..the only day we went. :)
Gates opened at 10; Mark and I were out of our hotel at 8:00. For some reason I didn’t picture there being parking at the subways station (what? I know. Go figure.) so we walked, and it turned out to be a longer walk than it had looked like on Google Maps. Took the subway to the bus to Pimlico and waited around for the gates to open. And of course we were at the south entrance, and Black Rebel Motorcycle Club were scheduled on the north stage (at noon, but IT’S NEVER TOO EARLY TO GET TO THE BARRIER), so I power-walked across the festival with Mark…somewhere behind me.
And we got on the barrier. But we didn’t just get on the barrier—we got there in time to catch 2/3rds of BRMC soundchecking. Nice. (Robert was missing. He appeared to be a little stunned by having to be awake so early in the day.)

BRMC had a very short set with just eight songs on their setlist and a ninth squeezed in before their time was up. They played: 666 Conducer, Weapon of Choice, Berlin, Shuffle Your Feet, Ain’t No Easy Way, Salvation, Six Barrel Shotgun, Spread Your Love and Whatever Happened To My Rock ‘N Roll (Punk Song). Leia’s great on drums. No disappointment there at all. Mark was happy to get to see Salvation live.

Robert Levon Been, BRMC

Peter Hayes, BRMC

Leia Shapiro and Peter Hayes, BRMC
BRMC finished at 12:45, and we didn’t have another band we were super interested in seeing till 6:20. We could have camped out at our barrier spot all day long, but we have pit tickets for Stone Temple Pilots and Nine Inch Nails later this month (twice each, plus some great reserved seats for a NIN show, too), so we felt like we didn’t have to be right up front for either band today. In fact, I was looking to get a further back spot for NIN, one that’d give me a view of the whole stage.
So we wandered off, caught some other bands (but not more than a few songs from each—nothing was really grabbing us…and we practically ran from the She & Him show after a song and a half), watched the aerial sculptures and the Bindlestiff Family Circus—

(a little lesson in safe sex, courtesy of the Bindlestiffs)
—ate bad festival food, drank horrid festival drinks ($10 for a margarita that tastes like gasoline. Oh fabulous!), and we saw an Xtracycle in real life!, which was actually one of the highlights of my day—

!!!!
—and then it was time for STP. Which conflicted with Bob Dylan’s show on the south stage, so Mark headed over that way for Bob, and I held our spot at the north stage and enjoyed STP. They came on twenty minutes late, but once they showed up, they were good. I’m stoked to see them next Sunday.

Stone Temple Pilots
Before and after STP, I ran into some trouble with the porta potties because by late afternoon they had completely run out of toilet paper. Now, it wouldn’t kill me to go without toilet paper once, but. Women before me had hovered, and hoverers splatter. Did you hear me? HOVERERS SPLATTER. All over the fucking seat. So: hot, stinky portajohn with piss all over the seat and no toilet paper to clean it up with and an empty hand sanitizer dispenser. I just held it till we got back to the hotel. Yuck.
Finally it started to get dark, and NIN, who had been given the longest set of any band scheduled over the two days of this year’s Virgin Mobile Fest, came on.
OMG NIN.
And all I have is this blurry picture. Sorry!

The stage/light show was…. There are no words. It was just unbelievable. They put on a fantastic show. And the only thing going through my head through all 1 hour and 55 minutes of it was “OMG NIN.” Cannot wait to see them closer up on Tuesday.
And that was our day in Baltimore. Back on the road tomorrow.