About Last Night

Arts writer extraordinaire Holly Wall did downtown Tulsa biggest part of the year last night, and she lived to tell the tale here at TashaDoesTulsa.com. Take it away, Holly.

Holy tattooed rockstar, did I have fun last night.

Dfest’s opening night was a hit, and since I knew I only had one night to take in as much music as possible (motherhood means only having one free night per weekend), I made it my mission to see as many artists as I could.

My man friend and I kicked off the night with a gyro and a sno cone (a slight disappointment, actually. I was intrigued by the “wedding cake” flavor, which was pretty good and did actually taste like wedding cake, but the fact that the ice wasn’t even close to shaved but rather chunky and hard made my treat more of a wedding cake-flavored slushie) and a sighting of the World Naked Bike Ride, which consisted of mayoral candidate Paul Tay and a handful of other males (and one female, actually) riding their bicycles around Dfest in their underwear (the actual World Naked Bike Ride was a few weeks ago - click that link at your own risk), and then moved into the U.S. Cellular Triton Stage for some music.

Our evening began with Dengue Fever, a California/Cambodia-based world pop band, a sound unlike anything I’ve ever heard. We also peeked in on local electronic/dance group Stevedore.

From there, it was on to Dirty’s Tavern’s Arvest Bank Stage, where we enjoyed blues rock acts Jonathan Tyler & The Northern Lights and Ian Moore.

After Ian, we caught the last song by Maggie McClure at the Tulsa Performing Arts Center’s Liddy Doenges Theatre/Oklahoma Film and Music Stage, followed by one song by Chris McCleod in the same theatre and then the last half of Ben Kilgore’s set in the Williams Theatre/Tulsa Convention and Visitors Bureau Stage.

After that, we made our way to the State Farm Poseidon Stage at Second and Elgin for headliner The Black Crowes (can you say “awesome”?) and finished our evening at Dirty’s with Stillwater-based rockers Taddy Porter.

Then we went home and crashed, exhausted, the evening’s adrenaline all used up.

Not every band we saw was out of this world, but the event, and the evening as a whole, was. And the Black Crowes, of course, were.

I do feel like I should give you a fair warning, though. Security is tight (and did a good job; there were no altercations that we heard of), and if you buy a beer at one stage ($4 for a 16-ounce can of Bud or Bud Light), you can’t take it into the next.

We ran into that problem when we bought a beer at Dengue Fever and tried to take it into Electric Circus for Stevedore. We had to chug it before we could get into the bar.

And, if you plan to see a show at the PAC’s William’s Theatre, don’t bother buying a beer at all; you can’t take open containers inside the theater. You can take them, however, into the Doenges.

Also, be prepared to show your ID as many times as the bouncers ask for it. At Dirty’s, we thought we could avoid the line by showing the bouncer our blue wristband, which we had to show our ID for at the door, but we were told, rather rudely, that he didn’t care what we had on our wrists, that this was his bar and we were going to show our ID.

So, just be aware. We weren’t, and it took us by surprise.

Tonight, I will probably pack Isaac up in the stroller and check out some of the vendors and maybe partake of a corn dog, two things I missed out on yesterday. So, if you don’t have a ticket for Dfest tonight, at least head downtown to mingle with the crowds, take in the gorgeous skyline, and pick up some band and Tulsa-themed merch.

P.S. Don’t drink and drive.

Thanks for the ride-along, Holly. Have fun at Dfest tonight, everybody. Like the No. 1 Tulsa arts writer said, don't drink and drive. I'd like to add that you should also not text what an awesome time you had at Dfest to all your friends while driving. I don't want you to die a fiery death and leave me in this world all alone so, please, wait a few extra minutes and text from your driveway.