WRAPUP – Nerdapalooza 2010

July 19th, 2010 | By funky49

Holy Monkey what a good time. I’ll try to give my perspective in a serial fashion, as best my brain has recorded it.

Friday: Got off of work, did some last minute prep and packed up the car for the drive to the hotel. The gf was working on something and didn’t let me see it. Saw Devo Spice & Schaffer at the hotel. It’s starting! Stopped for a big gulp for the gf and a quart for myself. The big gulp was flasked with some goodness and we continued to A Comic Shop. WOW THERE ARE A LOT OF PEOPLE. Handshakes and hugs from old and new friends online. An amazing milling of people. The star was Lars, aka Snipeyhead’s husband who climbed into my trunk for the ride to the Pre-Party After-Party at the “EPP House”. That was a smaller milling of nerdcore’s finest. Dr. Awkward had some music video filmed there, some of Scrub Club rapped and EPP had a set. We bounced after that for some Taco Bell and sleep.

Saturday: Participated in a very intimate meetup of fans of Hipster Please. Checked in as an artist and was rewarded with walking around with all 6 artist badges around my neck. Grabbed my HD Ninja red headgear and rocked out for the first song of their set. I got really jumpy and moshy and fist pumpy for Carformer. I hope me being a fan of that jam made others get more excited and into their set. It’s tough being the first guys on deck. The audience isn’t into any kind of groove but these guys are business, serious. Got some food. Met up with our friend Louie (the kind of friend you get intoxicated with and watch the season finale of Battlestar Galactica) and his ladyfriend he tricked into coming to nerd-ville.  Listened to a few other acts but didn’t really get in the crowd until MegaRan rocked it. Dreammaster=great. Freestyling=win. Since he was another guy who has been around since the 2007 Nerdapalooza in Florida, we spoke about how the event has grown. Ah snap, Don Myers with tshirtbordello.com was so awesome with his zombie makeup and tricked out merch truck. We made sure to buy from him in support (and because the shirts were awesome). Was having lots of fun with the Schaffer & Killer Robots sets. Crashed too fast to catch the Epic Win Burlesque Show to much, much sadness. Hopefully next year they will be back!

Sunday: Let the gf sleep while I surfed some web at 7am downstairs. I bumped into Rappy who had not slept yet. We went to his room and brainstormed for some silly lyrics when I tucked himself into bed and went to sleep. I went downstairs and hung out with some peeps (including bbear) and wrote more lyrics. Checked out of the hotel, packed up the car. Got dressed in robes. Walked into the crowd as the rest of EPP covered a Pixies song and thanked them for being there. Actually we had Domino’s pizza delivered to the stage and we gave out a pizza communion. I was saying to people “Pizza be with you”. We rapped. We did okay I guess. :) The secret my gf didn’t let me see on Friday? She had made signs! One said “I <heart> U FUNK49″ and the other one said “YOU MAKE ME SHINE”. She held up the second one during EPP’s song “Shine” and it made me tear and choke up on stage!

Afterwards I tried to help with the mic situation for The HT and Kabuto because I know it was an issue last year. I felt I needed to be on stage for the Scrub Club set so I got up there and hopefully helped hype the crowd. That Dr. Awkward has lots of energy. I was following his lead by jumping around so much. After the SCR set I was dead. Exhausted. Dehydrated. Out of commish. I think I never properly re-hydrated from the drinking the night before. We got some Cracker Barrel but I was still tapped out. Came back and hung out with our people. Checked out of the merch area and left for home (we had work the next morning!). There is TOO MUCH to do at Nerdapalooza and I guess that’s a good thing. You feel bad when you need to withdraw and take a knee but there is always action ready when you are… or a friend to hug when you turn around. It’s amazing!

Good times. Save now to make it out to next year’s Nerdapalooza, if the amazing Hex will allow it. :)