Good morning! Hello! Hi! It is 10:50 AM California time, so it is still morning. I am in the air. We are headed home. This is very slow-ass wifi on this Delta flight. Probably Elon’s fault.

The trip was a success. Nothing went wrong. Our flights were on time. Our flight out was lovely. Relief relief. So much could have gone wrong!

We got to RDU early and had a meal at some place called Whisky River, which is apparently named after an entire old timey country village that Dale Earnhardt Jr built on his property. Solid. I learned this because there was a mural in the restaurant that was too old to be AI, looked too good to be shopped, and far too expensively built just for a photoshoot for a restaurant in an airport. And I was right! Dale’s house looks awesome. I want to live there.

Jane insists on the window seat then closes the window and watches her iPad. This is very frustrating for Emma and I, who like to observe the majesty and grandeur of air travel. But all in all she was a trooper. We landed at LAX at 9 ish, which was already midnight to her, after a full day of school. Then we hoofed it to LAXIT (which I pronounce like “laxitive,” Emma (probably correctly) insisting it is pronounced LA-Exit), got an Uber and sat in it for 40 minutes to Irvine. Checked into our Courtyard Marriott, and the check-in staff was very confused why a lot of women where wearing daisy chain wreaths around their head and whatnot. This would prove to be a recurring theme: Irvine, CA, was blissfully unaware that 45,000 people were descending upon it for a rock festival. Uber drivers, baristas, I swear: no one had any idea. Very weird.

I had repeatedly warned Jane that there would be another hour in a car after the flight, but she was not having it. Cranky and loopy AF. We got into the hotel room and she passed right out, at 2:30 AM her time. Quite a run.

And of course she woke up at 5:45 sooo excited for the day. This girl rocked a whole festival on maybe four hours of sleep.

I got her to stay in bed till 8 ish. She is a snuggler. I love it. Nestles right up next to you. It’s the best. Then she and I headed to the lobby to get breakfast. Talked to some nice festival people. Saw a dude who looked familiar and later on he said hi, we knew each other from like 15 years ago when I used to do brand activations for the same people putting on Olivia’s festival: C3 Presents. He was doing the Olivia-Taco Bell brand activation where they debuted her new Mt Def flavor. Their world headquarters is right across the street from the hotel, right next to the festival grounds. Small world. The old days.

I should have asked him for the vendor wifi login.

Spent a lot of time choosing my shirt, the old man equivalent of dressing to the nines in festival garb, GRWM. Rather than going band shirts, I chose my vintage, first-campaign AOC “GREEN NEW DEAL” shirt, wore that till the heat broke and the sun went down, and changed into the handmade Girl Scouts shirt for Jane’s troop that Emma made. I was suitably complimented on both, I am proud.

Poor Olivia had a heat wave on her hands, and stupid C3 doesn’t allow parasols at their festivals, which is total bullshit. So I sucked it up and decided to miss Die Spitz and we aimed to arrive at the festival grounds around 2 so I could see Bikini Kill. We took an Uber to the ride-share lot, which was nowhere near the festival. We waited in a long line, luckily mostly in the shade, and took a shuttle bus to the festival grounds. We met a nice family with two girls Jane’s age in line. We never saw them again. We walked from the shuttle drop-off about a half-mile to the festival entrance.

Passed a dozen or so anti-abortion protestors who helpfully let us know that some of the money was going to pro-abortion causes. Sounds like a plus in my book. I did not engage. What is the point. That is what they want.

All told, it took an hour and a half all in to get to the festival and through the gates. Could be worse.

But it was long enough and hot enough Jane as already cranky, and they don’t let you bring water in, and there was no obvious hydration station to refill your water bottles by the entrance. So we hoofed it to VIP and found a sliver of shade. I tried to buy frozen lemonade for Jane but it turned out that all the frozen lemonade signs were a lie. Awesome. Only took me 15 minutes to learn this in VIP but I had seen an hour-long line at another frozen lemonade stand. Later in the day they removed the umbrellas that said frozen lemonade and made it clear they only had pretzels.

