Yes, it’s a week later than everyone else’s. Sue me. After all the music, all the insanity, all the heat of a music festival, I wanted a week to just digest everything so I can collect my thoughts. I’m going to do things different. Instead of writing a big old entry, I thought I’d break this into a highlights and low lights, which really seems pretty logical if you think about it.
Highlights
1. Hands Down Best Set of the Weekend: LCD Soundsystem.
One of the most anticipated sets of the weekend, James Murphy and Co. did not disappoint. Walloping the crowd over the head with the perfect mix of hits like “Drunk Girls,” “All My Friends” and “Daft Punk Is Playing At My House” with tracks from the band’s latest (and supposedly final) album “This Is Happening,” LCD played the headliner role perfectly. People were dancing, kids were dancing, teens going nuts, even the older crowd got their butts moving. They got every person there participating and wanting more, which is what I think headliners should be doing. Graciously thanking the crowd for their support and the festival (employees and stagehands), if this is indeed LCD Soundsystem’s swan song, they’re definitely going out on top.
2. Sunday’s Balance Stage Lineup
Known as the “B” Stage for obvious reasons, this is usually the stage where smaller bands are relegated to, which is ironic, considering many artists even on the two main stages are small bands, who may or may not even have an album out. The “B” Stage lineup on Sunday was arguably as strong as either of the main stages, as it featured many of the top buzz bands completely leaving it all on the stage for their 45 minute sets. Personally, seeing a young upstart band busting their humps on stage trying to make it is invigorating. It’s what music is about, seeing the passion and dedication on stage. Best Coast, Local Natives, Surfer Blood, and Neon Indian gives everyone hope that despite the large amount of garbage out there, great music is on its way. (NOTE: Yes, I am aware I left out Sleigh Bells, for reasons I will discuss later).
3. The Rock of Titus Andronicus
Every festival needs some rock, and Titus Andronicus brought it on Saturday, giving everyone a heavy dose of rock anthems and fist pumping. The sweltering heat and humidity did nothing to slow down the frenzied crowd. Featuring a few American flags, a lot of sweat, and some heavy anthemic rock, Titus Andronicus delivered the first great performance of Saturday.
4. Robyn/Broken Social Scene
Robyn brought the dance funk on Friday night. She was the first act to really get things going on Friday. Fun, vibrant, high energy, it was hard to not at least bob your head during her dance friendly set.
Despite some technical issues, Broken Social Scene played a headlining worth set opening for Modest Mouse. There’s something to be said for a band like Broken Social Scene, who have spent a number of years honing their craft, sharing the stage with other notable indie musicians as well as local musicians. This should’ve been the Friday night headliner. People were having fun, singing a long, eating up everything BSS was tossing at them. But alas, they were not, which I’ll get into in the lowlights.
5. FLATSTOCK
Yes, posters. Every year they are one of the highlights. If you’re into poster art like me, you’ll be dazzled by some of the art that is available for purchase. While I didn’t make any purchases this year, it wasn’t because I didn’t want to. The selection was just so great I couldn’t decide on what to buy.
Lowlights
1. Modest Mouse for Disappointing Headliner
Broken Social Scene. Wolf Parade. Robyn. Titus Andronicus. Big Boi. Hell maybe even Surfer Blood. Any of those bands would’ve been a better selection to headline Friday. I’m not the biggest Modest Mouse fan, but I am familiar enough with their catalog to know their hits. This set was probably for the biggest of BIGGEST diehard MM fans. Even the fans behind me, who were bigger fans than me, thought the set was pretty lame. Don’t get me wrong, there were no technical glitches, they sounded pretty good. But when the vast majority of the crowd is just standing there waiting for you to bust out some hits, and then you don’t, you can’t help but feel letdown. They could’ve had one of the best moments of the festival playing “Float On,” but they didn’t. Instead, they barely looked interested, and spent several moments between songs chastising the crowd and the festival itself. Really? Is this what you want your headliner to do? The answer is an emphatic NO.
2. Raekwon’s Abbreviated Set
It’s one thing to have tech issues. Everyone does. It happens. But when it’s because your laptop won’t boot up, that’s on you. Don’t blame the sound and tech guys because your DJ can’t load his laptop, which you did on stage. Here’s a tip, show up on time, work out your issues, and maybe you won’t go on 20 minutes late and let everybody down. Another tip, use a live band like Big Boi, whose set went off without a hitch. This had the chance to be a classic hip-hop set, but ultimately fell flat, and Raekwon has no one to blame but himself.
3. Sleigh Bells “Live” Performance
First, I love Sleigh Bells. Their disc is awesome, and I think each song has the potential to be a big hit. But there have been reports out there of a poor live show. And it showed. The first song, Alexis Krauss was clearly out of tune. Then for the next batch of songs, she was in tune. Why? BECAUSE SHE WAS LIPSYNCING. What the fuck? They closed out an awesome day on the B Stage with a lipsyncing performance. EXTREMELY disappointing. And why did I read so many reviews saying how awesome they were? Because they weren’t. Which was sad, because they had A LOT of people there, and to remedy your out of tune vocals by lipsyncing just blows. It’s a cop out. Either learn to sing, or tune your instruments down a register to match your vocals you can somewhat sound like a live band.
4. Panda Bear’s “Set”
Whoever thought it was a good idea to schedule Panda Bear BEFORE LCD Soundsystem should be fired. I get it, Panda Bear rarely tours, and almost everyone loves Animal Collective, so I get the draw. But his set brought the festival to a screeching hault after Titus Andronicus, Wolf Parade, and the John Spencer Blues Explosion did all they could to breathe some life. It was slow, it was weird, it was definitely too long, on the video screen was some awesomely bad visualation vid that would make your visualiation mode on iTunes laugh. Seriously, good booking, horrendous scheduling.
To close, you’ll notice nothing about Pavement. I stuck around for a little bit of Pavement. I’ve tried hard, REALLY hard to like Pavement, and I just don’t, and I won’t get into why now because that could be another entry altogether. But from what I read, they put on an ok set. To paraphrase Jim Derogatis, “They weren’t as bad as I thought they’d be.” I mean really, as highly anticipated a performance as it was, when the top music critic says something like that, I’m pretty sure I didn’t miss much.
Now I can clear my head and mentally prep for the beast known as Lollapalooza, which for me this year includes the Devo/Dirty Projectors preshow, and The Walkmen, The Soft Pack, and Phoenix aftershows on top of the festival. I’m tired just thinking about it.
PD
