[Updated at 11:15 a.m., caption correction]
On the third day, the dust settled a bit and the people knew that it was good — but not good enough to take those bandanas off yet. Sporting their multicolored pieces of fabric like dust-bandits, stylish festival-goers endured a final day of fun (fun fun) with $9 Tecates in their hands and dusty displays of fashion wrapped around their faces. And really, who can blame them? When a dust bowl springs up around you, don’t waste a perfectly good chance to show off that bandana that’s been sitting in your closet all year.
The day started off damp but still ripe with the much-hyped musical diversity that set this Fun Fun Fun Fest apart from any local festival in recent memory. The disparity in the lineup — featuring the undeniable talents of acts such as Slayer, comedian Brian Posehn, Blonde Redhead, Odd Future, Flying Lotus and more — was reflected in the crowds, which were basically all-you-can-eat buffets for any aspiring people-watchers. There were definitely all types at Auditorium Shores on Sunday. The park was filled with hipster people, hip-hop people, metal people, even people who liked NoBunny, which, for anyone who was too busy waiting in line for a pack of bargain cigarettes at “The Marlboro Experience” to catch the show, was the punk band fronted by the guy in the zebra-striped tightie whities and the mangy bunny mask.
Regardless of what experience that festival-goers had come to have, Marlboro or otherwise, all of the fan archetypes at Fun Fun Fun Fest managed to live in harmony, except, of course, when they didn’t. That was generally during those special, terrifying moments when everyone was busy smashing violently into each other in the middle of epic circle pits like the one that rattled Cannibal Corpse’s show. Everything had been relatively normal — the calm before the storm, as they say — until the lead singer threatened to go to the houses of anyone who wasn’t “smashing” and “fucking kill them.” Judging from the way the crowd exploded, it seemed like people got the point.
Other festival moments, such as “Paige and Stephen’s Fun Wedding” for example, were noticeably more light-hearted. Hundreds of strangers gathered in celebration of two other strangers who had signed up to get hitched at a festival-endorsed, Henry Rollins-officiated ceremony. Rollins delivered an uncharacteristically touching speech and for a brief few minutes, the audience at the Yellow Stage forgot what they would soon become — a blood-thirsty mosh organism, manhandling everything in sight in the name of Slayer, Odd Future or maybe just good, loud music in general, which was what this festival specialized in.
