Friday Night in Williamsburg: Faith No More OSA Benefit Concert at East River State Park (as seen and heard from Bushwick Inlet Park)

We really enjoyed the music of Faith No More at tonight's benefit concert for the irreplaceable Open Space Alliance held at East River State Park. The weather was perfect, the band's sound was superb, the waterfront setting was romantic and intimate, and there was good food and drink and good friends all around us.

We had what seemed like the best seats in the house, at the soccer fields of Bushwick Inlet Park, just north of where the show was.

We made our way down Kent Avenue before 8 p.m. past the scalpers (they were at the Bedford Avenue station too) holding up tickets

and the main entrance

and the people at the Mexican food cart, some of whom were probably going to try to listen from the street

to Bushwick Inlet Park's soccer fields, where three or four games were being played, one with really little kids, maybe four and five years old. We didn't know if we'd hear anything, but the view was quite arresting, and if it wasn't the World Cup, it was fun to watch good soccer players.

Some people sat on the concrete ledges (suprisingly comfy) at the south edge of the park by the river, from where there was a pretty good view of the stage.

People brought food and drink from Sunac, and we don't know what the vibes were like at the concert, but at the soccer fields the mood was festive but low-key.


Behind the concrete, there was a good place for drinks. Um, soft drinks, we presume. We don't drink, but Busch beer is like root beer, right? (We did learn that big bottles of Hawaiian Punch don't always contain Hawaiian Punch.)

Others stayed at the four or five real benches for soccer moms and dads at the north end of the park, where one group who'd biked over also were having a little picnic.

The sound system came over loud and clear from the first words onstage. After a nice introduction from someone who said he was Rudy Giuliani and had wanted to turn the area into a big sanitation facility before community activists from Open Space Alliance had beaten him and created East River State Park, there was a truly terrible comedian who made a lot of vomiting noises and told awful jokes like these (we apologize for printing them but it's necessary to capture their true imbecility:

Why did Justin Bieber ejaculate on his hot fudge sundae?
Because his managers won't let him ejaculate on his fans until he's eighteen.

Why was Courtney Love denied admission to an airline flight?
Because one of the passengers was allergic to nuts.

What's the difference between urinating on the American flag and urinating on Courtney Love?
It would be wrong to urinate on the American flag.

Mercifully, he was finally offstage and we heard the sounds of "Reunited," Faith No More's opening number, which never sounded better. Afterwards, there was some "Brooklyn!" talk, but not much, just good music. Morning after update: spotcoffee has posted some videos (looking at the camera movement causes us a little motion sickness):

Anyway, we hung around for almost the whole show as the sky darkened and the soccer players started leaving.

Even the restrooms at Bushwick Inlet Park were convenient and relatively non-disgusting.

It was really a perfect evening.

We could see the lights and occasionally a really, really tiny Mike Patton or someone moving.

The 20 or 25 of us there to listen to the music enjoyed it; most of the soccer players didn't seem to notice, however.

There's another Faith No More show - this was their first East Coast concert in a decade - on July 5 at East River State Park, or for the ticketless, at a park nearby.