Emma found water, I got Jane some very delicious probiotic juicy soda. We recharged, Jane’s mood improved. We listened to and watched a little of Santigold. Wait how does she spell her name now is that right? Yes. It’s with an I now not an O. Huh I don’t actually think I’ve seen her since the spelling change, now that I’m thinking about it. Fascinating.

We left VIP and went to the second stage and found a tree to set under and set up camp and stayed there to watch Bikini Kill, The Breeders and Garbage. It was one of those festivals where there was only one band at a time, so the entire 45,000 people, or like 80% of the anyway, migrate from one stage to the next every hour. Thusly I missed Mitski and Doechii. I’ve seen Mitski before in a small club, and I don’t think Jane would have been captivated by her. Give her a few more years. And Doechii swears too much for the sensitive ears of my eight year-old. So I was fine.

And here I got to sit for three hours doing some serious people watching. What a crowd, what a crowd. 80, 90% women, obviously.

A girl in line for the bathroom with me later (there were too many men’s rooms and not enough women’s rooms and so the women had sensibly taken over all the men’s rooms) said on the phone to her boyfriend on the phone, “all the dudes are dads or husbands.” She looked at me and asked “which are you?”

Both, I said.

“What percentage of the men here do you think are gay?” she asked me.

“Half” I said?

“Yeah I think you’re right.”

There were dads pushing strollers in jawbreaker shirts. There was a 80’s year old punk dude in leather pants and buckles with an elderly goth woman with a walker. At VIP there were a smattering of your normal LA hipster industry dude, popping out of the VIP+ cabanas to get more beers, but they were mostly blissfully absent. I did not see a single yeah bro teenager boy in the whole place. Emma said she saw a couple properly cool teenage boys, but honestly I don’t think I saw a single one. The world was better for it.

The women of course ran the gamut in age, especially at the old-people stage where we spend most of the day avoiding the broiling sun. Lotta 40, 50, 60 year old goth women in groups, Lotta 30, 40 year old moms chaperoning giant posses of teenagers. Lotta lesbians. Saw a woman in a Sade ‘92 t-shirt and gushed over it and we bonded then I asked her if she went and she said “I wish, I was a year old.”

Tons of kids! Babies! Toddlers! Kids jane’s age! Older! I talked to some parents from LA and this was the third festival for their three year old! The other two were Just Like Heaven fest. They grumbled about the no-parasol rule. Just Like Heaven fest allowed parasols!

And 50% or so of the total audience, California festival girls aged 15 to 35 or so. Sundresses and daisy chains and bikini tops and so much lace, so much lace. Good vibes and joy and it was just beautiful and fantastic.

Emma and I would turns foraging for food and beverages at the nearby food and beverage stations while the crowd was at the other stage. Food began to run out around 3. Our dinner consisted. The problem was you’d wait in a line for an hour (all the lines were insane), and then you’d get up front and they’d tell you that 90% of the items they were selling were missing. You weren’t gonna wait in another line, so you took what you could get. Our dinner consisted inexplicably of nine hot dogs and three buns. Emma ordered three hot dogs. Somehow they were all triple. No idea.

Around this time I commented on Threads that the festival wasn’t a shitshow, but it was somewhat concerning it was running out of food before dinner. I should not have done this. This was Threads. Their algorithm picked it up. Basically everyone that responded to me that was at the festival had some horror story, everyone who was not, called me an idiot. Because, Olivia rules and it was all for charity. That was fun. More on this in a bit.

Bikini Kill came on, they were awesome. Longest I’ve ever gone between seeing the same act twice. I saw them at the Middle East in Cambridge in 1992, and I saw them now. There were maybe 50 people at the Middle East show. I marveled at this immense crowd and man, it made me feel great. The world is going to shit but an awesome feminist band like Bikini Kill gets 20,000 people watching them now compared to 50 back then. This is a good thing. It made me happy. It made me emotional.

