The first day of the first annual Hudson Project was nothing short of magical. We arrived at the site around 6 p.m. Friday night, gathered up our press and photo passes, and set up camp in tent city, “occupy Hudson” style. The different campgrounds were segmented by New York City boroughs (even two hours out of the city, we still managed to find ourselves back in the city). A quick game of “Gin” or “Water” proved to be pretty successful, and we headed out to the Empire stage to see Modest Mouse.

A very quick and probably inaccurate guesstimate tells us that there were about 2,000 people in the crowd- all vibing pretty hard to Modest Mouse. We’d surprisingly never seen them live so it was pretty amazing putting a face to so many well-known song lyrics and riffs. The crowd totems- ranging from Spongebob to Bruce Lee with a creepy mustache- further encouraged the crazy. Everyone was getting weird; it was only 8 p.m.

A friend from the city shot me a text to check out Savoy at the Circus Tent. Where the fuck was the Circus tent, and how do we get there?

A few beers and a bathroom break later, and it was full on rage fest at the Circus Tent (decorated just like a big top, and pretty much unmistakable). Common with the Modest Mouse scene, the crowd at Savoy was nothing but good vibes. The energy was infectious. Holy fuck, were we raving.

We ended the night somewhere around the Flaming Lips show. Wayne Coyne is a God. Can he adopt me? At one point he came out on the hands of the crowd in a zorbe. Someone unfortunately had a seizure during the show and Wayne Coyne, being the God that he is, chilled the crowd with nothing but good vibes.

“Everyone just chill out. Be calm, everyone stay calm.”

About 20 minutes later, they finished the song, everyone grabbed some grub, we chilled in this gnarly reflection cube with other soul brothers and sisters, and then passed out to the sounds of chatter and the smell of wood chips and pot. What a day.