Today, I would add the exclamation point even if it didn't belong there.

PDX Pop Now!

!

Day 1: I got up very early, in Eugene, OR (no, it wasn't on purpose, it was for a training). Four hours of sitting and listening to something I don't really buy into (after another three days of the same). Two-plus-hour drive, and I should have gone straight home, I really should have. But no...stupid bleeding heart...I went to a meeting. At child welfare. It was endless. It accomplished nothing.

I went home, scraped together some dinner, watched the Twins lose a fifth game in a row (ugh), then off to Rotture! Tu Fawning, Guidance Counselor, Dykeritz, Panther, Nick Jaina, Devin Phillips (funk-jazz, kind of new direction for this fest), and The Builders And The Butchers. Weird fun, crazy-ass goofy loud awesome, meh--weird, electro-wow!, great and energetic, really good but maybe a bit too '70s for my taste, and hyper-intense energy (in that order). Everything ended up running really late, so the show finally ended at 2:15, and TBATB had a stupid-drunk half-mosh-pit-half-jam-dance mess going on that detracted from the show. But overall, a great time was had by all. Or at least by me, and everyone else looked to be having fun, too. Before the evening's festivities, my brain hurt. After the show, my feet hurt. I'll make that trade any day.

To come: Two really full more-than-twelve-hour days of this! 38 more bands! And I'm volunteering tomorrow and Sunday for the festival. I get to be a band guide! I don't really know exactly what that entails, so I'm picturing myself as a Girl Guide (the european version of a Girl Scout), but with a rhythm section. Awesome.