Free Press Summer Fest, Revisited.

Days later, this weekend's Free Press Summer Fest is still the talk of the town - and rightfully so. It was a weekend packed with expectation and anticipation as well as music, heat, humidity, excitement, and whatnot. Everybody's doing it, so here's the Houstonist take on our weekend.

Attendance: We will not lie, when we arrived around 1 PM on Saturday we were a tad nervous about the numbers being low. Fortunately, though, our fears were relieved when thousands of fine Houston folks packed out Tinsley Park. Houstonist was particularly happy to see the crowd swell long before the headlining acts, thus assuring that plenty of people witnessed some of our great local music. We even teared up a bit when, during The Octopus Project's set, we got on stage to shoot a few photographs and were stunned to see the hillside packed with people.

Logistics: There were a few hiccups [see: massive lines on Saturday, rain delay on Sunday, people bitching about water] but overall, Houstonist was left very impressed by this first iteration of Summer Fest. We felt a little misled by the promise of free water, only to find it was Vitamin Water - sometimes you just want the real thing. Still, we were grateful for the refreshment. The recycling plan for Summer Fest seemed a bit off kilter as well - there indeed was recycling, as some zealous, earth-loving souls were sorting through all the trash. Something we'd like to see next year that might alleviate both situations would be some water fill-up stands [thus furthering the green cause by eliminating bottle waste] and marked receptacles for recycling.

Music: Goodness gracious, where are we to begin? The whole weekend was fantastic. The stages were run in fairly good fashion, even with the rain delay Sunday. We got to see some standout acts that we'd never partaken before: Los Skarnales, The Sword, Explosions in the Sky, Elaine Greer, Grandfather Child, and The Eastern Sea all fit in this category. That is just a scratch upon the surface of our weekend, however - we saw dozens more bands that thrilled us. Houstonist is definitely chalking this one up as a success. We happen to be in agreement with Andrew Dansby - put Los Skarnales on a large festival and let's watch some magic happen.

Miscellany:

• Who the hell is buying glass pipes at a festival with the cops not twenty feet away, watching?


• We'd like to see more vendors jump on the opportunity to set up a booth next year. Houstonist thought up several local businesses that could have benefited from the exposure.


• "Hippie Mike" [that swirling Asian kid you saw] was not on anything, apparently. If he's that happy naturally, we want him for a guru.


• The modern Sisyphus performance piece made our hearts jump a bit with glee.


• Theory: the beer could not be sold directly because it was donated. Fact: Standing in line for coupons sucks.


• We had a hell of a fine time hanging out and talking with all the wonderful people we saw. Forgive us for not taking the time to properly namedrop you, but you know who you are.


• If you missed our photos, you can find them here and here.

Finally, a massive tip of the hat to everyone over at Free Press Houston [and Pegstar] for all the hard work in making one of the best weekends in town a reality. Here's to several more years of Summer Fest to come.

Photo from flickr user CosmoPolitician.