Kathleen talked about how badly they were treated by dude audiences back then, but there was this one band from Irvine, called Emily’s Sassy Lime (it’s a palindrome) that got what they were doing and were teenagers making kick-ass garage music, best ever garage band from Irvine. And she brought them out to play with them on “Rebel Girl” and it ruled.

There is a Zine for Daily Chain Fields, and each band got a page and Bikini Kill dedicated their whole page to the best band from Irvine, Emilys Sassy Lime. That was some good shit.

There was not enough shade. I am not an expert. Someone told me on threads later that other festivals have figured out how to put massive shade over the crowd. That would be amazing. I have never seen such a thing. There was more shade at this festival than Coachella back in the day, less than Lolla back in the day. I don’t go to festivals anymore. I have no idea what other festivals are like these days. But I do know other festivals allow parasols and my one and only concrete critique of DCF is they should have allowed parasols.

Breeders next and they played Doe and Iris and they did not play Hellbound and half the crowd left after Cannonball and Josephine is back in the band and I love Josephine so much ever since I her bad-ass statuesque self playing the bassline to Mercy Seat in Ultra Vivid Scene in 1991 my god she rules. I am pretty sure the last time I saw the Breeders, she wasn’t in the band. They were loose and raw but they ruled and I had serious Breeders nostalgia and it was just great.

Garbage did a medley of one of their songs into Rebel Girl by Bikini Kill and it was amazing. They had sound problems, but you couldn’t tell, except with Shirley mentioned it. It did result in her doing a lot of solid feminist revolutionary banter and I enjoyed that very much. Garbage is one of Emma’s favorite bands so in my 19ish years with Emma I think this is the… sixth time I’ve seem them with her, plus the one time back on their first tour before Emma and I met. Shirley was like “oh isn’t this just like us” when they had technical problems but I have never seen them have a technical problem ever. The only time I ever saw them stop a song before this was in Atlantic City one time when Shirley stopped a song to check on a girl who was getting jostled in the audience.

Slowly moving our blanket every 15 minutes to stay in the shade, we talked to a bunch of the other shade dwellers. The woman next to us had a Garbage shirt on and I got to talking to her and she said the last time she saw them was a decade or so ago and it was for their B-Sides album and they played all B-Sides and that is awesome I wish more bands would do that.

We left the second stage after Garbage and headed back to the VIP area. VIP was massively oversold, and nothing like the amazing VIP areas of the pre-Live Nation C3. But, you know, I am 54 and old and cranky and the world was better in the old days okay old man let’s get you to bed. ALso whatever, the money went to charity.

We still managed to stake out a great spot for Chappell Roan, who was awesome. We saw her a couple years ago and she was great but the set has improved.

Her outfit was a perfect replica of the flight attendant outfit from The Fifth Element. Some people online had critiqued this as clueless, owing to Luc Besson’s and Gautier’s problematicness. Mayhaps that was the statement? No idea. She did The Subway and not The Giver, which I would have preferred, but that is fine. She puts on a great fucking show and I will go see her every time forever.

Jane danced her heart out to Chappel Roan and during her set Amanda from the New York Times came over and introduced herself and shot several photos of Jane dancing. I hope we can get copies. She talked to Emma and I think we have some avenue toward getting them. But keep an eye out for a girl in a Yeah Yeah Yeahs shirt and a daisy tiara on your socials.

Then Olivia. Who only gave herself an hour twenty at her own festival. She came out at first and said that we had all raised $10 million for women’s charities and that 45,000 people were there. She then brought out Melinda French Gates who is a billionaire and a problematic one according to the internet but also she dumped Bill’s ass and warned him about Jeffrey Epstein, so, you know. Pros and cons. Woulda preferred Mackenzie Bezos but that woman don’t do publicity. Anyway Melinda doubled the donation to $20 million. People clapped. I clapped, as I did a little math and realized she could have on a lark multiplied the donation by 50 without seriously putting a dent into her fortune, but whatever.

