Free Virgin Fest This Year

Last year I got some free passes to Virgin Fest so I took the bus down to Baltimore and checked it out. Despite my general disdain for festivals I have to say that Virgin was pretty fun. Great bands, excellent and varied food choices, big beers, and the best part was it was relatively cheap - aside from the ticket. Well this year that all changes because they're letting everyone in for free. You still need to grab a no fee ticket from TicketMaster on July 26th, 10AM.

The ticketing page is pretty confusing and I'm not sure why anyone would spend $30 on a free ticket and a shitty Virgin Fest t-shirt, but it's an option. My guess is they dedicated a bunch of tickets to each tier so when the free tickets run out you'll be forced to buy a dumb t-shirt package to get in. Still though, $30 ain't too bad for a festival.

On that note, the bands playing are not nearly as good as last time (NIN, STP, Kanye, Stooges). The free show features Blink-182, Weezer, Franz Ferdinand, Public Enemy, Jet, The Bravery, etc. Lots of bands people used to give a shit about but not so much these days. But I guess we can't complain about free, huh? There are noticeably less bands listed this year so I'm guessing they nixed the second stage, unless they're still adding to the bill.

Link:
Virgin Mobile FreeFest

What I Learned At Virgin Mobile Festival

• Average people still have no idea who Gogol Boredello is
• Lil Wayne is a dick. Seriously dude, 45 minutes late! Then you just rap over your CD, which you didn't even bother taking the vocal track out of??? FUCK YOU SIR
• The food is excellent. Seriously. Festival food worth buying.
• NIN have the best light show EVER! Mind blowing shit. And thanks for playing 3 of my 4 favorite NIN songs - Hurt, Wish, and Piggy.
• STP is awesome. REALLY awesome! Time and separation has not hurt them at all. No one at the festival sounded better.
• Iggy Pop is super human...but I guess we already knew that.
• No matter how cheesy The Offspring have become hearing songs from Smash never gets old.
  
• As suspected Citizen Cope is fucking awful. The single worst part of Virgin.
• Despite my hatred for the oonst oonst Soulwax is pretty incredible live.
• Chuck Berry can't really play guitar anymore but who fucking cares because he still put on a show. Let's see what you're doing when you're 81 - shitting your diaper and playing crosswords. You def won't be on stage with a bunch of 19 year old girls like Chuck.
• Bob Dylan sounded terrible. What a fucking bummer. It's like he's trying to sound like an exaggerated Dylan impersonator.
• FESTIVALS ARE GRUELING!