Where Are the Dogs? | Boston Calling 2018

Ops Director Maddie Harris shares some thoughts from day 1 of Boston Calling 2018

The day started out with the sounds of Charly Bliss echoing from the will call line as we rushed to get to Big Thief before enough people over the height of 5’9” got in the way of my 5’4” perspective point. Although Big Thief’s tunes were cool, the 90 degree heat would soon take over most of my thoughts, except one: WHERE ARE THE DOGS.

“My body, on the edge of a heat stroke, gladly accepted the free frozen yogurt gifted to us by a tall Scandinavian woman…”

Of course there were a concerning lack of dogs at the festival itself, but what I was really searching for was IKEA’s debut of their very own veggie dog. We began to battle the heat and dust to make our way to the IKEA Activation Tent where the coveted dog resided. My body, on the edge of a heat stroke, gladly accepted the free frozen yogurt gifted to us by a tall Scandinavian woman I exclusively referred to as Mrs. IKEA, my guardian angel.

After the dogs were ingested and water pumped into my body, I began to feel like a human again. Even though the breeze brought pollen and dust directly into my corneas, I swear it felt heavenly. As the sun moved across the sky I began to worry less about getting a sunburn and more about sitting down and listening to the music. Still coated in a thin layer of sweat, I was able to sit down in the compacted grass just in time for Maggie Rogers. As she paraded across the stage her sounds were able to transport me right back to 2017.

As the night went on, there was a strong correlation to people’s heightened lack of respect for personal space and the increasing number of beer cans strewn across the ground. The older crowd migrated away from Paramore at the Blue Stage to a more mellow performance from The National. Maggie Rogers again took to the stage to perform a duet with The National for “I Need My Girl.” The ferris wheel started to light up in tune to the music as people reached for their significant others to round off the day with some heavy PDA. The crowd got a bit more rowdy as The Killers took to the stage to perform the millennial anthem of “Mr. Brightside.” As much as we enjoyed getting nostalgic to the 2004 mega-hit, we promptly got the hell out of the festival to secure an Uber that didn’t cost any of us to sell one of our kidneys so we could recover for the next day.