Thursday, June 25, 2015

Firefly Festival, June 18-19, 2015

Day One (Thursday) – first impression: I'm at the Firefly Festival, learning that most festivals pale in comparison to Austin City Limits. It's day one and I'm contemplating skipping half the festival, especially if it rains again. Mud pits; undersized, low-slung stages for the crowd size with too few, too small screens; outdated app; inadequate signage; poor lighting near dangerous terrain at night; hidden port-a-potties; no frozen non-alcoholic drinks; no labeling of vegan food; very drunk 20-somethings; not the best lineup; not enough water refill stations; horrible mud pit choke points between stages. I'm scared of what Saturday brings when the other 2/3 of the crowd arrives. ‪#‎fireflysucks‬‬

My friend Jill described the Firefly lineup as very alt-nation, but all of us that went are more XMU. That difference in taste skews my perception of the performances. The only acts I remember from that horrible first day were Grizfolk and the Kooks. I saw others, but none of them made any impression, and that was before I started taking notes.

Grizfolk had their name big on the screen behind them, which always makes me happy – festival and opener bands should never assume you know their name. The lead singer cursed a lot, and not because it made sense to do so. I think he must have thought that the audience would like the cursing. It made him sound stupid.  I honestly remember nothing about the music.  Before I go to a music festival, I make a spreadsheet of all the acts and preview each of them, keeping notes. The purpose is to not miss an awesome act just because I haven’t heard the name before. My preview of Grizfolk was “boring pop.”  I stand by that description.  According to Dana, we also say Ryn Weaver, Panama Wedding, and Young Rising Sons that day.  I took photos of these bands, but I really don't remember them:




The Kooks sounded wonderful. I’ve got to give it to Firefly for hiring the best sound techs I’ve ever come across. There wasn’t a single performance all weekend where I thought the bass was overwhelming the vocals. That’s a very rare and appreciated experience.  The Kooks are British alt rock. (“Bad Habit” is the biggest hit right now.) We were close enough to see, but there was nothing special in the performance that stood out. Just fun, danceable, sing-along rock.

The forecast for Friday was a little hot, but no rain at all and some breeze, which was promising as we left the gorgeous AirBNB house we were staying in. (SO much better than glamping!)  We arrived at the festival and were immediately impressed by the effort they had put into mud abatement overnight. The worst problem – the path between the two sides of the park – had mud bulldozed to the size and gravel laid down, creating a very nice walkway. Other areas had some extra mulch, and over the course of the weekend, plywood and wood shavings appeared in other locations. I give it to them for trying. Friday, there were INSANE lines for the water stations – they needed about 4 times as many stations.

By Saturday, they’d jerry-rigged about double the number of faucets. Still not enough, but they were aware and responsive, which counts for a lot.  They never did fix the signage for the port-a-potties. The problem was that they used the same color green fence covers around the restrooms as they did the perimeter fence, so it all blended together visually from a distance, and restrooms and water were not on the maps.  I was still discovering restroom locations late Saturday. That’s ridiculous. They should have used neon yellow or something contrasting so you could tell where they were at a distance. The lawn stage toilets were in a prime spot near the stage that was always crowded, so most people couldn’t reach them – bad planning. They also needed more hand sanitizer stations – the ones in the port-a-potties were usually empty.

Another permanent problem: the screens by the stages were much too small and placed too low to the ground. The people in the back couldn’t see anything. And all the stages were fairly low to the ground. Put them higher so that people can see the acts over the crowd and the totems!  This part of my review is going to be emailed to Firefly. Maybe they will improve, but I won’t be coming back to this festival, mostly because of the crowd.

Food: Wok on the Wild Side and Tico’s Tacos were my staples. The blackberry lemonade at Tico’s was my crack all weekend – mostly for the ice. I also went to the place that sold salad and giant hunks of watermelon – yum! Loved the veggies in the Wok noodle stir-fry. Loved the pork carnitas at Tico’s.

