The Honda Stage was awarded to big electronic / dance names, of which it seemed that the festival planners anticipated to be bigger than the other names performing inside of the valuable real estate of the shady Gotham Tent. However, the stage setup itself sucked. It, like all of the other stages at Gov Ball, was mercilessly depleted of any shade whatsoever. Furthermore, as fans crowded and gathered in large sweaty lumps underneath the boiling sun, it didn’t even seem worth it –  the sound system itself’s reach was pitiful. It needed at least two sets of speakers more. I could barely hear Disclosure’s funky beats over the guy behind me singing, “When a fire starts to burn, right.” J.Cole’s set also was swallowed up by the inadequacy of the Honda stage, as the rapper tried to engage the crowd in the pausing of popular lines and motioning with the mic to the audience to fill it in. While I’m sure it was really cool for the fans in the front 3 feet of the stage, and of course obviously very cool for J.Cole, all it sounded like to people in the back was silence. I found myself realizing that J.Cole himself was only actually singing three words of ‘Work Out’ because of this. And honestly, if I wanted that, I could have avoided the third degree sunburn and just put on a scratched up CD at medium volume at home.

The Danger Award
Winner: FDR Bridge

I made the grave mistake, in my post festival euphoria, of thinking a nice little stroll back to the subway station in Harlem would be the smarter investment than waiting for the dauntingly packed  buses. This was very, very wrong. The festival staff seemed to be almost as misled as the staff members at The House of Blues, and after walking down the wrong path and being encouraged to cross the street as a fleet of cars charged at me, I was finally directed to the actual direction of the FDR bridge. Masses and masses of people who had made the same mistake that I had were headed in that direction, but in a severe drunk and blind leading the drunk and blind fashion. And here’s the clincher: the bridge itself seemed to be surrounded by and under construction, the path marked by uneven concrete and potholes that were unable to seen as the bridge was basically dark, except for the dim glow of a hopeful streetlight in the distance.

— Helen Chen