Despite traditional 7Fest activities, the first Spacefest raged with a steady abundance of guests throughout Saturday and late into the evening. Over a dozen groups played the event, but the fest truly became complete in its booze, baby toys, acid trips, overexposure, two visits from the cops and plenty of mud.

I arrived to the show and chilled on the couches for awhile, waiting to see The Sneaky Mister, who were pretty alright. They played for a long time, but hell, they had to go first. The backyard was already bumpin’ with forty or more guests, smoking cigarettes and downing beers.

When Manor Animals played, this guy on acid was freaking out, shaking his limbs and head, his freckled, bare back grinning to the sun. The crowd seemed in consensus with him, bopping and grooving along. I traipsed the backyard for material and ended up talking to this guy on acid for like an hour. He said he was having pretty much the best time ever and told me about some rad jazz prodigy from Berklee who scats and plays stand up bass at the same time. I told him the Rearranger EP is boss and he needs to get on it.

Spooktober’s set included a “special rooftop performance” in which guitarist Brian Rudell played a tiny toy key-tar gee-tar-I-don’t-know-what. He then joined bassist Miguel Evanowsky on the porch for the remainder of the set. The mic kept falling over, so some hippie dude functioned as the group’s mic stand for the last ten minutes of the set. Later, I ran into Brian and told him I couldn’t tell if the little key thing he was playing is discernible as a “legit instrument or baby toy.” Brian tells me it is a “legit baby toy.”

By the time Millions of Michael Jordans played, the crowd had shifted to the basement. I whipped out my camera to snap a few photos, but the humidity was so densely ingrained in the atmosphere that wiping the lens of my camera didn’t even help. All of the photos look like they were also covered in sweat. MoMJ sounded like a more schizophrenic Octoberfist with less vocals and matching outfits. I could get down to it and my friend Josh was so stoked on them he bought their CD.

I kept disappearing between my house and the Spacement to refill my Koozie cooler and whatnot, and by 10 p.m. I was so lethargic from all the booze, the sun and the rain that I started to crash. I popped two caffeine pills and downed them with beer, feeling like a total old lady.

When I got back to the Spacement, the caffeine pills weren’t working so I lay on the couch in the living room and listened to the set through the floor, exhausted and not into the band enough to walk downstairs. It was weird to hear a live show with no heat/people/visuals, just the sounds pulsing through the floor and bass buzzing through the couch. Several people asked if I was ok. I told them I was excellent.

Meanwhile Spacement tenant Ryan Greer was getting one verbal bitch-slap after another from bands and DJs – as sets were pushed back further, the possibility of including more sets diminished. This timing issue may have worked out better if all the bands had actually played for 20 minutes instead of for 40 minutes, but the length of any given set was certainly not within Greer’s control.

Right after two musicians told Greer they were pissed, two drunken young ladies began whining, “where are the Deeeejaaaays?”

The idiots and their friends who demanded DJs seemed content with Blithe Field’s performance, although I wish most of them knew how to be quiet. Whale Zombie started just shy of 1 a.m. but were only one minute into their new song before tenant Andrew Logan rushed the stage and shouted, “You have to stop – the cops are here.”

So, the music abruptly stopped and guests began leaking out of and away from the house. I was not in any rush, though.

One Athens constant I can appreciate: No matter where I am or how much alcohol I have consumed, there is always someone heinously and visibly more intoxicated. My girl Michelle and I sat on the porch, and watched a longhaired shirtless fellow lean against the neighbor’s house to relieve himself, but he got tired and fell asleep with his hand on the wall for a few minutes. The dude then walked to the neighbor’s darkened porch and whips it out once more to “pee” over the railing, then proceeds to “pee” at multiple locations on the porch. Michelle and I were eating this up, although we were wondering how long it would take the neighbors to come outside and call the cops (again).

I drunkenly dub Ryan Greer “Champ of the Evening” because seriously, he was so apologetic and patient as one person after another complained about things he could not remedy, but he still listened. I told him so and decided to head back to my place. As I hit the concrete, Chris Lute informed Greer of another responsibility.

“I don’t want to burden you with this,” Lute says, “But that guy has been on your neighbor’s porch with his dick out.”