Idolator Sweats It Out at Whartscape

This weekend I said goodbye to Baltimore at Wham City’s second annual Whartscape festival–three days of peace, love, music, and the kind of shirt-soaking, pants-sticking-to-your-extremities heat known only by those on vision quests in Native American sweat lodges. (Or those trapped in lofts with 400 other people and no open windows.) Featuring over 30 bands, including outside-of-Baltimore faves like Dan Deacon, Spank Rock, and Beach House and out-of-towners like Soft Circle and Yeasayer, this year’s Whartscape was suddenly big news in the recently Baltimore-infatuated blog world, leading to some folks offering up to $50 for tickets that originally went for $10. Given how popular our “Idolator leaves its cave and goes to the Pitchfork Music Festival” post was, Maura was all like, “Hey, so, you should take a camera with you and snap some of these nutty, unkempt urchins in action.” Instead I did one better and took photographer/Idolator pal Frank Hamilton along with me to capture the fun. (That left both my hands free for beer.) I’m going to miss this dirty city, to be sure, but there are worse ways to say goodbye than through 72 hours’ worth of music.