Arroyo Seco Weekend...

Earlier this year T and I saw this event come across our radar.  Arroyo Seco Weekend.

The line up - YES!

Food?  Wine?  Music?  Not too far?  IN LIKE FLYNN!  As T called it - the Coachella for us old gramma's that can't do Indio anymore.  It was put on by the same folk so we figured why not?  We paid the heftier price for VIP because....old.  When I advertised to the world - The boy was the only other who hopped on the train.  SO - a trio of trouble hitting a new music festival!

I booked an adorable little air bnb for myself and the boy since T decided to save some dough and just drive in and out each day.  It took place outside the Rose Bowl so not far from us at all.

Saturday morning we arrived at our air bnb.  We couldn't check in but the gal let us park there and we headed out.  The walk to the Rose Bowl was about 2 miles.  Took us almost an hour since it's through stop lights, some hills and it was pretty damn hot that weekend.  Beautiful walk though.  Such a lovely neighborhood surrounds the bowl!

They were supposed to open the venue at noon, but got a late start and didn't open until 12:45.  Lots of not happy people standing in the sun waiting to get in.  Lord.

After getting our locker, wristbands, etc  - we had arrived!

We're here!

I of course wanted some grub right away so we hit Dog Haus.  I got me a Soooo Cali Dog and The boy got the White Trash Dog.  Damn delicious!!!

May be the best hot dog I ever had

T had already scored a spot with her blanket in the mainstage VIP.  Some lovely ladies she met coming in joined us - Cheryl and Christine.

These ladies were the sweetest!

Ready to start the day!

I love this picture so much

And of course you have to start with:

Now the bummer was you see the wine glasses the ladies are holding?  $12.  For that little shot of wine.  Oh boy.

 Now that we were all settled and the day was beautiful and we were just chilling for a while waiting for the 1st band we wanted to see to begin, I lay back and gazed at this

Such a peaceful moment

The 1st band we saw was Preservation Hall Jazz Band.  These cats are SICK!!!!!  They were fucking amazing.  So tight. So great!  So much friggin fun!!!!  Bucket list - to actually see these guys in Preservation Hall in New Orleans.  CAN YOU IMAGINE!!!??

Highlight of my Weekend for sure!

Festival pros!

There was a random mini rain which was kind of hilarious.

Random after rain selfie

Next up T and I wandered over to catch John Mayall.  Love this guy.  My camera took a shitty picture so here's one of him off the web:

I mean it's pretty obvi why he was on my list right?  The boy stayed back to watch Live and said they were awesome.

T and I then headed over and caught the end of  Jeff Goldblum and the Mildred Snitzer Orchestra.  Just lovely!

He was having so much fun!

At this point the booze was starting to hit pretty good so T and I hit up Broken Spanish.  Holy Shit was that Shrimp good!!!  Also the damn Tres Leches weighed like 8 pounds.  So good!

Lil drunk...but so good

T went in for seconds on day 2!

The in between time here is a bit fuzzy cuz you know...booze...but we were back to the mainstage at some point for Alabama Shakes.  They were AWESOME!!!!  Brittany Howard is amazing.  I was memorized by her.  It's like the gods of soul just flow through her veins.  Such an awesome set!!

Last up for the Saturday night extravaganza was Tom Petty and The Heartbreakers.  I mean you know Tom right?!  Who doesn't.  But I had never seen him live.  So stoked!!  I didn't get any pics but here they are in case if you've forgotten.

I mean these guys are legends!!  The show was stellar. T slipped out a bit early to avoid the traffic mess and she had just seen this guy last year at Outside Lands (another festival I want to do by the way). Petty fucking rocked!

The walk back was pretty entertaining and long but so much better than sitting in traffic.

Sunday morning The boy and I found a great little coffee joint for breakfast and had a relaxing morning and delicious breakfast!  Thank you Copa Vida!

So pretty!!

We rolled in to the venue around the same time (after a hot as balls walk in) and Andy Grammar had a photo thing promoting his new album.  It was so cute and here were were - so I taught The boy what a Boomerang was.

I of course was already hungry so I grabbed a bowl of Ramen from Ramen Hood.  Holy shit so damn good.  I didn't care it was almost 100 degrees outside - this was fucking delicious!

But of course since it was ass hot - I saw there was a Dairy Free Ice Cream place!!!  Thank you Baby Love Sweetery!  So of course:

I got Coconut Raspberry and Strawberry!

We then met up with T who was chilling in the 3rd stage tent listening to NK Band.  These guys were awesome!!!!  It was one of the bands I wanted to check out and was so glad we did! I ended up jumping up to rock out a few times as captured below.  The brass section was hella awesome!! 

Seriously - some of the best brass I've heard!

I can't not dance....

