Don't go chasing waterfalls.

Sometimes weather gets in the way of a good time. Sometimes people let it, and I acknowledge that sometimes they have to let it. Some of my best experiences have been with wet people after rainstorms, because we have nothing left to lose. Dancing in wet clothes, running through streets unable to see, slipping and sliding haphazardly across puddles, sidewalks, stages. But WXPN’s All About the Music Festival was actually a washout. I decided to go on Saturday, accompanying my parents to see Slo-mo (pedal steel player from Marah, Philly-based, and totally awesome), Josh Ritter (the same part of me that plays ‘Thunder Road’ endlessly can’t get enough of this), and, importantly Konono No. 1 (Congolese! My father describes them, “as if everyone in the Dead played a thumb piano instead of whatever they play”. But mostly, they’re just fun and loose and cool), as well as a lot of other, mostly unremarkable artists.

Slo-mo was excellent. His band features rapper Mic Wrecka, the women from Stargazer Lily, and a bunch of other veteran Philly scene people of the Marah ilk. He wears a white suite and rectangular black-frame glasses to perform, and writes smart, lively odes to life in Philadelphia, like one to his drug dealer (“Go to the street where the grass is green/ and the smell is sweeter than you’ve ever seen/ Right on Girard, turn left hard/ Get your Shackamaxon”). The band even did a cover of TLC’s “Waterfalls”— which turned out to be weirdly prophetic.

As Konono No. 1 was setting up, it started raining. And not dripping, snotty rain, but full-on thunderstorms with clouds so thick that you couldn’t see the Philadelphia skyline across the river. The thunder was the loud, deafening sort that is scary no matter where you are, and lightening was coming down like straight pins through the sky, but safety wasn’t so much of an issue, because we were between the Delaware and the top of a hill, and there was a huge metal stage and a transmitter tower. But as people ran to their cars and the various concession tents, and the XPN staff lopped frantically about, the rain came vertically and horizontally so virtually everyone and everything got drenched. The storms stopped after about forty-five minutes and they began to set up the stage again. People were mudsliding down the hill where the audience sat with their shirts off, buying cold beer, and idling around the stage. We were all drenched, but sort of happy. There was an air of triumph over dampness. I could see Konono’s megaphones getting dried off.

But the sky darkened again, and XPN decided to cancel the rest of the festival, announcing that they would have a show with various acts from that day’s line-up at World Café Live (their much smaller venue in West Philly) that evening. We decided to go there, still in our sopping clothes. However, as it turned out, the line-up was exceedingly boring and acoustic—aka, no Congolese thumb pianos, but a lot of mediocre singer-songwriters (though Willy Mason and Josh Ritter were good. Steve Wynn, formerly of Dream Syndicate, was okay). So it turned out to be damp, a little boring, and very disappointing. Plus, my cell phone got a lot of water in it, and is now very very broken. Oh well.