Coming home from Langerado, is like telling Charlie that his beloved Chocolate Factory has shut down for the rest of the year. For 3 blissful days, my friends and I were steeped in the some of the best music that the world had to offer. Running from set to set brought on feelings of disbelief. "You mean, I get to hear MORE good music?" Oh yes, young grashopper. You do.

Day 3 saw us waking from a haze and making RV scrambled eggs. RV eggs are the oh-so classy alternative to regular scrambled eggs, the only difference being that the portions are stretched by adding plenty of milk to feed the many hungry chillun.  After breakfast, Arrested Development was first on our list. In the interest of self-disclosure, I haven't owned an Arrested Development record since I was a Catholic schoolgirl and living in Singapore, and Speech and Headliner were worth going to the contraband record guy for. They kicked off their positive, Afrocentic set with the very apt "Lovely Day." One Love and Monto Eshe's voices were as mellow and strong as ever. By the time they got to "Mr Wendell." the crowd had tripled in size, and even the hardcore punks were caught up in their message of universal peace and empowerment.

My friends, Guitar Hero and The Fiery Redhead, were adamant about seeing The Wailers perform. I only decided to stick around for 10 minutes, because The Wailers play at Miami's Marley Fest almost yearly. Turns out that this was time well spent, because That Crazy Orthodox Jew, Matisyahu, made a cameo appearance. As hundreds of delightful fans swooned in their Birks and hemp gear, Matisyahu backed up Elan in "No Woman, No Cry." And KILLED it. I overheard one very old Rasta guy tell his hippie paramour that "de son, he dey sing better than his fambly. True, sir!" Bob Marley died before I was born, but it was clear that his amazing legacy lives on through his music. 

Lunchtime brought with it a dizzying array of food choices. I wasn't too impressed with the Langerado vendors. We made sure to hit up as many of them as humanly possible. We waited till we were nearly falling over from hunger. We even gave ourselves a raging case of the munchies, but no avail - the offerings were a heartbeat away from airplane fly crap. The Thai vegetarian curry was congealed rice in coconut milk. The chicken on a stick was reconstituted meat, and severely undercooked. The chicken gyro smelled like a 13 year old, unwashed pitbull. Out of the entire festival, the only edible item was the $7 pizza slice, which we devoured with considerable resentment. Because hey, for $2.10, a slice on any random NYC street corner costs less and tastes better.

Stuffed with sub-par mozzarrella, we headed caught us some Citizen Cope. We stayed just long enough to catch Clarence Greenwood's "Sideways" and "If There's Love" - both of them insanely sweet melodies about falling in love and going sideways, whichever comes first. Ben Folds played directly after him. Ben Folds of the genius piano key-pounding fingers and that plaintive, wailing voice, stretched out over soaring guitar chords. His rendition of "The Luckiest" made me wanna slap my mama upside the head. THAT'S how good he sounded.

Thievery Corporation were likewise spectacular, with guest vocalists making their appearance in "Un Simple Histoire" and "Sol Tapado." The high point of their set, however, was during "Satya Shitvum Sundaram," when a female vocalist and her accompanying snake-hipped dancer whipped the crowd into a barely contained erotic frenzy. I didn't recognize a lot of their newer stuff, and was pleased to discover that they had branched out into more afro-funk material, as opposed to just bossa-nova and acid jazz.

Then, at 11:30PM, 49 degrees Fahrenheit - 6 good friends waited in silent anticipation for REM to take the stage. REM has always had a special place in my heart. "Losing My Religion" perfectly encapsulated my teen angst years. My friends and I would stop, rewind, and playback certain verses on our Phillips tape decks. We were misunderstood! Disenfranchised! Marginalized! And only Michael Stipe KNEW HOW MUCH WE SUBURBAN GIRLS SUFFERED. I realize now that this was complete bvllsh!t. "Losing My Religion" was about Stipe learning how to play the mandolin, and losing his temper (or in Southern parlance, his "religion") in the process. Gee, thanks, Michael Stipe. Your song sent me down a bobsled of pouty teenage insolence, and a major in Social Ecology, but that's ok. You make amazing music.

Clad in a green Obama shirt ("Where did he get that dope shirt?" I heard one guy ask), Stipe launched straight into "What's the Frequency, Kenneth?" and "At My Most Beautiful." "Electrolite" was belted out with barely restrained emotional anguish, and "Supernatural Superserious" was...Supercool. In short, their sound was as powerful as I had ever heard it. It is a wonder that they have stayed fresh, cutting-edge, and relevant throughout the years, without losing an ounce of their trademark sardonic irrelevance. The fact that I was singing the same songs as a 29 year old made me realize that their unique sound had aged beautifully. As I burrowed into The Marmot's arms for warmth, I hoped that we all would as well.