04/09/12 — 17.10 — Monday — Hotel la Bourdonnais

Man, it was a trip to be listening to Sabbath Bloody Sabbath as the train came out from the tunnel under the English Channel and to watch the French countryside go by while grooving on the Clutch self-titled and the awesome psych weirdness of the new and soon-to-be-reviewed Baby Woodrose record. I don’t know what I’d need to do to make this my life all the time, but if it’s a limb you want, take your pick.

Sure enough, though, I’m in Paris. I don’t think I’m the first person in Western civilization to go to Paris to ruminate on something just witnessed in England — that being Desertfest, which I promise I’m getting to — though seeing as I’m basically a walking one, I don’t so much mind being cliche when it comes to tourism. Not today. I’m not too cool for today. That tangled mess of steel in the picture above? That’s the underbelly of the Eiffel Tower.

I want to say thanks again to everyone at Desertfest for putting on the fest and being kind enough to host me for the duration. Daniel Kinsey, Reece Tee and company put in I can’t even imagine how many hours, but the fact that the shows ran early every day right up to the end speaks to the quality of their efforts. It was an incredible time, full of great music and awesome people, and really, thank you. Thank you.

Speaking of awesome people, thanks as well to everyone who came up and said hi over the course of the fest. I appreciate that more than I can say, and since I know the internet can be pretty anonymous seeming sometimes and I’m not exactly eager to throw pictures of myself around this space (though there are a few on Thee Facebooks at this point and I guess that’s alright), I try and emphasize the fact that I am in fact a human being, and it was cool as hell to meet up with a few of the people who’ve been able to get some use out of this space. Thank you for reading, and I know I’m all kinds of awkward in person, but please know that I genuinely appreciated the chance to shoot the shit for a couple minutes. It’s a thrill beyond the simple ego boost.

By all the accounts I’ve heard and seen, Desertfest was a rousing success, and without knowing of any backstage tragedies or anything like that, I have no counterargument to make. It was a thrill front to back, and a great way to be further enamored of the UK scene and its many excellent bands, from Gentlemans Pistols and Orange Goblin to Stubb and Trippy Wicked to Shrine ’69 and Crystal Head. It’s something I won’t soon forget, and even if I do, I’ve got about 6,000 words of Obelisk posts to remind me of it, so there you go.

Rumor is the DesertScene crew is looking to expand next time — bigger stages and other venues, I guess — and so long as they can maintain the homegrown feel of this year, they should be set for 2013 and beyond. They made a loyal fan of me and I can’t imagine I’m the only one.

I’m exhausted, but I’m going to go to the market next door and get a bottle of wine before coming back, drinking it, and turning in early to get up and head to Eindhoven tomorrow. I’ll probably have another post later, so doom on until then.

Tags: Desertfest & Roadburn Adventure 2012, France, London, London Desertfest 2012, Paris, UK

This entry was posted on Monday, April 9th, 2012 at 12:15 pm and is filed under Features. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.