About the crowd: I think that Dewey Beach must have been pretty empty this weekend, because all the drunk, doped up college kids were with me at Firefly. A couple of the housemates we stayed with commented that at 25 years, they felt old for this crowd. My peeps of the middle-aged persuasion were few and far between. Plus: the half-naked crowd often had pretty bodies that could pull off half-naked. (And I mean that literally. I saw girls with just pasties on top. Plenty of men in just speedos, too. One girl in a thong bikini.) Minus: pot smoke and vomit. Dover, DE is also the middle of nowhere. That’s why we had such a hard time finding a place to stay other than camping. Plenty of people drove an hour or more each way each day just because there are no hotels near, and the town itself is run down with lots of vacant store fronts and dilapidated homes. That’s a shame, because there’s some pretty architecture in that town.

Since I’m on a roll, I’m going to comment on random memories. I wanted to have ribbons to give out for best totem, most courageous fashion choices, most festive, etc. The totem award would have gone to Ross, who wrote his name in glow in the dark tubes and held it up on a stick. You could see through it to the stage, but couldn’t miss it. There were lots of 20-somethings that seemed to misunderstand the purpose of the totems (finding your friends in a big crowd.) Instead, they used them to wave to the singer, blocking the view of everyone behind them. There were lots of face cutout totems that blocked views very effectively, and one jellyfish totem that pissed me off. I barely saw one of the bands because it was so big and blocked so much of the view.

 
A few of the courageous fashion choices included crochet afghan capris and a paper mache cat headdress. There was one death metal dude in full leathers in a head index above 100. There was a gay guy in speedos with a photo of a cat on his crotch. That was probably the closest a pussy every got to his penis. There were a LOT of cat clothes, on the guys and the girls, both. There was the happy drunk boy and his sober friend/babysitter who joined Jill and me for lunch. One lady with a rocking body wore the perfect sundress – casual, light weight, flattering. Win. Others wore fancy lace and couldn’t sit down because of the mud. Fail. There was this mismatched couple that drew my eye – a gorgeous, youngish, statuesque dark black women in skimpy outfits and a grizzled old white man with a leg brace that looked former military to me. He was smiling like he won the lottery, staring at her. I wondered if he’d hired her, or if he was her sugar daddy. There was an old dude with awesome tats, and he was standing near a guy with a romance-cover worthy chest. Might have even had a nice face, but I can’t remember anything but that chest. Wowzers! There were lots of pretty muscles on display, and some not so pretty guts, but mostly better than average. One nice thing about the party-hard camping and pot smoking: no one gave me a hard time about napping or reading a book in the back of the audience during a so-so act. They were all napping too. I dyed my hair pink for this festival and was in good company – tons of others had dyed their hair too.

So, onward to the acts.  First up Friday was Phebe Ryan. I’ve never heard of her – she’s a pop girl who went viral with a cover mash up of R. Kelly’s Ignition and Miguel’s Do You. She had green hair and took a video of the audience to show to her mom. We saw the last part of her act for Dana because Dana is a fan. I thought she was unremarkable.







Stetson Rose was my second stop on Friday. It was an acoustic set in the Coffee House tent. She had a sweet, nice voice. Typical inward-looking girl music done well. Not my thing.



Next was Clean Bandit at the main stage. The vocalist was an awesome British black lady who had a big personality. I loved the use of strings in this electronic dance group. This act was more interesting than most. The black lady is not in their publicity photos, so I wonder if she might have been hired for the tour.






Knox Hamilton was next up on the Lawn stage. This is a band fronted by a long-bearded dude who looks like he belongs in a folk ban, singing like he’s in the Bee Gees. The had an electronic dance sound and all wore black on the black stage (a pet peave of mine.) Work It Out is the song you might know from them. Pretty standard alt rock.




We tried the “beercade” for the air conditioning. I don’t know why they put beer in the name, and calling it air conditioned might have been a bit of exaggeration.  All the game were free though, and it was shaded, so we tried dance revolution while cooling off. The machine told us we’d all FAILED. Not going to be winning any dance-offs anytime soon. Bummer.

Wolf Alice was next. It was an English band with a harder rock edge, okay in the background, but we didn’t stay long.

Manchester Orchestra was exactly the same as the last time I saw them. They just stand there and sound awesome. I listened while resting in the shade. The inadequate screens made it impossible for me to see anything.



