Amnesia Rockfest 2014: the Good, the Bad and the Ugly
Amnesia Rockfest at Montebello was the best of times and the worst of times.
The good was pretty great. The line-up assembled by the organizers was epic and featured so many amazing bands it was hard to choose which stage to attend at times. I must admit it was pretty awesome to go from The Planet Smashers to NOFX, to Taking Back Sunday, to Brand New, to Meshuggah, to Weezer. Not every festival can bring the ska then shift to punk, then have you relive your high school emo days, followed by blowing you away with Swedish math-metal and then have you on an island in the sun with California nerd-pop-punksters.
Weezer covering Blur’s “Song 2” was pretty cool. Sitting back and watching a massive puff of smoke envelop the crowd as Cypress Hill hit the stage was hilarious. Seeing the ridiculous passion and power of Obey the Brave. The ultra-bizarre spectacle that is Primus which was followed by Joan Jett was an interesting transition and a few checks on the bucket list. Kicking back and listening to Billy Talent just play hit after hit after hit and singing along with all my friends. Being disappointed that Danzig just isn’t what he used to be, until he was finally joined on stage by Doyle and they slammed through most of my favourite Misfits songs like bats out of hell. Getting to see Bane again, who really knows how to engage a crowd. Yelling along to Bigwig again after all these years, the boys still got it.
I also found Rockfest’s prices very fair. There were multiple food options (chip stand, Mexican, vegan, etc.), beers were $5, mixed drinks were $6, and water was something like $2 or $3. Also several well-placed, free water refill stations. The camping where we were staying had food options open late and a bar for those needing a “night cap.”
Now for the bad: Montebello is a beautiful place and very accommodating, but the city simply does not have the infrastructure the 200,000 people reported to have attended this year. Rockfest has grown too big and maybe too fast. There is one off-ramp and it is chaos, so what should have taken five minutes took three hours. I’m sure that logistically it’s a nightmare but I have to believe there’s a better way to proceed. After getting off we arrived to a dead-end with cars trying to find their way out and others parked to drop off their camping gear. The main parking lot was closed due to the heavy rain, we went to another lot lot a kilometre away (which was full), we finally parked where we shouldn’t have after a cop told us he wouldn’t fine us, and we heard of shuttles from the lots to the campsite but we never saw them… We missed a lot of incredible acts that drew me to the festival during this.
The next shortcoming was the setup of the two secondary stages that faced each other, that always always had acts on at the same time. It was the worst sound bleed I have ever experienced at any festival. This was most apparent on Saturday when Danzig was on one stage and Grimskunk was overpowering him from the other. It ruined some songs and sometimes entire sets.
Having heard some of the stories from last year, we treated ourselves to VIP tickets. Here’s a quick breakdown of these tickets:
- The Good: four VIP-only outhouses and a private bar where we never had to wait in a line of more than four people.
- The Bad: reserved seating was all the way at the back far from the main stage and perfectly placed in the sound bleed of the two secondary stages.
- The Ugly: we were promised shade but the only place there was any was under the bleechers. We were promised “access to all showcase nights at intimate venues on June 16th, 17th, 18th, 19th and 22nd,” and “Private tent (shade!)” We got none of those things, the worst of which was never hearing anything about these intimate or secere shows…
Lastly, and this doesn’t fit into any category, it was very noticeable and rather funny the amount of people wearing t-shirts/tank tops with “Smoke Meth and Hail Satan” written on them. They outnumbered any and every other piece of clothing throughout the festival.