The lost hacky sack was a small peril for the birth of a new music festival venue, a coup for down-but-not-out Atlantic City and the first major pop festival here since the storied 1969 Atlantic City Pop Festival at the racetrack, two weeks before Woodstock.
The caravan brought more than 55,000 people over its first two days (with an additional 30,000 expected Sunday), a lift to a town still stung by the loss of Miss America, the beloved institution that ran away to Vegas. Hey, who needs Miss A when you have DMB?
Indeed, the DMB hordes left their mark on a mostly bemused town with more than just a lost hacky sack, streaming over the closed-to-cars Albany Avenue bridge after the show in the joyous sea of people headed toward the ocean and sucking late-night nitrous balloons as residents such as Victor Saragosso, 65, watched on a folding chair. Police later reported multiple confiscated nitrous tanks.
"They're all high," Saragosso said. "It's in the balloons. It's the American way."
The festival turned the huge site, framed by water, windmills, Trump, and Borgata, into a lively three-staged festival with craft beers, Jose Garces food, eco-exhibits, dozens of bands, a sea breeze, and a pretty sunset during DMB's set.
The event turned the venerable Knife & Fork at Atlantic and Pacific into a $2 Budweiser beer stop, and a Boardwalk lot into a loopy tie-dyed tailgating venue.
The Carolina Chocolate Drops, an old-timey quartet, claimed the distinction of playing the first-ever encore at Bader Field, "Sourwood Mountain."
"It's great. Never been here before," singer Rhiannon Giddens said. "It's nice to see such a green space. Great use for it."
