Carnival

For anyone who wonders what it’s like to go to a large rock and roll festival these days – not a corporate branded affair, but a middle-of-nowhere major-committment visionquest TREK, you could do a lot worse than to spend half an hour at:
http://www.sover.net/~hackmohr/captive.htm
This is a day-by-day journal by a local resident of Coventry, VT – site of the recent Phish “end-of-band” concert. 70,000 people travel to a town with a poulation of 1,012. The rain and mud were so bad that they were using tractors to tow cars INTO the parking lot! Between 20,000 and 30,000 people had to ditch their cars on the interstate highway and WALK between 12 and 15 miles, with all of their camping gear, (and food and beer, etc.) to get to the show.
This website demonstrates both why I couldn’t bear to go to that show (“too much end-of-the-world behavior,” I told friends) and why I wish I went (shared sacrifice builds community). While reading I laughed out loud several times and smiled the whole time. Good God – youth devoted to music. There’s hope for the world yet.