As I would assume happens with the penultimate weekend of any college year, era-defining stories were made this weekend.
From the sort of hilarious time we had standing in the monsoon for six hours, mostly without umbrellas, to the crazy fantastic Grace Potter and the Nocturnals and the series of events forever known to me as “that awesome drum out thing,” it was already a pretty great weekend.
We also managed to become a walking iPhone commercial; previously unaware of the awesomeness that is Grace Potter, we searched the group on YouTube and pressed the speaker up to our ears, then watched it, and so forth like the future Alexander Graham Bell surely envisioned. And who can forget the frightening girl in the third row for Old Crow Medicine Show who informed us that when the band began to play she would “(rhymes with ‘trucking’ — this is a family publication) cry and (something inappropriate for the ears of children).” Her presence reduced my friend and me to texting about our ambivalence towards OCMS, despite standing three feet apart, for fear of our lives.
But, of course, if there is one thing I will take away from this weekend, other than my need to buy a waterproof jacket, Lil Jon wins. Much to the chagrin of many of my compatriots this weekend and though he certainly lacked in quality compared to the awesome lineup The Music Group put together, I thoroughly enjoyed Lil Jon and think he filled a role previously lacking in last year’s Rites: concluding the events with a giant frat party atmosphere.
Clearly, either Lil Jon bathed himself in irony before he came onstage or else we bore witness to the most fabulous display of surrealism in our time. Even now, almost 20 hours after Lil Jon left the stage in a blaze of glory, I cannot quite fathom that he led me in song to a medley of “Sweet Home Alabama,” “Sweet Child O’ Mine” and “Don’t Stop Believin’.” While several of my friends lamented the fact that Lil Jon, Colbie Caillat, a drunk audience member and your grandmother were equally qualified and probably capable of pressing play and screaming “crunk,” “what,” “yeah” and “okay,” the fabulousness of Lil Jon cannot be overstated.
It began with the absurd countdown from 20 by the disembodied voice of a robot. Why 20? If history teaches us anything, it was to get crunk. This was completely ridiculous, but an oddly entertaining method of getting all of us crazy excited to see Lil Jon. Shortly after this, there was also the enjoyable experience of watching legions of Belmont-esque Nashvillians fleeing in abject horror from the throngs of Lil Jon enthusiasts.
But Lil Jon realized something that these Rites refugees did not: He recognized a frat party when he saw one. Everyone has experienced the post-Rites frat going, but Lil Jon gave us a small gift for our college careers by having us all at one giant frat party together for a brief time, chanting “get crunk” and other unintelligible lyrics to songs we had largely never heard before. Also, repeatedly throwing our hands in the air for reasons of various import.
Certainly, the defining moment of either surrealism or frightening self-awareness of this frat party venture was the bizarre shift to the tried and true frat classics from Lynyrd Skynyrd, Guns n’ Roses and Journey. My life’s moment of sweet, sweet validation came when, moments into the opening riff of “Sweet Child O’ Mine,” I announced to my Rites comrades that “Don’t Stop Believin’” would be the next song. It was as though Lil Jon and I shared a mental connection.
Of course, if Friday and Saturday’s lineups hadn’t been so completely awesome, I might not feel so grateful to Lil Jon for capping Rites off in true Vandy fashion. But after the Biblical floods and crazy fun weekend, all I wanted was the one thing I never knew I wanted before: Lil Jon to lead my peers and me in song to Journey. Thanks Music Group, I loved Rites.
Katherine Miller is a sophomore in the College of Arts and Science. She can be reached at katherine.m.miller@vanderbilt.edu and blogs at Right-Wing Vitriol.