Olivia played mostly new songs. A fundamental dilemma for all Olivia fans this year was: do you try to go to DCF to support the cause and see some once-in-a-livetime duets, of do you splurge for the tour to see a longer, fuller set. Because it’s hella unaffordable to do both. We chose the once-in-a-lifetime option. Mainly cuz that was the one we managed to get tickets for. Two shows for the Carolinas was rough.

She played Deja Vu and Driver’s License and…. um… Bad Idea Right? and I think that’s it for old songs? Lemme check the setlist if this airplane Wifi lets me. Oh right. Good for You and All American Bitch, which ruled.

OH and she played Serena Joy, which I am pretty sure (and Setlist agrees) was a live debut, so that ruled. I liked it a lot more than I liked the recorded version, and Olivia’s enthusiasm and love of that song was evident.

And they played mine and Jane’s favorite track from the new album, the Freezepop-tinged Expectations which was SO FUN.

And during Expecations, another lady photographer came over and shot video of Jane dancing. She worked for the festival. “I like your hat” Emma said, a connisouer of tv-show promo merch.

The woman was wearing a Grey’s Anatomy hat. “Oh yeah, I forgot about that. I shot for it,” she told Emma.

But the real highlights were the guests. Some bad news for Emma and Jane, who came to DCF in matching Yeah Yeah Yeahs shirts, but Karen-O had to drop out last minute due to a personal matter.

But Olivia did a good news/bad news thing when announcing this and told us we also had another surprise appearance: this one by Alanis Morrisette.

But first was Sarah McLachlan coming out. They did Building a Mystery and Angel together and, reader, I wept. Olivia was wearing a Lilith Fair pendant, and told the entire crowd about how much it meant to her, and Sarah said how great it was to see so many people there, and you could feel it. Full Circle.

Sarah and Alanis were the only two artists at the festival that I hadn’t seen before, so that might have contributed to it, along with the shockingly solid performance and Sarah’s enduringly phenomenal voice, but man, I cried during Building a Mystery. I am such a sap.

Olivia and Alanis did “Ironic” which has never been my favorite Alanis song, I prefer the anger of “You Oughtta Know” but Ironic much more easily lends itself to a duet. Alanis sounds great. Her voice is so iconic it gets you right away.

The show ended with an appearance of Stevie Nicks, who also sounded great. Emma and I saw that full classic-era-line up Fleetwood Mac tour about a decade ago and I was surprised how good Steve sounded then and she still has it. She did “Landslide.” Setlist.fm has it as a duet but I didnt notice Olivia singing on it.

But that’s probably because I was mesmerized by Stevie’s witching power performing Landslide under, I shit you not, a full moon right above the stage. So fucking great.

But it also meant every single person attending the festival wasnt gonna leaver early. Mine and Emma’s usual MO is to listen to the last songs by the headliner from the distance as we walk out. This fucked us in 2008 when we didn’t get to see, but could only hear Prince doing Purple Rain. But, ironically (ahem) we did see him doing “Angel” by Sarah Mclachlan that night so I guess now I’ve seen Angel sing at festivals by two of the best-selling artists in history. huh. That is weird.

So we hoofed it with our eight year-old daughter through the massive crowds to only one exit wtf. Then walked three miles back to the ride share lot. There was a shuttle to the ride share lot but it was sporadic and slow and it was quicker to walk. I carried Jane on my shoulders for two miles of it. I coulda gone longer, my legs were in the zone, but my arms were losing circulation. I guess blood gets to your hands by the way of the top of your shoulders who knew.

The ride share lot desperately needed one of those systems where you just get in an Uber/Lyft, open the app, and you and the driver put in the codes, and then you put in your destination. They used to have this at LGA. It might still be there I’m not sure I switched back to Yellow Cabs. But the situation was there were like a hundred Ubers waiting for people who weren’t there yet (probably stuck on the bus) and a hundred people waiting for Ubers that werent there yet (didn’t call one until they got there. Like us).

But it wasn’t too bad. From Stevie finishing Landslide at 9:57 or so to being in our hotel room it was about 80 minutes.

