for the love of the music

Although All Points West consisted of neither heart-shaped sunglass wearing nor Gala Darling spotting, it was so much better than Amy or I could have ever imagined.



You've gotta figure that your weekend is starting out right when the first thing that happens on Friday morning is your stumbling upon a major motion picture movie set, spotting Gerard Butler and getting free lunch from the set's food tent. Yep, that happened, and that wasn't even CLOSE to the highlight of the weekend.




The weekend proceeded with epic performances by the Fleet Foxes, Vampire Weekend, Jay-Z, the Arctic Monkeys, the Ting Tings, the Black Keys, MGMT, and Coldplay, among tons of others, as well as massive dance parties lead by some killer DJs, a craft fair filled with original (and affordable) jewelry and other tchotchkes, surprisingly delicious food (Amy and I were a fan of the veggie quesadillas, arepas and corn-on-the-cob) and trippy sculptural structures reminiscent of Alice in Wonderland and Across the Universe.





Have I mentioned that all of this took place in pure mud? The rain from Friday evening and Sunday morning caused Liberty State Park to turn into one giant field of muck and made the weekend all that more memorable and amazing.



Saturday also consisted of two exciting celeb spottings! First was Adrian Grenier walking on the side of the stage where the Postelles were performing. Amy and I ran after him to politely ask for a picture, when he told us that his band the Honey Brothers was performing next and asked if we were going to stay to watch them play with a photo-op following the performance. Although we had planned to watch the Arctic Monkeys' entire set, we compromised and left their show in time to catch the second half of the Honey Brothers and get our picture with our gorgey boyfriend Adrian. The other spotting was English über-model (and personal model fave) Lily Donaldson. She was on our ferry back to NYC and was getting off the boat at the same time as us, as in, standing RIGHT NEXT TO US. She was with two other model friends and some groovy boys, and she looked absolutely stunning in her M.O.D. loose white tee, black cut-off jean shorts, black lace-up boots, oversized fringe bag and black beanie. Yet another model added to this summer's model spotting list!



Aside from the performances by some of my fave bands and amazingly lucky celeb spottings, the ultimate moment of the weekend was my experience sprinting through the mud from the Coldplay performance to catch MGMT end their set with "Kids," only to turn around and sprint back for Coldplay's encore. Did I care that I was covered in smelly mud, sweaty, out of breath, pushing through hundreds of people? Absolutely not. It was all for the love of the music, and I can't imagine a better reason than that.



Peace, Love and Neon,
Marisa