Sylvan Esso was a highlight of the festival. They played on the Backyard stage, and I couldn’t help but comment that the dude in the duo got so lucky when Amelia agreed to work with him. She owned that stage and the audience. Fun, vibrant, confident, engaging – she’s the bomb. She told the audience that she practices dancing by seducing herself in front of the mirror and they should too. Then maybe they would sometime be performing in front of a thousand people in a full spanx onsie. She had impressive platform shoes and still MOVED in sinuous, unexpected ways. She’s not perfect bodied or classically beautiful, but it didn’t matter – she was sexy. Great voice and music, too. It made me more of a fan to see this show.

There was a very festival moment at his act where a college kid asked the beer vendor for some ice from his empty bucket and the beer vendor offered him an ice bucket challenge – the kid was very into it. I loved that vendor for it.

Walk on the Moon was next for me. It made me cringe to hear the pretty boy front man appeal to the crowd for positive energy. So young and naïve, so hippy-dippy. Shut Up And Dance With Me sounded good, though.

Bear Hands was one of the acts I was looking forward to most, but they turned out to be unremarkable live. They do a dancy alt rock, like most of the acts at this festival. The jellyfish totem was my enemy at this set.

Awolnation came out in white outfits, which is a plus for me, but this was the only act were I thought the sound quality was bad, though in retrospect, it could have also been the singer’s voice was bad. I left quickly to go see Big Data, which was a HORRIBLE disappointment. They didn’t use the screen behind the band for Siri, and she makes the show fun. Big Data doesn’t have good vocals. Epic fail.

Odesza used recorded music and appeared as silouettes against a pretty screen. I didn’t stay. I wonder if Amelia from Sylvan Esso made a guest appearance for her song with them?

Morrissey was poorly attended. He went on stage a little late after a film montage intro that felt out of touch and inspired by a cool-factor that was dated a couple decades. He looked his age and had changed some arrangements, perhaps for his voice.

All the people who weren’t at Morrissey were at the small Forest stage for Glass Animals.  It was packed. I couldn’t get even a glimpse of the band. They were bass-heavy on some songs, and sounded good for others.

We finished Friday with most of Modest Mouse’s set. I had been picturing a different look for the lead singer, and had no idea the band had so many members.  Was it 7 people on stage? We were pretty far away, so it was hard to tell. There were fun songs I loved and some jamming that bored me. We left a little early to avoid the max exodus.



Firefly Festival, June 20, 2015

Saturday started off with Andrew McMahon in the Wilderness, a singer-songwriter, on the main stage. I don’t really care for his music, but he was a great performer. He stood on the piano, entered the crowd, sent parachutes into the crowd, and used charges to pop giant helium balloons that dumped confetti on the crowd. As Dana pointed out, nothing original or expensive, but still tons more entertaining tham 98% of all acts. Dana loves his song “Cecilia and the Satellite.”

Next act was Griswolds – and I’m feeling déjà vu as I type this. I honestly don’t remember anything about them, but my notes make them sound almost exactly like Grizfolk from Thursday: too many f-bombs, endorcing drunkenness, same stage, name in big letters on the screen behind them. The only difference: Griswolds are from Australia.

Next up: Phoebe Ryan (again.) She has green hair and is famous for a cover mashup of R. Kelly’s “Ignition” and Miguel’s “Do You.” I’ve never heard either of those originals, and hadn’t heard her cover until Dana emailed me the link. (Where does she get all the pop? Eek! Bleh!) I thought she was an entirely average female pop singer. It was in the coffee house, but not acoustic. At least there was shade. It was packed, so I sat almost under a table and read.

Gary Clark Jr. is a black dude who does Texas blues rock with extremely fuzzy guitar. I hate his sound, but if you like that kind of music, he’s talented. I could not see the stage from where I was, so I have no idea how he performed.

Night Terrors of 1927 were an unexpected joy to watch. I’m not a huge fan of their music. They are good enough, but I don’t know any of their songs well enough to butcher in the shower. The lead singer has a big, soaring voice, but it was his entertaining banter that endeared him to me and the rest of the crowd. At one point he threw away the line “It would be an honor to have my heart broken by you” to introduce a song. Another time, he offered the HUG ME sign hairy dude a big hug after the show, then commented on how the sweat would make a slurping noise as they pulled apart. A little funny, a little wry, altogether endearing. Also loved the smile on the keyboardist.

