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So I got a tweet from the LA Times of last night’s Light Festival and the third picture of the set is a picture of the Griffith Observatory with me riding by. I know it’s me because the silhouette clearly shows an Xtracycle and I was the only one riding an Xtracycle last night.
The much anticipated ride for this week was for LADWP’s Festival of Lights bike ride that was held on Thursday, December 3rd. I got out of work a bit late and raced over to Griffith Park. Luckily I made it there before they started lighting the displays so I was able to cruise through to the south entrance of the park where the ranger station was suppose to be. It was quite pleasant to ride through the street without any cars since they had already started diverting car traffic away from this area. In fact, I was the only bike since everyone was waiting near the Zoo entrance.
I made plans on Twitter earlier in the week to meet up with a few folks. @FunctionalCycle and @LACycleChic showed up with their daughter around 5:30PM. A few minutes later, JHarv from the Bike Oven showed up and we began our ride through the light display.
It was nice to cruise through the lit displays with Christmas music blaring from speakers that was strategically placed throughout the course. The music certainly helped bring out the feeling of Christmas! One of my favorite display was an animated sequence that resembled LAX airport with a plane taking off from a blue landing strip. Our other favorite thing was riding through the 2 huge tunnel of lights. Here are a few shots of the tunnel.
It was a very short ride to the other side where we ran into more folks from Twitter, @dudeonabike and later @danceralamode joined us when we rode through the displays the second time around. People really got into it by decorating their bikes with lights and colorful props and outfits.
Besides the evening being very chilly, we were dodging wobbly bicycle riders and people scattered all over the street. Not really the best situation when you mix pedestrian and bicycle in an area. Everyone seemed to handle it very well. I wished it was ALL bikes and no foot traffic. I have to say I don’t know how people can see this through their cars? Sitting in long lines of traffic stretching out to the 5 freeway every year. Sucking in carbon monoxide while people are rolling through display to display at snail pace. On bikes, folks can still stop and enjoy each display without ever impeding traffic and smell nothing but maybe your occasion funk from the skunk. If you haven’t been through this I encourage you to go but the remaining nights are car free w/pedestrian and shuttle until December 17th. The rest of the month after that will require you to drive.
Enjoy the 6 minute video I shot with my digital camera while riding my bike. Not the best quality but you get the idea.
LADWP Festival of Light Ride from Johnny Lam on Vimeo.
For those of you who need a jump start in your holiday spirit go out and participate the first night of Los Angeles Departmenet of Water and Power’s 14th Annual Festival of Lights at Griffith Park this Thursday, December 3rd. Apparently this is the only night you can ride your bike to view each of the displays. After that, you’ll have to hop on a shuttle to see the display from December 4th until December 17th. From December 18th until December 30th is for car traffic.
I’ve only been there by car in previous years and never by bike so this will be an exciting experience. I think out of the 3 choices, this would be the best way to see the display since you dictate the pace and can stop and go as you please without impeding traffic. It’s ironic how LADWP is touting that they are going green when they only have one night dedicated to bicycle traffic and 13 nights for cars. Having car free nights with the shuttle is a good step but it could be better. Perhaps powering each light display like how folks at Copenhagen is doing it for their Christmas tree might be better?
Our time finally came last night. We were finally going to see Radiohead with other like-minded fans. Our journey started from West LA at 16:30 and ended on Hillhurst and Los Feliz at 18:20 (that’s LA traffic for you!). We decided to grab some dinner at Lousie’s. The meal was okay for $35. Like Lex said, the beer made it worthwhile. We started our walk from the base of the hill a little after 19:00. We decided to forgo the $10 stacked parking for street parking on Hillhurst, which was a much better option since we would have never knew when we got our cars. I suggest doing the same if you ever go watch a show at the Greek Theatre. It was a 1/2 mile hike up the hill which only took about 15 minutes.
It was 19:40 when we grab some drinks and found our seats on the South Terrace level at Row B Seat 28 and 26. We were to the band’s left. The venue was much smaller than I thought and the bugs were a-plenty! When 20:00 came along, the opening band, Deerhoof came out to perform. The trio consisted of 2 tall caucasian and 1 little asian girl. I’m inclined to say she was probably Japanese because when she sang, actually more like made funny noises, she sounded like a Japanese anime character with their cute pitch. They played for about an hour. Some songs were pretty good while others was pretty odd.
The crowds lathargically filed into their seats. It was not until 23:10 when the stadium began to resemble a sold out concert and the skies over Griffith Park began to dim. The stage crew in the mean-time was setting up all the instruments for the band. Suddenly the lights goes out and the sets began!
Playlist was as followed:
01 Airbag
02 The National Anthem
03 There There
04 15 Step
05 Exit Music
06 Bodysnatchers
07 My Iron Lung
08 Nude
09 Videotape
10 I Might Be Wrong
11 Climbing Up The Walls
12 All I Need
13 Pyramid Song
14 Spooks
15 Idioteque
16 Myxomatosis
17 Bangers ‘n Mash
18 Bones
Encore 1
19 Like Spinning Plates
20 Fake Plastic Trees
21 Down Is The New Up
22 Paranoid Android
Encore 2
23 House of Cards
24 True Love Waits
25 Everything In Its Right Place
More details of the sets can be found here on ateaseweb.com. The most moving song IMO was Fake Plastic Trees where the crowd was basically singing along. Paranoid Android was another one I remembered where the highs and lows brought the crowds to frenzy and calmly lulled them down.
We quickly exited the show and walked down the hill with the rest of the crowd. I was exhausted from standing the whole time. My knees started to buckle a little towards the end of the show, but the walked certainly helped.
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