Friday The 13th
Sun God! Ludacris!
So Friday the 13th of May 2005 turned out to be quite an interesting day, in both a good and a bad way. The bad way was mostly academic and I prefer not to discuss it here, since it would distract from the actual substance of the day itself. But after my last class was out at 1 PM, the rest of the day was mine to enjoy, as it was UCSD’s annual Sun God Festival – basically a time when different clubs and groups all set up booths and sell things and when people do everything that they’ve always wanted to do all year but never had an excuse for (i.e. get drunk, have sex, swim in the Price Center fountain… wooooo!!).
After class, my friend Erica and I went to the Sun God displays lining Library Walk and the Sun God Lawn. There wasn’t much, though I had some yummy Korean BBQ. The day was beautifully sunny and people were just crowding around Library Walk, the Sun God Lawn, and Price Center, listening to bands performing in the Price Center and swimming in the zigzag fountain lining Price’s entrance. We were pretty bored, though, so we just went back and hung out in the dorm.
That evening, there was to be a LUDACRIS! (and others) concert that I was hella excited about. I was planning on going with Erica, my other friend Luis, and his girlfriend Angelica, but because we wanted to be up in the front we got there at 3:30 – two hours before the doors officially opened at 5:30 – and just camped out in the line. It paid off – we were able to avoid the ridiculously long lines that started building up around 5. We were in, and the first band to perform was this rock band that I can remember the name of. The music was okay, but not impressive. The crowd was still relatively light, compared with what it was to be in just a few hours.
There was a main stage and a side stage, but we stayed in the front of the main stage the whole time. There were a few side stage performers that followed, including a favorite of my friend Andy’s, Rufio, but they weren’t too memorable. The next main stage performer was Damian Marley, and even though I had never heard any of his songs or even of him, the reggae-rock type of music was really appealing. It was after Damian Marley finished his performance that the crowd started to get tighter and started to shift back and forth, left and right. Soon it was quite horrible and I could barely breathe since I was squished against the metal fence. A couple of side stage performances did nothing to relieve the huge mass of people pressing into the main stage. What the fuck were these people so pushy about, anyway?
The next main stage performance was by Phantom Planet, and I thought they were good stage performers and musicians but I’m not really into that kind of music. At one point though, the lead singer did something cool and climbed up onto the side scaffold, and just continued to sing while clinging to the scaffold. I thought that was pretty neat. After Phantom Planet left and it was known that Ludacris would be the next and final performer (but, ironically, it was not widely known that he wasn’t going to come for another hour) the worst of the pressing began. It pretty much went in both directions and I felt ready to just die. People can be so stupid sometimes, especially when they’re drunk as I imagine over half the crowd was. Ludacris ain’t even anywhere near the stage, idiots. Quit pushing!
When Ludacris came on stage the whole crowd roared and I braced myself for major rib crushage. But surprisingly, the pressure alleviated a little bit, probably because everyone was leaning back and dancing as Luda went into his first song. He hit all of his top songs – What’s Your Fantasy, Southern Hospitality, Area Codes, Blow It Out Ya Ass, Stand Up, Splash Waterfalls, Get Back – and a number of ones I hadn’t heard yet. It was awesome!
After the concert was over, slowly but surely the crowd broke up and slogged back to wherever they were going, and I found my left foot to be in horrific pain since I had to lean my whole body weight on it the whole time, as the crowd shoving had left me tilted to the left rather than standing up straight. I hobbled with my friends back to Erica’s dorm, where we met up with another of Erica’s friends, Aaron, who had also been at the concert but was farther back in the crowd. We hung out for an hour before we went out “exploring” the beach at Torrey Pines State Reserve. It turned out to be kinda fun as it was like two in the morning and we were hiking on the beach, exploring little caves that had been carved in the shelf cliffs, then climbing up a path in the cliff (that later turned out to be “dangerous” and closed, haha) and finding trails in the hills that ended up leading to a visitor center, and then back to the parking lot.
After that little adventure, we headed to Denny’s and even though I was hungry as fuck I somehow couldn’t finish my meal. And then, I was dropped back at home and into my bed I went.
P.S. I just learned of another person who has a birthday in May – and it’s the same day as mine. Wah!