Holy god, what a weekend.

I went to work Friday morning not feeling too great, and it only got worse until i decided to head home at 11:15am. I relaxed and worked on my Master League squad in Winning Eleven 6 International for an hour or so before Veronica got back from Sacramento. I then pulled myself together so we could hop in the Tercel and head down to Los Angeles. As we got on the road early, we made it there around 9pm and encountered minimal traffic. We arrived at Dionne and Matthew's new house and made the acquaintance of lick-happy Cinnamon, then grabbed a bite at Coco's before Veronica and Dionne headed out to shake their bootays. Matthew and i came home and passed out.

I woke up just in time to catch the 11am replay of the Chelsea/Wolverhampton match on Fox Sports World. It was the first full Chelsea match i'd seen all season, and it didn't disappoint. Frank Lampard opened the scoring fifteen minutes in with a cracker from the top of the penalty box, and Jimmy Floyd added another before halftime. After the interval, Damien Duff scored his first for Chelsea and the rout was on. New Argentinian striker Hernan Crespo came on for JFH with 30 minutes left and proceeded to rifle a pair of shots into the back of the net. At the final whistle, a 5-nil victory for Chelsea, a masterful display of fluid football, and a warning sign to the rest of the league that our expensive squad may be gelling sooner than expected.

Manchester City fan/masochist Gary arrived soon thereafter, and around 1:45pm we again hopped in the car, headed toward San Bernardino and the KROQ Inland Invasion. I fell asleep while stuck in traffic on the 10, and awoke in traffic on the 15. We arrived in the parking lot, a gravel wasteland in the middle of nowhere (i was afraid we'd return to the car and find it surrounded by jaguars), at 4:30pm and spent another 30 minutes taking the tram and walking into the venue. Inside it was a mob scene ... we were all starving, but the food lines were enormous. We had lawn seats, but it seemed the vast expanse of grass (must've been 100,000 people there) was full. We finally picked a random hot dog/burger line at the top of the lawn and started waiting. Having missed Marc Almond, Bow Wow Wow, and Dramarama, we finally started watching the show while in line.