Jane passed out right away at 11:30. Woke up a little later, 7:30 ish. Two nights in a row of not enough sleep for an eight-year old, high on excitement and jetlag. Emma and Jane let me sleep till ten, bless their hearts.

Around this time I woke up and saw my Threads post had gone viral, bah, and it was mostly fine but a definite contingent of haters accusing me of a dude who just wanted to tear things down. “It’s always some guy named Rick” one said, sick burn. Alas.

It was probably a terrible idea but as we wandered some California mall called Irvine Spectrum in search of the Hello Kitty cafe, I tapped out a little threads mini-essay more-carefully and fully explaining my position. That one too, now has gone even more viral, something like 200k views now, up to 8.7k likes. Ugh I am not cut out for this anymore. I more carefully spelled out my position, which I had mentioned to you guys before we left: That I used to go to a lot of C3 festivals back in the day before that got purchased by Live Nation, and they were very well-run, but I hadn’t been to one since, and I was nervous. That I was pretty sure that while all the bands played free, LiveNation didn’t do it for free. If they did then the wrinkles were 100% excusable. But if she paid them, the did a bit of a disservice to her:

It’s interesting, though. Emma saw one post that said that this was her 20th festival this year and it was the best run. Maybe one-hour lines for all food and too few hydration stations is the norm these days. People said that two hours to get out was normal these days.

And of course, what else was Olivia supposed to do to gert her festival produced? Goldenvoice, her only other reasonable option to hire to do this, is owned by AEG now. The times, they are a changin.’

I’ll also say that Olivia put a lot of effort into hiring local food vendors, and this is the largest event ever staged in Great Park, so, you know, forgive them for underestimating how many tacos they’d need.

All in all it was a remarkable event, you felt the vibe, and comparing the whole thing to the abysmal treatment from “the man” that the Lilith Fair got back in the day, the improvements in society, current shitshow notwithstanding, are evident. It fucking ruled. Not a single male act, didn’t miss them at all. Did I harbor fantasies of Robert Smith burning 10,000 tons of coal to private jet from France to Irvine, sing his part on “What’s Wrong With Me” and private jet back to france for his next day’s show? Yes but not really. He rules but he’s a dude and he was not needed.

And Olivia very pointedly said at the end of the night “See you next year Daisy Chain!”

And I hope we do.

Sunday we woke up and hit the Hello Kitty Cafe in the Irvine Spectrum, very cute. It was the 30th anniversary of some Hello Kitty character, the yellow one? Pompompurin? I think? Some girl came in with a full-on professional cosplay level outfit of Pompompurin (I think) and it was amazing and even though she came in explicitly to do a photoshoot I exercised discretion and did not take a picture but man I wish I could find one. Alas, the Delta wifi ain’t got no time for that.

Then an uber to Santa Monica and spent a day at the Georgian, which is quite lovely now. Jane and I took a walk on the pier, and then she played in the sand. Then our friends Mea and Suzy came to meet us at the beach. We all went back to the hotel and picked up Emma and had a drink at the hotel and went to dinner at a delicious sushi place, outside, watched the sunset.

Finished dinner and Jane and Suzy did synchronized cartwheels for like half an hour in the park while the sunset and maybe Jane has a life as a boardwalk performer. I don’t know how Suzy even did that.

And early to bed! I swear to god I was asleep by 8. Ten+ hours of sleep. It was amazing. Whole family has never been more well rested.

We were ferried to the airport this morning by a lovely woman Uber driver, Polish woman named Monika. Paid $65 for breakfast and grumbled a lot before we realized oh, a) these burritos are huge and we didn’t need to buy two, and b) they were absolutely delicious. So Emma and I split one and I walked over to the ordering line and gave our extra burrito to some dude in line and saved him $18. I just want you to all know of this good deed because I crave validation.

It is now 12:45 so it took me an ungodly two hours to write this thanks Obama Delta wifi.

Until tomorrow, friends.