This year’s Vegoose festival surely is different from the two prior incarnations. Sam Boyd Stadium — off the “lovely” Boulder Highway, lying next to a cookie-cutter subdivision that’s infinitely more Phoenix than Las Vegas — is still very much the same. But the lineup and the scene have each evolved in record time.
More closely resembling Lollapalooza than a typical jamband festival, there were more Daft Punk T-shirts than tie-dyes, and Trojan condoms were being passed out instead of free hugs. If a lineup of Mastodon, Queens of the Stone Age and Rage Against the Machine weren’t enough to scare the hippies away, try adding Public Enemy, Lupe Fiasco and M.I.A. And if that didn’t do the trick, maybe invite Muse, Ghostface Killah and the biggest anti-hippie of ‘em all: Iggy Pop.
Although the “scene” itself has changed, the mission is still the same for the folks at Superfly: throw a ton of music our way at the same time and keep us running between stages. Not a bad way to be spending your afternoon, as long as it keeps you away from the $5-a-slice pizza. I love Spicy Pie? Maybe at $3 a slice I’d love you long time — talk about a markup.