• Interpol: We heard the opening riff of "Untitled" while walking inside the venue, and saw the last half of their set while waiting in line for food. They sounded much better than the two other times we'd seen them. Did i care that much about them? Not really.
• The Psychedelic Furs: Still in line for food. Richard and the boys belted through "Love My Way", "The Ghost In You", "President Gas", and "Heaven". They sounded good, but not as mesmerising as when we saw them open for the B-52s and the lackluster Go-Gos. Whether it was their performance or my rapidly deteriorating demeanor, i don't know.
• The Violent Femmes: Still waiting for food, at this point slightly delirious. I watched a girl in an adjacent line fall over twice from dehydration/drink/drugs and thought to myself, "hey, that's not a bad idea!". I've never been a huge fan of the Violent Femmes, but they ran through the hits and sounded nice doing it ... "American Music", "Blister in the Sun", "Add It Up", and "Gone Daddy Gone". From our vantage point they looked like ants on the stage. At this point i'd pretty much given up on the visual element of the festival and was just concentrating on hearing some good music. At the close of their set we were finally munching on lousy tri-tip sandwiches and hot dogs, and had located Veronica's friend Gabriel and his crew further down the lawn.
• Echo and the Bunnymen: At last, one of the reasons i decided to come to this god-forsaken place! A solid set by one of the true innovators of modern music, beginning with "Lips Like Sugar" and touching upon "The Rescue", "The Back of Love", "The Cutter", "Seven Seas", "Bring on the Dancing Horses", and the Ian McCulloch-proclaimed "best song in the world" "The Killing Moon" (it did sound quite good). One of the songs fused into a cover of Lou Reed's "Walk on the Wild Side", which was excellent. Halfway through another song McCulloch asked the crowd if anyone knew the day's Liverpool result (2-1 over Leicester City). He then improvised the rest of the song about Liverpool Football Club ("... and Gerard Houllier, is the manager ...").
• Hot Hot Heat: It's no secret that i can't stand this band. If i hear "Bandages" one more time, i'm going to take one and gag the singer with it. Naturally, it was their first song. Their set wasn't bad ... energy was high, the band was tight ... and it was short. 'Nuff said.
• Duran Duran: One driving thought pounded through my brain during the completely-reformed Duran Duran's performance: Have these guys ever done anything musical or artistic that wasn't designed for the sole purpose of getting chicks? Enough of my cynical rantings. They were pretty good. Not my most anticipated act, but enjoyable nonetheless. The set featured "Hungry Like the Wolf", "Save a Prayer", "Wild Boys", "Come Undone", "Ordinary World", some truly awful new material, "The Reflex", "Notorious", and an encore closer of "Girls on Film".
• The Cure: The headlining act came on at 10pm, after Jed the Fish nearly got booed off the stage for claiming that the Cure needed a 25 minute pee break after Duran Duran. It would've been okay if he hadn't been indignant that we should be grateful. Anyhow, the Cure emerged at 10pm and started into "10:15 Saturday Night" (albeit 15 minutes early). I love this band, but let's face it: Robert Smith looks like a reanimated corpse. The set progressed as chronological highlights from each of the band's albums. Let's fire up the old memory here:
  Boys Don't Cry: "10:15 Saturday Night"
  Seventeen Seconds: "A Forest"
  Faith: "Primary"
  Pornography: "One Hundred Years", "The Figurehead", "A Strange Day"
  The Top: "Shake Dog Shake"
  The Head on the Door: "In-Between Days"
  Kiss Me Kiss Me Kiss Me: "Just Like Heaven"
  Disintegration: "Pictures of You", "Fascination Street", "Lovesong"
  Wish: "From the Edge of the Deep Green Sea"
  Wild Mood Swings: "Want"
  Bloodflowers: "Maybe Someday", "Bloodflowers", "39" (i think ... although i think this album is quite good, i'm just not as conversant with it as i'd like to be)
  By this time we were all dead on our feet, but Robert and co. came back out for three encores. The first was two more from Kiss Me Kiss Me Kiss Me, "The Kiss" and "If Only Tonight We Could Sleep". The second was two more from Disintegration, "Plainsong" and the awesome, apocalyptic title track. At long last he closed the show by coming full circle, ending with "Boys Don't Cry". A great but exhausting two-hour long set.

At 12:30am Veronica headed off to drive back with Michelle while Gary and i trekked to the outer provinces and his rental car. We agreed to meet at a Denny's in Whittier, but our hike through the parking lot informed us that we were not getting out of this place anytime soon. Cars were scattered motionless in no apparent order in attempts to merge into an exit road that was clogged already. We spent five minutes searching for an alternate exit, then parked, leaned our chairs back, and fell asleep. At 2:30am i awoke, looked around, and woke Gary up as the lot was now empty. Amazing, considering an hour and a half earlier it had been a gridlocked mess. We met up with the girls, had some food, then headed back to Matthew and Dionne's house to hibernate. We never even got to see them at the show, given the rampant cellular communication difficulties.

Sunday morning we watched the Middlesbrough/Everton match with Boro devotee Matthew, and got to see him enjoy their first win of the season. We then slowly got ready and hit the road at 3:45pm. Our traffic luck had not changed though. We spent two hours going 10 miles through the Grapevine, as a fire had closed two of the four lanes. I spent this time composing my own improvisational ditty:

I love L.A.! (We love it!) Gridlock downtown! (We love it!) Gridlock on the 5! (We love it!) Gridlock in San Bernardino because these morons get 100,000 people on a 2 lane road! (We love it!)

We got home at 11:30pm, after forgoing a planned excursion to Sacramento to pick up Veronica's grandmother. And now i'm at work, slightly worse for the wear.