Smash Mouth at the Urbana Sweetcorn Festival

Last weekend, one of the events in my busy life was going to the Urbana Sweetcorn Festival. Actually, it was more of going to the Sweetcorn Festival to see Smash Mouth. But, even in going to Smash Mouth, I just wanted to hear one song—All Star. I’m not sure how much you know about Smash Mouth or All Star, but All Star was in the movie Shrek, my favorite movie series. For that reason I was pumped and very ready to fulfill my life goal to see them live in concert. 

This year’s experience with the sweetcorn festival started with myself getting lost trying to find my friends I was meeting. I stumbled through the crowd, half dialing my friend’s phone number and half watching to make sure I didn’t bump into anyone. I’m not a big fan of large crowds in close quarters where everyone is constantly moving in every direction. Maybe it’s just because I’m short and can’t see anything except the people on either side of me. Or, maybe it’s just that I don’t like having to navigate around people stopped in the middle of my walking path every 5 seconds. Nevertheless, I can tolerate it. Once I managed to meet up with my friends, we had about an hour until the concert started to hang out and explore the festival. I had money, but I didn’t really feel like getting anything. I just wanted to see Smash Mouth.

Some of you might not know how big a deal Shrek is to me, both in movie and meme form. When I was 4, I saw the movie for the first time while sitting on my older brother Elliot’s back. It was the only movie series my older brothers and parents would agree to go with me to the movie theatre for. But, in the more meme sense, Shrek became a big part of my life my freshman year. It’s now a common occurrence for people to immediately think of me whenever they seem something Shrek. It always makes me crack up. It’s a nice feeling when people see things and it reminds them of you.

The stage for Smash Mouth was huge and there was a large group of people waiting by the time we got there. Not too long after we got arrived, this group of college boys started chanting, “SHREK, SHREK, SHREK” and I realized that like me, a lot of people there just wanted to hear All Star. All of us grew up on Shrek. I felt old. Apparently Shrek came out in 2001—15 years ago. A couple more background songs played before Smash Mouth entered onto the stage. My first thought was, “Is that actually the singer?” I’d thought the singer was younger, but he looked to be in his mid 50’s. The synth player seemed to be having a great time jumping up down while playing. They kept playing songs I didn’t know, and no one else seemed to know either, but we all still waited anxiously for All Star and I was still extremely happy. I had my boyfriend with me, my friends with me, and I was watching Smash Mouth, so everything was A+ in my book. Then the college boys started getting a little more rowdy. I’m not sure if they had been drinking the hard liquor that the festival was selling or were just that into Shrek, but this one guy kept shouting “SIGN MY CHILDREN” after every few songs. My friends and I laughed at that and continued to entertain ourselves by taking pictures with a cob of corn on the ground in front of us.

The level of anxiousness and rowdiness kept increasing as more songs were played instead of All Star. There were more chants of “Shrek”, some of “Steve”, a few of “red flower blue thorns”, and random singing of All Star between songs and during other songs. I kinda felt bad for Smash Mouth, no one really cared about any of their other music. It must be horrible to be an artist who only has one song that people want to hear but have a ton of other songs to play. I didn’t even know the lead singer’s name was Steve before I went to the concert. But, then Steve asked everyone in the crowd if they liked to smoke weed and I realized that Steve might have partied a bit too hard before he went on stage. And, then a few minutes later he just left the stage. A couple of minutes after, I’m A Believer started playing and the crowd cheered. Everyone was distracted from Steve and sang along. There was a larger cheering as All Star emerged from the bridge in the song. The crowd went wild. I looked at my friends and laughed. It was the 4 minutes everyone was waiting for. I could feel the bass in my body and the sounds of everyone singing along around me. I knew every lyric. I feel a little bad, because I’m pretty sure I jumped on some people’s toes, but those 4 minutes were definitely some of the most memorable of my life. Sweaty and exhausted, the song ended and I ended up high fiving random people in the crowd. That’s when I remembered Steve. There were flashing lights near the tent. It seemed like an ambulance. A few seconds later a firetruck appeared with sirens blaring. Was Steve okay? Everyone started clearing out and within a few minutes the crowd had disappeared. “Thank you again for coming out to see Smash Mouth.” The announcer seemed like he was trying to be professional and ignore the fact that Steve was in an ambulance. We stuck around for a few minutes, but then departed as well. I’m still not sure what exactly happened to Steve. But, I’m assuming he’s still alive.

This might have been my last Sweetcorn Festival, and I’m a bit sad about that, but it’s definitely one I’ll remember forever.