Our first morning waking up at the festival started out like every morning at the festival—with a Bloody Mary.  Somehow we forgot the Worcestershire sauce, and while the drinks were a little different than we were all used too, they were not inferior.  After all, they still had V8, horseradish, black pepper, lemon juice, green olives (and sometimes a splash of the green olive juice), ice, celery, Tabasco hot sauce, and, of course, vodka.
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We had bagels and cream cheese and a couple mini-muffins for breakfast.  We sat around and met our camping neighbors, recounting stories of the great times everyone had the previous night.  We played cards and relaxed all morning before eventually having another meal: Sarah made everyone roast beef, cheese, lettuce, tomato, and mustard sandwiches.

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After lunch it was time to go see some music.  We walked to the festival and bought a round of beers.  They were serving a beer from Summit, a local brewery, and I especially enjoyed their Extra Pale Ale.  We found seats in front of one of the four main stages in the concert area—The Field Stage—and watched Pete Francis featuring Barefoot Truth.

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I was interested to see them perform because Pete Francis was one of the three members of one of my favorite bands in high school, Dispatch.  We sat on the grass and enjoyed the music until the end and then got back up, looked around at some of the shops too see if there was anything we wanted to buy, and continued to the Barn Stage to see our second jam band of the day, Garaj Mahal.  Once again, we enjoyed the band and the crowd was fantastic.

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Sarah and I retrieved burritos and Tom had his eye on a hot beef sundae from the same vendor.  It was genius: three rounded scoops of mashed potatoes topped with a generous helping of pulled beef, then topped with another scoop of potato and smothered in gravy and topped with a steamed cherry tomato.  The burritos were good but we all went nuts for the hot beef sundae.  Bernadette enjoyed a corn dog.  We headed back to camp to nap and prepare for the evenings festivities.

We were all determined not to break what I consider the cardinal rule of festivals—never miss the headliner.  This had happened to us the first night and, in my experience, seems to happen once per festival.  After dancing and drinking and hanging out in the sun all day and no cares in the world, it is hard not to fall asleep early.  In doing so, you miss what is by far the best party of the day.
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We napped for a couple hours and emerged from our tents refreshed, and headed to the main stage to see Mason Jennings and Wilco.  Bernadette was especially excited for Mason and we used the time during the music to put down our blanket, look for another place to open up on the grassy field, relocate, and repeat the process until we were near the front of the grassy area, which had a lower concrete area in front of it where you could stand and dance.  This whole process struck me as funny, as we probably could have just walked to the front right away and found a spot.  Tom seemed committed to this tactic, however, and no one cared to be more efficient.  We were having such a good time that even if we had decided to crab walk or crawl to the next location, I doubt anyone would have objected.

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Wilco was next, and Tom had gotten us pretty excited to hear them.  He was the most familiar with the band, having heard them on the band when he was around nineteen on WXPN in Philadelphia.  He went to a music store to find an album, and they were being played in the background as he made his purchase.  At the festival, Jeff Tweedy (the lead vocalist) was cracking jokes the whole time and Tom enjoyed this band more than any other at the festival, and the rest of us had a great time too.
We headed back to our campsite with smiles on our faces and hung out with each other and neighbors who stopped by, happy that the next day would be as good as the amazing one that we had just experienced.

-Joey




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