Last weekend was Artscape, America's largest free arts festival. By free they mean no admission charge, food & stuff of course costs $. I'd never heard of Artscape when I lived an hr southwest of here, but this is my 4th summer up here and I still had yet to have gone. Last year was, shall we say, interesting. To give you the ultra short version, friends' lift broke & I couldn't get in the van (but they were in it).
This year though, I went. The weather was MUCH better too. About 15 degrees cooler then when I'd attempted last year. I didn't manage to get to Artscape in time to see anything, but I managed to get there in time to see the 2 concerts I'd wanted to see. Cake and Robert Randolph & the Family Band were playing back to back with a half hr break in between.
[Cake has listed on the front page of their website "Except for emergency procedures, the 36 million Americans with no health insurance are required to pay in advance for hospital care. Otherwise, most hospitals will not admit them." Pass the CCA & we'll have some more healthcare $ to help peeps out. Ahem. Shamless plug over]
Anyway, 1st, Artscape was way too crowded for my taste. 2nd, I had an absolutely HORRIBLE view of the stage [see right, & btw, that guy's in a ibot, never seen one up close before]. I was sitting in the wheelchair only section (that fence thingy was seperating it out) and I couldn't see anybody on the stage AT ALL because of the large crowd STANDING for several rows in front of me. The wheelchair section was just too far 
back from the stage and I couldn't do this: [girl held up on the shoulders of her brother so that she could get a good view of Cake]
I'd actually come more to see Robert Randolph more then I'd come to see Cake, so when I came back for that concert I decided maybe I wouldn't sit in the wheelchair only section (not every chair was). So I got let in as if I was going to and then tried to push my way towards the stage, only to get an up close and personal view of a few guy's asses (my friend was laughing) and have some chick almost grinding with my joystick. That made me nervous, so I carefully steared my chair in reverse, parted the red sea, so to speak and made my way back towards the wheelchair section where I ended up seeing an 8 yo kid break dancing to Billie Jean off to my left.
One minute the kid was there and the next a member of the crew ran over, grabbed his hand and wisked him on stage [see video below, FF to 5mins]. And then, of course, I couldn't see him either, even when I had the lightbulb moment that hey, I can stand up & lean on that rail. DUH! Except that I'm only 5'1" and every guy standing in front of me (and many women) were taller then me. Didn't help ;-(
It's a good thing I didn't pay to see these bands or I might have been super pissed. I mean, especially when there's a super simple solution--cluster the chairs up front, even if off to the side. ARGH! It's just not accessible if we can't see--even if we can get in...
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