I’ve been to a lot of shows. Since starting at Allston Pudding, I average about one to three shows a week, which can mean anywhere from twelve to forty-eight sets a month, depending on each lineup. At this rate, that leaves my year end concert experience anywhere from forty-eight to one hundred and forty-four shows. That’s forty-eight to five hundred and seventy-six sets a year. Statistically that’s a pretty wide range, but math was never my forte.

I’ve only been to a few festivals. Aside from the perfection of Newport Folk, my only real experience lies in Bonnaroo 2011, a southern petri-dish of sweat, dust and questionable drug deals. It’s likely most of the 80,000 people who attended that summer had a good time. I did not.

The music at Bonnaroo was fantastic. My Morning Jacket, Primus, and the boys of Buffalo Springfield all made for sentimental inductions to seeing favorites play in a giant, grassy field. The grander scheme of Bonnaroo was not so terrific. The Molly crunching ravers, the glaring “show me your boobs!” chant from passing strangers, the dust I coughed up for days afterward—all had a way of impacting my experience more than any music could.

Before Boston Calling, I planned a feature to highlight the unremarkable. One focusing less on music and more on details that, despite their occurring negligibility, have a way of engraining themselves into a larger experience. Because a festival is not a show at all. Good, bad or ugly, a festival is an experience.

Boston Calling 2014: The Good, the Bad and the Ugly

The Good

Actual Music Enthusiasts

Walking around the festival, it wasn’t uncommon to hear showgoers voice their unfamiliarity with a particular band. After talking to numerous boozed up strangers, it quickly became apparent that a portion of the crowd didn’t know many bands, or really, any bands at all. It seemed many went to Boston Calling with a more simplified objective: to take in the music, mannnnn.

But there were true fans in the mix. Like many festivals, Boston Calling’s larger acts brought out the true die hards. Take these two youngins, who’d spent Saturday night getting down to Childish Gambino.

Friendship

It’s cold fact that music festivals are better with friends. Go alone and suffer the consequences like I did, drunk-eating pizza and avoiding eye contact from passers-by while still trying to record your experience for a future review. Look at this lovely group of kindred spirits!

True Love

Like Pina Coladas and getting caught in the rain, the loving couples of Boston Calling were as present as Hawaiian print at a Jimmy Buffet show.

Free Food

Free food didn’t run rampant at Boston Calling, but it was available. Take these free chips from JetBlue’s booth. They tasted like greasy cardboard and left a brick in my stomach, but hey! That brick was free!not pictured:

• Coconut Water portioned by the shot-glass
• Tiny chocolate-chip cookies from Xfinity’s table that tasted a lot like something you’d eat on a spaceship.

Not Free Food

The not-free Food at Boston Calling was delicious. From Tasty Burger to Roxy’s Grilled Cheese, to the baked goods of Cupcakery, every station was equally unique in the treats they brought to City Hall Plaza. $5 bought me this quarter of a pizza fresh from a wood-burning stove.

Green Space

Festival organizers attempted to soften City Hall’s brutalism with this space, a turfed area to play oversized games of Jenga and relax in plastic deck-chairs. Their effort was a friendly one, and helped the venue give off the verdancy and casualness of a real patch of green.

Moms and Dads

The real champions of Boston Calling were the parents who went along with their kids to take in the festival’s headliners. Then there were the really cool Moms and Dads who’d left their kids at home with a sitter.

This Cool Family

This one speaks for itself.

Intellectuals

A festival is a lot like a giant party, but this guy still managed to get in a bit of reading from what appears to be Tolstoy’s Anna Karenina. We’ll talk about that hat later.

Mike

I first approached Mike to photograph his Andrew W.K. shirt. When I told him my photos were for Allston Pudding he told me to wait a second. After wading through the contents of his pockets he located this Allston Pudding sticker and a T pass, gave me a big smile and told me to shoot. Later in the night we crossed paths again and he gave me a friendly “Hi, Mo!” Bless you, Mike.

This Dog

It wasn’t until late Sunday afternoon that I realized Boston Calling’s graphic is, in fact, a dog. Upon dumb realization I further concluded that this dog is a Boston terrier. The bowler hat is irrelevant. 

The Bad

Plebeian Toilets

Purchase VIP passes to Boston Calling and you get loads of cool stuff, including an exclusive entrance, private restrooms and “onsite hors d’oeuvres,” which in French, means “free food right here.” The rest of us commoners were left to fend for ourselves in brutal midday sun, eating the VIP scraps we’d snatched from the garbage and waiting in line to use slightly unclean porter potties. In reality, it could’ve been a lot worse. 

Flower crowns

If I could go back to 2009, it would be to put a vice-like patent on flower crowns. The hippies of the 1960’s may have been the true children of the Earth, but it seems this dang accessory has become more popular in 2014 than Janis Joplin in her heyday. The trendy-girl headwear count ranked in the forties by end of Day 1, a number only made possible by the “Make Your Own Headband” station set up in the shade of City Hall. $15 for serious style, and the likelihood that you’re more into The 1975 than any music actually from that year.

Twenty One Pilots

This review isn’t supposed to be about the weekend’s music, but don’t you think that trashcan is a little… symbolic? 

This beach ball

File this one under “Sad”

These hats

Sam Adam’s monopolized Boston Calling with delicious beer and the godawful freebies of their Octoberfest setup. These fedora-like toppers ran rampant to the delight of countless ska fans, and the anguish of many who felt the newly accessorized crowd would speak poorly of them on LiveJournal. 

ATMs

I once watched a movie in which three bad actors visited an ATM late at night, and spoiler alert: end up being trapped by a cold blooded killer. I haven’t been able to look at ATMs the same since.

The Ugly

City Hall Plaza

The only truly ugly thing about the festival was City Hall Plaza. The daytime may have been rough for onlookers, but by the end of each night, a brilliant pattern of light was projected on the building to soften its cheerless corners like architectural beer goggles. I would’ve photographed the difference, but I was too busy watching The Replacements. Here’s a photo from our own Jeremy Stanley.