A Weekend of Music, Food, Sun, and More Music, Part 1

I just had a lovely yet crazy weekend.

Saturday was the Great Googa Mooga Festival in Brooklyn.  This is the first time for this festival of music, food, and drinks.  I heard about it through Twitter several months ago, and it sounded like the greatest idea ever – bands playing while you get to feast on food from various restaurants in the city, and go beer/wine tasting!  Tickets were free for a group of 4 people, so I definitely wanted to take the opportunity to try this out.

The festival was in the middle of Prospect Park in Brooklyn, which I was not at all familiar with.  After arriving to the park entrance, it took me 45 minutes to find the place, because there wasn't any proper signage.  Although once I got in, things were a lot better.  Since it was still a little early, there weren't as many people, and easier to get through food and drink lines.  I managed to try a "Soul Roll" from Cooking with Coolio, which was a delicious egg-roll with groud turkey with veggies, unfortunately with no Coolio in sight :(.  One of my friends arrived an hour after me and we were able to enjoy some beer and the best chicken fingers I've ever had from Dirty Bird To-Go.

As the day progressed, there were hour long waits for just about everything.  The bands playing on the main stage made those waits much better.  There was this weird system for getting tickets to spend on the beer/wine tasting sections.  While waiting in the one line for it, a very sweet New Orleans group, Preservation Hall Jazz Band, kept me and a friend entertained for an hour of waiting in line and for a couple other friends to arrive.  Another favorite was Holy Ghost!, whose sound was just as awesome as the explanation point in their name!  Lastly, the grand finale was the Roots!  I'm a fan of ?uestlove, and really enjoyed seeing how talented this band really is, sousaphone and all.

Overall, Googa Mooga was just ok.  It was really great in the beginning, however, I think the organization didn't account for 20,000 people for a 9 hour day.  I've heard that they worked out some of the kinks for the next day of the festival and hopefully they've grown from this experience for next year.  By the way, I hate that I wasn't allowed to take my good camera, so here are some phone pics.

The main stage at the beginning of the day...it was nice.

The Great Googa Mooga Cake

While waiting in line for drinks, there were people handing out cup holders.  Any Aqua Teen Hunger Force fan will love this!

Hanging out with 20,000 people watching the Roots.