Betty Who was another winner. I went for Dana, who is a huge fan. Betty was vivacious and engaging. She has big girl curves and a Marilyn Monroe face with platinum blond hair. She invited the crowd to dance with her and we all did – her energy was contagious. At one point, she took her shirt off and just wore her black bra. Pretty voice with great range, but uninspired lyrics. A fun, dancy pop show with a lot of gay men in the audience.






Matt and Kim were on the main stage, and I was WAY far in the back, but I could still see their 1,000 watt smiles. They have the exact same act as always, but it’s still not old. They curse and saw outrageously sexual things while looking disparately wholesome. Kim does the booty dance. They send confetti into the crowd and run around on platforms on stage like hyped-up monkeys. (Bonus – they were high enough to see!)



I caught a bit of Alison Wonderland, who is just another loud DJ. Her set continued FOREVER.

Foster the People had no personality, as usual, but my friends were excited to see them and got some good photos. The lead singer always looks like a deer caught in headlights to me. I found them boring and left quickly.

I caught the folk trip Wind and Wave next. I thought they were average, and the crowd was tiny. I did love their retro-sounding song “Raising Hands Raising Hell Raise 'Em High.”

I ended up in the Coffee House again, mostly to have an easy place to meet up with my friends, and I’m pretty sure the Milo Greene show I stumbled into was a late addition to the schedule. I texted that I was alone in the coffee house with my twelve friends – it really was rather empty. (There was some confusion-at first I thought I was seeing Echosmith because I looked at the wrong day’s schedule.) The set was beautiful and entirely acoustic vocals and guitars. I videotaped one song.

Trish came to meet me to go to Kid Cudi together. We were both hugely disappointed.  I happen to love Kid Cudi, but I didn’t realize he can’t sing. He missed SO many notes – so sad. He did have quite a light show, though.

We were evacuated during our traverse to see Kings of Leon. We joined a flood of people headed to the parking lot. I particularly liked the lightening and the spontaneous sing-alongs. We got back to the car and waited to confirm that Dana had found her way to our car or Jill’s. She eventually found us just as it started to pour rain, with a 17 year old in tow who was deathly afraid of lightening and needed to find her dad to get a ride home. Trish did some fancy Frogger-style driving to bypass most of the line out of the parking lot, then we took our teen refugee to the meeting place and waited for her dad to arrive. We still beat Jill home. She was more polite and waited her turn in the car line.

Firefly Festival, June 21, 2015

Sunday began sunny and humid, but without the threat of rain. The grounds were in much better shape than any of us expected. There were some mud pits, but not the majority of the terrain.

The first act we saw was Prinze George. I wanted to stop by because their song “Victor” was one of the few I liked from the free Noisetrade mixed tape. The lead singer had pretty hair and a white dress on. All the band members wore white, actually, and there was some racial diversity in their group. They also had a female drummer. It looked like at least three of the moms of band members were standing in the wings, watching, which was cute. I found their sound good, but unmemorable.

I heard Jeffrey James for only one song in the coffee house. My preview description was bluesy male voice with throwback arrangements. He was soulful sounding in person with a nice voice, but I didn’t hear much. Mostly, I was in the coffee house for the shade.

I passed by Max Frost (neo-soul from a white dude from Austin). He was very energetic and wore white, so I could see him from a distance. I don’t like soul, so I didn’t like his music.




Børns was next up. This was the shocker of the day – so impressive! Both Dana and Jill recognized the name for “that song I hear all the time.” Best guess is “10,000 Emerald Pools,” but I swear I haven’t ever noticed it was playing, and we all listen to the same few radio stations. He’s got a crazy high, beautiful voice – like soprano high – and a metrosexual, feminine-leaning look about him, though he didn’t read as necessarily gay to me. Complicated, yes, but I couldn’t tell if he was bi, gay, straight, trans – his whole persona is quite confusing. I think that’s the point. I loved his cover of “It’s My Party and I’ll Cry If I Want To.” His movements were big and flamboyant. He had pretty hair. Apparently, he’s famous because Taylor Swift plugged him on Twitter.

Steve Akoi was next. EDM to the MAX should be his motto. He did a lot of self-promotion in his lights show – his face and name were on the screen graphic constantly. Apparently, his shtick is to throw cake and champagne on the crowd. There were people with “Cake Me” signs.