After rocking out we wandered over and caught a bit of Alice Smith who was lovely.  Didn't catch a picture but she's rad:

They had a couple of art installations around but not too many.  An "Idea House", a red line, some sculptures that looked like giant peanuts. 

They had places you could make flower headbands for $25. (I was so tempted)  There was a really cool painted up car.  Yummy lemonade stands and random vendors.

After wandering the grounds we headed back to mainstage.  But not before The boy and T got some chicken and waffles from Fritzi Coop

Eyeing their food made me hungry so I grabbed myself a pastrami sammich from Wexlers Deli.  Wasn't super impressed.

Around this time the sun was baking down and all the shady spots were taken.  So the three of us would trade off standing it shade spots, in front of fans blowing mist.  Anywhere to try to not melt.

Hot. As. Balls.

Up next was Andy Grammar who I adore.  I like some of his music but it's his happy, peppy performance that I love the most.  The viewpoints weren't the greatest where we were sitting due to trees but we did bop along and enjoyed the set.  He's so damn happy!

After this, T stayed back to watch Fitz and the Tantrums while the boy and I headed over to catch JamTown.  The tent was packed but we got a good spot (in the damn shade) straight back behind the sound guy and they were AWESOME!!!  I'm so glad we came over!  Jamtown features Donavon Frankenreiter, G Love and Cisco Adler.  They had all kinds of other musicians come and go throughout the set and it was so rad.  I didn't catch any good pictures but here they are:

I mean you can just tell right?!  They were fucking fantastic!!!!

After this we wandered back over to catch Weezer.  Now this was my only musical disappointment.  I friggin love Weezer and have never seen them live.  T and The boy are also huge fans.  But sadly something was up with their sound and you could barely hear them!  It sounded all most muffled.  I was super bummed.  We still rocked out and sang along but it wasn't what I had hoped.  They were all dressed like Guns & Roses which was pretty rad though.  Here's a pro shot from the web:

At this point T parted ways with us since she wanted to hit up The Shins and we were sticking around for Mumford and Sons.  The boy was hungry again so we hit up Gus's BBQ for what turned out to be some fucking amazing BBQ Pork!!

Mumford put on an amazing show.  He had not seen them live, but I had at Coachella one year and was so damn excited to see them again.  They were so great!  At one point the singer had the crowd all put up their phones with lights and it was such a beautiful site!  I didn't catch it well with my phone but you get the idea:

Mumford is one of my favorite live shows.  So beautiful, so into it, so on it!!!  I love every second.  Danced.  Screamed along the lyrics to some of the faves.  It was amazing and a perfect end to the 2 days of great music!

A very long and tired and painful walk back to the bnb because I'm getting friggin old and The boy was introduced to midnight festival snacking.

Probably my best midnight spread yet!

I have a few take aways from this festival:

• The music was amazing.  The line up was a dream. From Jazz, to Blues to Rock, my GAWD - so right up my alley and everyone was on point!  So great!
• Even though the walk was a bit of a trek it seems to be well worth it after reading and hearing about all the nightmare traffic and lack of signs etc to get out of the place.
• VIP was bullshit.  They over sold it.  There was nothing - and I mean nothing that made it any more special than GA except for the area.  But it was off to the side for both the 2nd and mainstage and didn't even have a VIP viewing area in the tent.  It was also over sold, so the whole point of paying for VIP is to not have to deal with the crowds as much as the GA.  Yes...it's VIP.  I'm a person whining about VIP, BUT - I'm not rich.  I dug deep down in my pockets to buy VIP because I get anxiety in crowds now, and I'm old and tired and if I'm going to pay for one of these festivals I'll pay a little more for that added comfort.  You did not get that at all here.
• The prices of food/drink were really high.  Yes - it's a festival and everything is overpriced but it was a bit too high in most cases for what you got.  Especially the wine.  $12 for that little shot glass?!  And that was the cheapest!  Some went up to $22.  Give me a fucking break.
• The staff was so cool.  Every encounter I had with someone who worked there was pleasant.  We were all baking in that heat and everyone was so cool and friendly.  I was most impressed with the traffic/parking staff folks.  I swear everyone person we walked by said "Have a Good Night!".  So rad.
• All it all it was cool.  The festival has a potential to be really good if they can work out their kinks.  I'm not sure if prices would go up, I'm sure they would, but it's a festival I'd like to check out again.  Although not sure I'd go VIP.

We broke The Boy's music festival cherry.  I had a great time.  I ate yummy food and drank decent overpriced wine (Thanks to T to keeping me pretty tipsy all sat) and I saw some absolutely amazing musical performances!  I also broke my air bnb cherry!  Totes will be doing that again!!

So Arroyo Seco - I hope you work out the kinks but damn I had a helluva good time!