Blog of Ben

Yesterday I had the pleasure of joining several friends to see the last day of Sasquatch at the Gorge in central Washington. It’s one of the best places to see an outdoor show, so long you don’t mind spending $30, $40, $50, $60 in gas for the round-trip ~300 mile round trip (via Seattle).

The Flaming Lips was Monday’s headliner, and put on a very good show. I guess also as long as you don’t mind seeing pounds of junk being discarded into the environment. After opening with a ‘UFO’ coming down and the lead singer rolling around the crowd in a giant ball for a few minutes, the party atmosphere was kicked up a notch with hordes of confetti, streamers and giant balloons being pumped out into the crowd.

The problem, as anyone who has ever been to the Gorge, is that there’s pretty much always a decent breeze. And Monday night it was more of a mild wind. Wind blowing buckets and buckets of useless scraps of paper (that nobody is going to recycle) right over the crowd and all over the Gorge. The confetti didn’t stop at the early goings either; towards the end of the show I was seeing how many scraps I could snatch from the air–from my lawn spot about 200 feet from the stage.

Probably worse than the confetti were the giant balloons, that from the moment they were launched on the stage, took flight away from crowd, with many appearing to bounce out of the amphitheater and into the Gorge valley below. I wonder if 50 years from now people will still be finding those things scattered over the rocks below.

Now, I’m sure they’ve paid extra money to have someone clean-up all that junk. The problem here is that, The Lips made a point of reminding us throughout the show how we’re supposed to be such do-gooders, vote only for democrats, and if you’re not against the war you’re for it. All good points indeed. But what about the little idea of NOT POLLUTING?

Note to The Flaming Lips: next time you put on another one of your trashy shows, do it in an indoors arena where people can clean up after you. An outdoor amphitheater with high wind? You should know better.

Good night and good luck.