2009

Words: Tim J. Nelson

1:25 p.m. on 8/30/2009 – Columbia, Maryland. A new venue proved to be a positive for this year’s fourth annual Virgin Mobile Festival, this year rebranded as the FreeFest. That’s right, for a modest donation – five bucks per free ticket – a fan of music festivals could buy entry into Sir Richard Branson’s celebration of music, summer, commerce, and, well, fun.

Flying Fun is what you call two skydivers soaring over the lawn crowd at Columbia’s Merriweather Post Pavilion, the iconic host to such past acts as Jimi Hendrix and Led Zeppelin, everyone’s eyes searching skyward, lots of shielding of eyes with hands, and oohing and ahhing as the daredevils land on the roof of the outdoor venue. On the roof, Sir Rich greeted them with champagne, opened the bottle, and then proceeded to christen the crowd with the sparkling-wine spray; it was a classy way to start the fest.

The partnership of Virgin, Branson, who is the CEO of Virgin, and independent promoter, Seth Hurwitz, who owns I.M.P., is continuing to prove it is a successful one. For a free show, there wasn’t any clear evidence of skimping, especially on the music talent. A quick overview:

As some christened fans wiped the champagne from their hair, Mates of State launched into their ’80s-inspired pop rock shortly after half-past one. The duo played Goods, ha ha, Fraud in the 80s, among others, and even covered a Tom Waits song, Long Way Home. Their hard-to-not-nod-your-head-to songs, with their up-beat tempo and snappy melodies, were a great warm up for the more-than-ready crowd.

READ ON for more from Tim about the FreeFest…

Update [10/06/09 11:30PM]: We’re still updating this list with the latest “kills” including the recently axed Basement Tapes. Our friends at Welcome to Now noticed that three different albums on the Phish.com graphic have been photoshopped. Check it out and enjoy our list of stats…

On Monday afternoon, Phish.com was updated with an animation featuring 99 album covers from discs the band may cover at Festival 8 on Halloween. We thought we’d take an in-depth look at the albums featured on Phish.com for this month’s installment of The Number Line.

2007 – Year Of Most Recent Album: Oracular Specatcular. Runners-Up: Funeral (2004), Elephant (2003), Yankee Hotel Foxtrot (2002)

1979 – Average Year of the 99 Albums

1977 – Median Year of the 99 Albums

1971 – Year With The Most Albums (8)

1965 – Year Of Oldest Album: Rubber Soul. Runner-Up from 1966: Pet Sounds Runners-Up From 1967: The Doors, Are You Experienced?, Forever Changes, The Velvet Underground & Nico

94:22 – Longest Album: The Lamb Lies Down On Broadway. Runners-Up: The Wall (81:09), Double Nickels On The Dime (81:01), The Basement Tapes (76:41)

43 – Albums From The ’70s

28 – Number Of Times Platinum For The Best Selling Album: Thriller. Runners-Up: The Wall (23x platinum), Led Zeppelin – (23x platinum), Back In Black (22x platinum), Rumours (19x platinum)

24 – Albums with Songs Already Covered by Phish: Back In Black, Toys In The Attic, Eat A Peach, Boston, Hunky Dory, The Doors, Hot Rats, Are You Experienced?, Ritual de lo Habitual, The Modern Lovers, Led Zeppelin, IV, Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere, Tonight’s The Night, Nevermind, Crooked Rain, Crooked Rain, Purple Rain, Pork Tornado, A Night At The Opera, Exile On Main Street, Fear Of Music, Van Halen, Violent Femmes, Tres Hombres

23 – Albums From the ’80s: Back In Black, Against The Wind, Scary Monsters, Freedom of Choice, Los Angeles, Private Eyes, Escape, Ghost in the Machine, Moving Pictures, Rio, Thriller, If That’s What It Takes, Sports, Violent Femmes, Double Nickels On The Dime, Purple Rain, Rain Dogs, Master of Puppets, So, Appetite For Destruction, Come On Pilgrim, The Joshua Tree, I’m Your Man,

READ ON for more stats on the possible Halloween albums…

As we mentioned yesterday, the Mike Gordon Band completed their second full tour this past weekend with shows in Toronto, Buffalo and South Burlington, VT. On Saturday night at the Town Ballroom in Buffalo, photographer Tammy Wetzel captured the Mike Band in action.

[All Photos by Tammy Wetzel]

On a personal note, I’ve admired the photography of Tammy Wetzel since long before Ace and I started Hidden Track. I’m honored to welcome her to the HT Team starting with this set of Mike Gordon Band pictures and I hope we’ll be showing you plenty of her work in the years to come.

READ ON for more of Tammy’s stunning photos…