escape to insanity

Last night I went down to Summerfest, perhaps known best for being the world’s largest collection of fat ugly drunk people. Of course, the promoters call it “The World’s Largest Music Festival” but clearly that’s just marketing jive talk to hide the truth. I generally try to avoid Summerfest to the best of my ability, but last night there was an event so monumentally awesome that I was practically compelled to go.

I’m talking of course about The Crystal Method.

These guys are, without a doubt, hands down (as opposed to hands up) my absolute favorite musical group of all time. If you haven’t heard of them, first crawl out from under your rock and then go look them up. They make sweet sweet music. I suppose most people call it “techno” or “electronica” — I call it heaven. This was my first time seeing them, and let me say… it was like a two-hour orgasm for the ears. I’ve heard people talk about being able to “feel” or “see” music, but I’d never actually experienced that until last night.

I actually had the opportunity to see them from the covered “VIP” deck, but the stage acoustics were not meant for that area. They’re meant for the benches in front. So that’s where I was. Standing up on the bleachers, from just about 9:45 to 11:45 when the Summerfest organizers literally shut off the lights and speakers to enforce their curfew. I also discovered that it’s actually quite liberating to not be around anyone you know; I was supposed to meet up with some friends for the show, but they either bailed or we were split up. It’s okay, because it let me focus entirely on the show. …and the two girls making out in the row ahead of me (despite the best efforts of some guy to get them to include him, which they were having none of).

Holy awesome, Batman. On an awesomeness scale of 1 to 10, where 10 is the most awesome thing you can think of, this show ranked somewhere around, oh, I don’t know, a billion. It’s quite possible that last night was the single greatest night of my entire life. Most of the two-hour set was new stuff as far as I could tell. They did include a few samples of their released stuff — off the top of my head I remember hearing “Busy Child,” “Born Too Slow,” “Trip Like I Do,” “You Know It’s Hard,” “Renegades of Funk” (their remix of the original Rage song); there were also some unexpected samples of songs I hadn’t heard them deal with before — a great mix of “Superstition” by Stevie Wonder, and a crazy take on “Stayin’ Alive” by the Bee Gees (made even more popular by the great John Travolta).

My ears are still ringing, actually. At 5:30pm the next day. That’s probably not good, but it was TOTALLY worth it. Too bad they’re not coming back anywhere nearby for the foreseeable future, according to their tour schedule.