It was the best of times, it was the worst of times. Some of my experiences at CMJ were wonderful, others were downright embarrassing, but these are the five moments that stand out most during the festival’s whirlwind of activities, in no particular order:

Time: During the encore of Q-Tip’s set
Place: Blender Theater, standing at the bar
Moment: After I glanced at a guy in the back of the audience three times to confirm whether he was actually the DJ from A Tribe Called Quest, Ali Shaheed Muhammad looked back at me and casually told his girlfriend, “That boy’s jocking me.”

Time: Minutes after some dude who was rambunctiously hanging from a pipe dropped on-stage and seconds after someone in the audience chased a member in the band with a kick drum for pouring a beer on his head.
Place: The Delancey
Moment: Anarchy became unity during the rollicking eight-minute frat-party singalong of “All the Tired Horses” at the Narrator’s set. As three microphones made their way around the crowd, drunken strangers put their arms around each other and bellowed the anthem’s two lines at the dingy ceiling wholeheartedly, hoping it would never end.

Time: Just after Arrington de Dionyso, lead singer of Old Time Relijun, mike-checked with some Popeye-like throat singing.
Place: The Knitting Factory, towards the back
Moment: When the wispy-bearded frontman dispensed a few drops of what we’ll call naturopathic medicine (but was probably LSD) onto his bandmates’ tongues from a small brown vial, right before launching into a psychedelic no-wave freak out in his white dress shirt and black spandex biker shorts.

Time: Ten minutes after I fought desperately with a pushy photographer who really wanted my primo spot so he could take pictures of Japanther in action.
Place: The Knitting Factory, front and center.
Moment: Nearly getting kicked in the mouth by a crowd-surfing Mexican wrestler as I shouted along with “River Phoenix.”

Time: During the Yo Majesty show, three minutes after a bystander with a Jheri curl in a leather jacket asked what the hell they were singing about.
Place: The Highline
Moment: Learning that the “B” in Jwl B. stands for boobs.