Just sorting through the last of the photos, and here are some final thoughts before we all drink a big cup of shut-the-f*ck-up-about-it...

OVERHEARD: "I did an interview with TV on the Radio. I told him we looked alike. He said, "What do you mean?""

Champagne Champagne and TV on the Radio by Jackie Canchola

"There were so many people at Girl Talk. The guards were freaking out. I saw a boy get hauled off to a backstage van. He was face down and his legs were limp... wasn't moving at all."

photo Christopher Nelson

"We saw a rattlesnake backstage during Of Montreal. We found it in the road behind the Wookie Stage. I watched some girl talking on her phone almost walk right on it. I saved her life."

photo Tracy Cataldo

"Eugene Hütz from Gogol Bordello and that guy from Monotonix are totally brothers from another planet..."

Before launching into Jane’s Addiction’s extreme sports anthem, “Mountain Song,” Perry Ferrell boldly thanked the crowd for making his “dick hard.” Rasped out in that slow, drawling whine, it was the sort of stage banter Ferrell could have said twenty years ago without a trace of humor. However, in 2009, when this particular 50-year old man started talking about his boner, it was like accidentally catching footage of a live surgical operation—all tendons, fibrous tissue, and weird, pulsing lumps laid out in such an unnecessary way. Pile that on top of Farrell’s snake-slither prance and the very existence of Dave Navarro and it was almost enough to get swept up in a “these guys are completely retarded” introspective nightmare. Thank god Ferrell shut the fuck up soon after.

To backtrack a bit, the band started with “Three Days,” the ten minute prog jam from “Ritual De Lo Habitual” that seemed wildly indulgent in 1991; only slightly less so now. The stage camera guy was really into zooming in on Navarro’s fingers—they were moving very fast, and of course everyone knows Sunday is Navarro’s “anything goes” diet day, so he probably ate ice cream or whatever. Anyway, that might have been the best song of their set; drummer Stephen Perkins deserves a lifetime achievement award for keeping these guys' boners in check.

After the band played through a quick run of “Whores,” “Ain’t No Right,” and “Pigs in Zen,” this awesome guy ran straight into where I was standing and started doing the most grunged-out head banging I’ve ever seen: wide-stanced with his hands on his knees, the guy was getting this impressive, full-rotation windmill motion. He was wearing hiking boots and wool socks and everything, and he asked to use my phone because his buddy would “never believe” he was seeing Jane’s Addiction right now.

Perry Ferrell then made the previously mentioned gaffe before the band started playing the hits. Of course the dopey resonance of hearing “Mountain Song” at the Gorge was hard to ignore; it’s a beautiful place to see a show, especially at dusk, and you could surely pull a righteous hang-glide stunt off those wide plateaus.

Soon after “Mountain Song,” my mental faculties took a dramatic turn for the worst. I think I drew a picture of Dave Navarro eating sweets, a poorly done representation of the fourth dimension, and a portrait of Travis Ritter. That being said, I was able to discern the songs “Been Caught Stealing,” “Ted, Just Admit It…,” “Stop!,” and set-closer, “Jane Says.”

As the set finished, I recalled our Canadian tent neighbors who had earlier in the day informed us that “if you wanna eat some hot ass, you gotta hit up the slumdog camps.” These guys didn’t even bother going to the show—they were just wandering around the free campsites, taking pictures of each other with their faces smashed up in girl’s butts. And what did I do instead? I spent my precious time contributing .001% of the energy required to get Perry Ferrell’s dick hard.

The question remains: Which of the wild, exposed beasts roaming around the Gorge over the weekend was the scariest of them all? Was it the guy with green junk and lactating nipples? Was it the singer of Monotonix, who pulled down his underwear and pretended to sing with his butt before diving back onto the crowd for the umpteenth time? Was it the guy from King Khan and the Shrines who tucked his package between his legs during the song "I Wanna Be a Girl"? Was it the man and woman having sex during the Decemberists?

IT'S TIME FOR A POLL!

Who was the scariest?

While we're at it, IT'S TIME FOR ANOTHER POLL!

Who would you be happiest to wake up next to in a tent?

Photos by Brandon Ivers, Christopher Nelson, Kelly O, and Piper Carr, respectively.