After my visit with Kari, I made it up to Moestock OK. I didn't quite feel right at first, but I quickly settled in. This Moestock was, well, just as good as all the other ones. I honestly can't say I have a favorite...they have all had their (very) high points and none of the five years really stands out.

The big thing this year was a change in trends: over the last couple years, the trend was getting away from stage playing with amps and drums and all, to circles of acoustic guitars and computer-based jamming. This year represented a complete and total 180. I provided a recording rig and came away with nothing recorded. The only serious acoustic jamming was at the Saturday night campfire and Sunday night under the beer tent. There was, however, lots of playing on the electric stage. Chopper had an awesome idea for a 'battle of the bands'...we broke up into 'bands' and prepared a few songs to play on Saturday night. My band was organized by Brett Funk and was called 'Ben Wah and the Blue Balls.' We put together a couple Zeppelin songs and an impromptu jam. The Zep songs were a giant train wreck but the jam was awesome...my antics became an instant Moestock classic. (video forthcoming) On Sunday, Onethataps put on a 20-minute show of his unique style, which he had been teaching me on Saturday. Of course, Sunday tends to be a bittersweet day, as people begin trickling out. That's the only bad thing about Moestock...it has to end. Still, Rob Quail is already planning MS6 in Toronto next year. At least I won't have to catch a plane or drive 2000 miles for that.

We didn't have many fresh faces this year, but the few we had were great. All the new faces were in the rhythm section: DrumGod, Boomer and Gaucho on drums and Bassopotamus on, well, bass. All excellent musicians and fun to hang out with, especially DrumGod and Basso. (although I suppose that's partly because those two are a lot closer to my age than most Moestockers.)

The bad things didn't start until I left, though. I broke down in Tomah, WI, about 180 miles into my 780-mile drive to see Bridge. To make a long story short, I have transmission trouble and will likely still be here tomorrow (Wednesday) and possibly Thursday as well. That's bad enough, but it also puts my visit with Bridge in deep jeopardy. I'm mad enough about the car because that transmission is about 17 months old and has no more than 9000 miles on it, but I'm especially upset about the likelihood of having to scrap the trip to see Bridge. I'm waiting to find out just how long my car is going to take (and, to a lesser extent, how much it's going to cost) before completely ruling it out, but it doesn't look good right now. :(

On top of all that, I forgot my guitar stand at Dunrovin and will have to arrange with Karl (the Moestock host) to have it shipped back to me.

I took tons of photos and over four hours of video, which I'll have time to start crunching down while I'm sitting here in Tomah, waiting for my car.