ready?"

"Yes. You?"

"Yes."

We don't regret going, but we did learn that we are not really festival types anymore--it's just so crowded, and people are rude and they stop in the middle of crowded walkways and smoke pot where they're not supposed to. They wear leather leggings and too-small overalls with no shirts and have bad hipster haircuts and think they look pretty damned sexy. They let their tykes nearly run you over on their scooters and bump into you with their massive backpacks (one lady had a suitcase!!). It's all just annoying and strange.

We're very much looking forward to a big show we're attending in October, the Bridge School Benefit, where the audience is limited because you have to buy tickets.

After we left the park, we drove back through San Francisco, happy to chatter and catch up. We went back to Emeryville and had dinner at Rudy's Can't Fail Cafe, which is owned by the rock band Green Day. It's right across the street from the headquarters for Pixar.

I love San Francisco architecture.

Pixar

Emeryville is adorable.

Random sign pic as we got lost heading back to Emeryville.

Fat Beli Deli!

Distant sign pic. Donut shop, restaurant and bar. One-stop shopping!

These are all over Emeryville.

As ever, it was lovely to spend a day with Summer. I wish the festival had been a little better--my biggest complaint was really that it was so hard to hear. I had loose plans to go again today with my friend Meghan, but I was so tired. I got a little too much sun yesterday and ended up having a lovely nap this afternoon, with all the windows in the house open.