SOBBING ON FIFTH: Firefly Music Festival Photo Diary

This past weekend I went to the Firefly music festival in Dover, Delaware. I was compelled to go to spend a weekend with two friends, one I don’t get to see very often, and because a bunch of my all-time favorite bands were playing. But normally, I am not a festival person. You will not see “festival style guide” posts or “what to wear to a festival” on this blog. I am not one to think a combination of Hunter boots and flower crowns is a perfect match (though fine on their own). I do not subscribe to the bikini-top-as-shirt school of thought. And I do not like mud. So you will be especially surprised that I agreed to camping instead of staying at a hotel for this shindig. I wish I could tell you it was a weekend of soul-inspiring self discovery and that not being able to shower when I wanted to or sleeping thisclose to strangers lead me to realize the important things of life, but it just made me feel grimey, gross and irritated. HowEVER, the two things that made me go in the first place were just as great as I’d hoped: time with friends and music. I bonded with strangers in the shoulder-to-shoulder crowd singing at the top of our lungs to Tom Petty – and got close enough to the man himself to make the lack of personal space worth it. I had my love of newer band Youngblood Hawke absolutely confirmed, and fell in love with the Avett Brothers. I stood in the pouring rain to watch Matt and Kim absolutely tear the stage apart – have literally never seen energy like theirs. I realized what all the hype around Haim was about. And so, while I’m not going to tell you what to wear to festivals (I don’t think I got it right, so I’m no authority), I will tell you to go – and stay in a hotel – and I will share some pictures of what made the gross camping worth it: the music.