While I had every intention of following up my multi-part write-up about my experience at Louder Than Life 2024 with a postscript of sorts, I’m as surprised as anyone that I started working on it so soon. But, I got out of work a bit early, so I decided to do some Thanksgiving prep, and use the downtime to try and keep up some kind of momentum.

As I mentioned at the end of my last post, there are a few odds and ends regarding the epic weekend that I couldn’t really fit into the narrative without forcing them, so that’ll be the gist of this post. I’m also including some things here that I just straight up forgot to mention in any of my earlier posts. It’ll probably be less cohesive than one of my regular posts, if that’s even possible, but I’ll do my best to make it interesting. I won’t be offended if you give up before it’s over.

If you recall way back on Day Zero, I mentioned that we bought the Fancy-Pants Package (not its real name) for this year’s fest, which included a bunch of extras. I covered most of the ones worth mentioning in previous posts, but I wanna cover two of them in particular: the “artist-signed festival poster” and the “Louder Than Life mini guitar”.

Artist-signed festival poster
This was a total mystery to us. I mentioned in my things about Day Zero that we got the email about our Soundboard Experience, and that Falling In Reverse was the band picked for us, and I also mentioned that the artist-signed poster was mentioned in that email. The (potential) problem was that we had no idea which artist(s) would be signing it. Sheila was fearful that it was also going to be a Falling In Reverse joint, and I maintained that we could likely sell it on eBay if that were the case.

When we got the news on Day Three that Falling In Reverse cancelled and Till Lindemann was replacing them, we saw that the news was good, and we rejoiced in it. We also assumed that would decrease the likelihood of Ronnie Radke’s signature lowering my property value until I could unload it.

(No offense if you like that band. I know there’s no accounting for taste, and I know plenty of people think that all the music I listen to is terrible, but I think pretty much everyone who is aware of Ronnie Radkey, other than Ronnie Radke himself, would likely admit that Ronnie Radke is a real piece of shit. I’m not gonna talk about what a piece of shit Ronnie Radkey is anymore, but you can Google “Ronnie Radke piece of shit” and you’ll find plenty of links about why Ronnie Radke is a piece of shit.)

But I was talking about our artist-signed festival poster. The email about the Soundboard Experience switcheroo also mentioned that the pick-up site for our poster had changed, and it mentioned that we could pick it up by the end of the day on Sunday (Day Four). We stopped by on our way out on Day Three, and they told me my name was on the list, but that my poster hadn’t been signed yet. We just figured whoever was assigned to the signing was a Day Three artist who had gotten around to it yet.

We waited until the end of Day Four to pick it up, because I didn’t know how big it would be, and our locker was pretty much completely full after we got there and I stashed my flannel for later. Also, as you might imagine, the lockers are not large. They handed the poster to us with a Post-It facing out. ‘Twas none other than Eagles of Death Metal.

A few other bands would’ve been more exciting to both of us, but many more would’ve been less exciting. I feel about this poster the way I feel about the band that signed it: I like it when I’m listening to it (looking at it), otherwise I’m not really thinking about it. There is one significant way in which the band and the poster make me feel different things: I’m 100% less likely to dance awkwardly to the poster.

Louder Than Life mini-guitar

Another complete mystery. We had no idea what this was gonna be. I figured laminated cardboard or something, and Sheila was thinking more along the lines of a ukulele. We were both way the fuck off.

Here’s the thing, though: with all the excitement and disappointment and booze and talking to strangers and having a blast not being at work and then being extra sad about going back to work-ness of it all, we both completely forgot about the mini guitar.

One day a couple of weeks after the festival, I opened the mailbox to find a big yellow padded envelope with something substantial (i.e., not paper) inside. The return address was some town in New York state that I’d never heard of, and it was from “RONZWORLD”.

“What the fuck is ‘RONZWORLD’?”, I asked the mailbox.

[…]

“What the fuck is ‘RONZWORLD’?”, I asked Sheila, after I got back inside.

“I don’t know what that is”, she responded. So much more polite than that stuck-up mailbox.

I opened it to find some unidentified solid object (or objects) surrounded by bubble wrap. I almost dropped it pulling it out of the envelope, through no fault of Mr./Mrs./Ms. RONZWORLD. I’m a bit of a clumsy oaf. As soon as I got the object (or objects) fully out of the envelope, I realized what I was holding.

Two teeny-tiny, built to 1:4 scale, individually handcrafted, solid wood Gibson Les Paul replicas, with two teeny-tiny stands!

Mr./Mrs./Ms. RONZWORLD turned out to be RonzWorld, a custom guitar painter based out of Beacon, NY, a small city on the Hudson River, located a couple hours north of NYC.

They have a whole series of mini guitars available, and Ron himself also does custom paint jobs on full-sized guitars. Like I said, I’m not a guitar guy, but Ron does fantastic work, and these li’l souvenir guitars are pretty cool.

You can get one yourself direct from the website for 49.95 plus shipping, if you’re interested.

Another thing I wanted to talk more about was that primordial stew people were hangin out on Saturday and Sunday. I briefly mentioned that by Day Four, the “mud” was just a fact of life if you wanted to watch any of the smaller stages. It was foul.

The thing about the Highland Festival Grounds is that they are also the Kentucky State Fairgrounds. Have you ever seen how much poop a cow makes? Or a horse? Geese poop almost as much as me, and if I am one thing, I am a celebrated pooper. Now imagine how much poop an entire State Fair makes. I know they clean it up as best they can, but the thing about poop is that poop goes where poop wants to go.

Here’s another thing: I’m a grown-ass man. I’ve been in my share of mud in my life. And I’ll tell you hwat, I ain’t never smelled no mud that smelled like that before.

We saw people walking in Chuck Taylors, flip-flops, sandals, fuckin barefoot in that muck. People sliding in it. People laying in it making mud angels. People covering their ENTIRE BODIES with it.

People never cease to amaze and baffle me. Also, disgust me.

I’ll never understand how there wasn’t an outbreak of dysentery at the very least. That’s not to say we didn’t have fun. I mean, we already got our tickets for next year, so as long as our incoming clown show of a government hasn’t completely dismantled our freedoms by September of next year, we’ll be there rain, shine, or manure lagoon. (By the way, if you’ve never been in the vicinity of an actual manure lagoon, you are really missin out on an olfactory treat.)

One final thing I wanted to cover: we walked an astonishing amount, and I can’t imagine how much we would’ve walked if the weather had been more cooperative. I have a li’l pocket pedometer that I carried with me every time I left the hotel room, and I walked a little over 11 on miles Day One, another 10 miles on Day Three (we barely even left the building on Day Two, what with the hurricane), and 13 miles on Day Four, for a total of over 34 miles over the entire weekend, with two-thirds of it in mud almost up to my ankles. And I didn’t even go in the pit areas in front of any of those stages. That would’ve certainly tested the water proofness of my trusty Merrells, may they rest in a landfill in Terre Haute.

I’m gonna stop here. I already spent way more time on this than I meant to, but I suppose it’s better to spend too much time writing, rather than not enough time writing. Thanks for reading. ❤