Saturday morning we woke up a little tired but excited for what was to come. We put on our previously picked out outfits, and raced to the Woodlands for the second day of Firefly. We planned to meet up with Carrie and Bob at 12:30 PM at the main gate so we left our hotel at 11. To our surprise, we were hit with traffic caused by other festival attendees excited for their next day at Firefly. Traffic was one thing we were foolish enough not to think about (though, timing has always been our weakness). This added an extra 30 minutes to our travel time. Once we finally arrived at the parking lot we were lead in between cars and in circles until finally we were directed into a spot. Luckily, this spot was much closer than before. Unlucky for us, our walk from where we parked to where we needed to meet with everyone was still a good 20 to 30 minutes. We pushed our way through crowds of people and waited in a long line for our passes to be scanned and to be let into The Woodlands.
Once we got in, we were lead backstage by Carrie and Bob to sit in on a WRNR interview with Atlas Genius. Our job was to photograph the interview for the website. To our surprise, every artist we met was down to earth and extremely kind. Working backstage was such a treat, not only because of the air-conditioning and cold water, but also because we had the opportunity to sit with honorable artists and work amongst industry professionals.
We were lucky to have many breaks throughout the day. During these breaks we would venture out to all sides of the venue in search of the best meals (a list of our favorite places to eat is posted below). We would also drift from stage to stage trying to catch some of our favorite artists, and the ones we had the opportunity to sit down with. It was fun to be able to get to know the artists in a more personal way before seeing them on stage performing songs we listen to.
We saw Fetty Wap and The Neighborhood.They were performing on the two stages which were directly next to each other, The Neighborhood on The Lawn stage and Fetty Wap on The Backyard stage. Using our media passes, we were able to walk in between the two shows with no problem. We got to hear The Neighborhood perform one of our favorite songs; “Sweater Weather” and heard Fetty Wap perform his hit “Trap Queen”. As we’ve said before, the ability to be able to hear many artists perform is one of the many perks of attending a festival and definitely should be taken advantage of.
After that, it was back to work. We sat in on an interview with Jason McGerr, the drummer from Death Cab for Cutie. He was very humble and intellectual. He told us interesting stories about shows he’s played, but was unable to stay too long because he had to prepare for his upcoming performance.
The last interview we attended that day, was one with Van McCann from Catfish and the Bottlemen. Van could not have been more friendly, he was very approachable and had a great sense of humor. McCann was the perfect artist to be the official correspondent for WRNR. He had such an outgoing personality; he even got up to sing and dance to “Sweater Weather” when we mentioned we were heading over to see The Neighbourhood perform. When McCann spoke, he was able to put smiles on everyone’s face. He seemed easy to relate to, as he too went to festivals and even snuck around them at times!
The last show we attended for the day was Florence + The Machine. There was no other performance taking place at the same time, so the crowd was massive. Because of the size of the crowd, we found it best to sit all the way back in the VIP lounge area rather than standing amongst other fans. We watched the performance from the screens. Florence Welch was full of life and energy; she ran around the stage from the left to the middle to the right encouraging her fans to sing along with her. She would often give little speeches in between songs trying to restore faith and love in the world. To further prove her point, she held up a gay pride flag on stage, told the crowd to hug their neighbors and to take off an item of clothing and wave it in the air. She asked all of us to take the love from within us and “bring it out”. She had the ability to bring the crowd together with her powerful words. When she wasn’t talking to all of us as though we were long time friends, lounging on a couch and having a casual conversation, she was floating across the stage in a flowy, ruffled dress.
Our favorite vendors at Firefly
Peace, Love, Tacos
Grotto’s Pizza
American Grill
The Cheesy Pig
Sweet Tooth
Talenti
Saturday’s Countdown
14 videos taken
11 miles walked
10 water bottles chugged
8 performances watched
4 tacos gulfed down
3 times we discovered new songs
2 pepperoni pizza slices eaten
1 day left
0 times we got lost
Artist We Watched
Florence + The Machine
Florence + The Machine’s performance was the last performance we saw of the day.
Their performance was at the Firefly stage, which is the main stage. At first, we tried to get to the front, or close to the front, to see her perform. Later we realized we could hardly see anything and decided to go to the back, where they had elevated seating, so that we could see them perform. We are both Florence + The Machine fans and wanted to see the performance as best as possible. Surprisingly, we did not enjoy the performance as much as we thought we would. The band performed some of it’s most famous hits such as, “Cosmic Love”, “Dog Days Are Over” and “You’ve Got the Love”. It felt as though something was missing from the performance. We found ourselves getting bored and thinking her sprinting across the stage many times was getting a bit old. Although we did not have the best time during this performance, others did. When looking out into the enormous crowd you could see so many fans enjoying themselves and singing along.
Fetty Wap
We saw Fetty Wap earlier this year at the Z100 Jingle Ball. At the time he had a broken leg and therefore was sitting in a chair and was unable to perform the way other artists had. Even though he did throw hundreds of hundred dollars bills at the crowd, we weren’t satisfied with the performance. Honestly there wasn’t much he could do. Now at Firefly, a few months later, he was able to put on an unforgettable show! He had one of the biggest crowds. It seemed as though every single person there knew the lyrics to his songs, especially “Trap Queen”. He sounded great on stage and was able to get the crowd energized.
The Neighbourhood
The Neighbourhood and Fetty Wap were performing at the same time. It was too difficult of a decision for us to pick one over the other so we decided to see both. We walked back and forth between Fetty Wap and the Neighbourhood since their stages were on both sides of the VIP area. The Neighbourhood put on a good show, everyone was dancing when one of their most popular songs “Sweater Weather” came on. During the song, the sun was setting and casting an orange glow over the bobbing heads. The music was not only beautiful, but the show was also visually gorgeous to watch.
