<a href="http://www.halfwaytonormal.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/07/3739273589_d0ce02f2d2.jpg"><img class="alignnone size-full wp-image-421" title="3739273589_d0ce02f2d2" src="http://www.halfwaytonormal.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/07/3739273589_d0ce02f2d2.jpg" alt="" width="517" height="288" /></a>
<h5 style="padding-left: 390px;">Photo by <a href="http://www.flickr.com/people/bralts/">Cody Bralts</a></h5>
Jason and I went to the amazing <a href="http://www.pitchforkmusicfestival.com/news.php">Pitchfork Music Festival</a> yesterday. It's the fourth year we've attended the festival together.

I absorbed many sights and sounds, slept on them for a night, and have compressed them into a few observations about life, via a music festival.
<h4>Camaraderie is born out of shared trials.</h4>
Do you know that "we're all in this together" sense of community that comes during a blizzard or ice storm, or an unrelenting heat wave? The same phenomenon occurs when you're standing in an endless line waiting to use a disgusting port-a-potty. (If you think I'm being overly dramatic, consider all the beer drinking that happens at these festivals, and that men and women all use the same units—<em>thousands</em> of men and women.)

<strong>Usually we like to be more subtle and private about our very human need to pee, but at music festivals, your need is on display as you stand in line, and you face an audience when you eventually emerge from your aqua-colored unit.</strong> You have no choice but to acknowledge why you're there, and why everyone else is there, too. "Hey, you're human? Me too! Let's be friends!"

All this is just to say that I had a lot of fun talking to and joking around with the people standing in my port-a-potty lines. (Clearly I find this social phenomenon fascinating—I even wrote a whole post about it before: <a href="http://www.halfwaytonormal.com/?p=12">Camaraderie in the ladies' room</a>.)
<h4>Non-conformists sure do conform.</h4>
The hipster fashion parade wasn't as interesting or extreme this year as it has been in the past. I'm not sure if that's because people are unclear what the style really is or because more mainstream people are coming to the festival and diluting the overall affect.

Either way, <strong>it's always fascinating to be in a setting like this, with so many people who try so hard to shock, stand out, and express their individuality through their hair, clothes, glasses, tattoos and piercings. When you pack them all into one park, they tend to blend together.</strong>

I guess that's why it's important to focus on truly being <em>yourself</em> rather than on being <em>different</em>. Each of us is naturally unique, so that uniqueness will come through if we can tap into it. Any other concerted attempt to be unique is bound to be based on something we've seen around us rather than within us. Which isn't, by definition, actually unique. (Now let's see if I can explain this to my impressionable daughters!)
<h4>Maybe chance encounters aren't by chance.</h4>
Trying to find someone you want to meet up with at Pitchfork is not easy, to say the least. Think about it: Nearly 20,000 people crammed into maybe ten acres. A sea of bodies.

<strong>All day, I watched people around me trying to find someone.</strong> I overheard people on their cell phones trying to describe exactly where in the crowd by Stage C they actually were. I saw people hold a hat or some other object high in the air, in hopes that a friend would spot it.

There were only two people Jason and I were really hoping to see: our Urbana friend Cody, who was covering Pitchfork for <a href="http://www.smilepolitely.com/music/pitchfork_for_a_new_generation/">Smile Politely</a> (and who took the amazing photo at the top of this post), and my good friend Susan. Just as I was starting to think the likelihood of actually seeing them was slim, Cody practically tripped over us, and an hour later I realized I was walking behind Susan. Coincidence?

(This happens to be a favorite topic of mine. If you like it, too, check out this post: <a href="http://www.halfwaytonormal.com/?p=233">What do you call that thing that's not a coincidence?)</a>
<h4>Live music isn't just for your ears.</h4>
The Flaming Lips finale reminded me that music is only partly about the notes and rhythms and lyrics. You can listen to some songs on a CD, again and again, and draw a conclusion about the music. Later, you might hear that band play a live set that is essentially a copy of that recording, with added visuals.

But with the Flaming Lips, you get confetti, streamers and balloons, experimental videos and go-go dancers in animal costumes. You even get Wayne Coyne traveling in a hamster-ball bubble across the outstretched hands of his fans.

I<strong>t's music with theatrics, humor and irony, experimentation and imagination, the unexpected, the visually stunning and even the outrageous.</strong> You're overwhelmed and unsure,  then exhilarated and set free. You feel like a little kid again, except this time you're somehow able to tap the wisdom of the ages.

And at the very end of the set, as bits of confetti were floating down on us like snow, everyone sang together "Do You Realize?" I suddenly got a catch in my throat over something I couldn't articulate out loud, even though the experience had clearly articulated something to my soul.

<p style="padding-left: 30px;"><em>Do You Realize - that you have the most beautiful face
Do You Realize - we're floating in space -
Do You Realize - that happiness makes you cry
Do You Realize - that everyone you know someday will die</em></p>
<p style="padding-left: 30px;"><em></em></p>
<a href="http://www.halfwaytonormal.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/07/flaminglips2.jpg"><img class="alignnone size-medium wp-image-422" title="flaminglips2" src="http://www.halfwaytonormal.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/07/flaminglips2-538x403.jpg" alt="" width="538" height="403" /></a>
<h5 style="padding-left: 420px;">Photo by Jason Berg</h5>