Music Midtown Day 2: Naked in Piedmont Park
Dealing with 52,000 people in Piedmont Park might have been a little stressful, but hearing that many voices sing along to Pearl Jam made it memorable
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The second day of Music Midtown 2012 was a commercial success, but physically taxing. Ludacris bragged to the crowd at around 5 p.m. that 52,000 tickets had been sold, and it soon became clear just how that amount of people packed into Piedmont Park actually feels. Like a lot of mammoth music festivals, everyone stayed in a state of constant flux, fumbling into each other and muttering “excuse me,” because there literally was not enough room to stand still.
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In spite of the craziness, bright sparks flared, sometimes due to pop culture signals crossing and jamming. The songwriter turned performer Laura Pergolizzi (who goes by L.P.) belting out Beyonce’s “Halo” was one of them. She’s worked for divas like Rihanna and Christina Aguilera, but has plenty of outsider diva punch of her own. Tipsy men in Polo shirts dancing to happy hardcore served over the hook from “Sweet Child of Mine” was another — that came courtesy Girl Talk, a DJ whose mixes barely, but almost always, work.
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- Perry Julien
- Luda
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Ludacris had better success riling people up with “Get Low” and “When We Were Young” than Garbage with “Stupid Girl.” Which was confusing given that Pearl Jam was headlining. Much of Ludacris’ set consisted of DJ’ing samples of artists ranging from Usher to Nirvana.
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Florence and the Machine very well could have been the headliner, at least in terms of performance. Florence Welch’s set started off with technical problems, which she seemed pretty mortified about. She compared it to that dream where you wake up naked in school.