Falls was an Australian folk duo that I confused with Luluc. They don’t sound identical, but I swear they look like the same people and one of the stories from the Falls singer sounded very similar to a story the Luluc singer told, plus they are both from Australia. Take a look at the comparison: Luluc vs. Falls.  Freaky, right? Falls used more male vocals than Luluc.

Cold War Kids sounded good, but Jill wanted to move on and we were very far from the stage, so I don’t have much to say about that act.

Benjamin Booker was really good, and I got a great photo, but I couldn’t take the heat so I listened from the coffee house in between sound checks while napping. If you don’t know Booker, you should. My preview descriptions was “Garage rock. So cool. The real deal.” I saw him at Austin City Limits and fell in love.





I missed the electronic set of Broods because they started late, and I wanted to see most of Hozier. Hozier had a HUGE crowd and I was in the back. I liked the cover song he did for “funsies” best: Warren G's “Regulate.”






Raury is a critic’s darling, and citied by a lot of artists as an inspiration for the way he melds genres. He’s only 19 years old from Atlanta. His act was very interactive and self-promoting, which is good, but he talked a bit too much. Eventually, I just wanted him to shut up and sing. He encouraged hugging and talking to strangers next to you, which was nice, except the sleazy drunk shirtless men had a funny glint in their eyes after he said that. Sound quality was much better than at Sweetlife Festival and there was a good vibe and energy. I think his live show has promise, but could use some more work relating to the crowd.

Bastille (the mega famous pop group from down under) was crazy crowded. I gave up in no time. My friends stayed and loved it.








I bailed and caught the melancholy acoustic coffee house set of Broods. It was an intimate setting and holy moly she could sing! They had just flown in from New Zealand the day before and were suffering from weather shock and lack of appropriate clothing. She called her outfit a “slutty doll,” apparently not noticing that most of the crowd was wearing half as much as her.




Last of the night was Empire of the Sun, and they rocked my world. I don’t have any attachment to their music at all – couldn’t pick a song out of a line up – but their live show lived up to the hype. I inflicted live text messages on Dana, Jill, and Trish as they were driving home with a play by play. Here’s what the texts said:

Insane stage show! Crazy elaborate. I’ll post video.


Streamer cannons AND confetti cannons. Costume changes out he wazoo. Pyrotechnics. Over the top screen show…wow!

It’s a tron video game now and the dancers are tron ducks.

There were space-faring angels in the last song.


He’s in the crowd now, singing.

He just literally smashed his guitar to end the show.

It’s not over…wtf could be next????

Pokemon meets apocalypse in fair take Asia…damn!

CONFETTI!!

This is hands down the most entertaining show I’ve ever seen.

Taking bows now.

Exits on platform elevator through the floor.

Beat that, Snoop.*

Note: Snopp Dogg played the same time slot on a different stage.

Friday, June 12, 2015

Father John Misty and the Decemberists at Merriweather Post Pavilion, June 4, 2015

I went with Jill, Rachel, and Dana on a rainy night to sit on a soggy lawn listening to gorgeous music. It was worth it. The rain wasn’t a torrential downpour, and eventually, it let up, but the muddy bonding moment was worth the damp, and the show was very good.


I think all four of us bought the tickets more for Father John Misty than the Decemberists. I hadn’t seen him in a live show yet, and I loved it. First thing you see is a giant neon “No Photography” sign in a heart. The neon changes colors and flashes in different patterns throughout the set. The stage was very dark at first (red, I think), perhaps to further discourage photography. So of course, here’s my photo.
 Joshua Tillman is Father John’s real name, and he hails for Rockville, MD, though Los Angeles is now his home. His stage persona is a cantankerous, apathetic, checked-out, pissed-off jerk. I found that refreshing. There were snide half-jokes at the audience’s expense and just enough engagement with the audience to make you want more, even though he acted as though he couldn’t care less about the fans. It underscored how he was playing 180 degrees against rock star type. Very anti-hero.  There were no gracious thank yous and how he appreciated us all coming out in the weather.
Nope. Just awesome singing chops, a stage shtick that kept you guessing about what would come next, great sound quality, and his trademark subversive lyrics in beautiful arrangements. It was so different from typical that I enjoyed it far more than most shows I’ve seen. I was also surprised that I know the lyrics to so many of his songs, all from listening to XMU on Sirius. I wouldn’t have called myself a big fan before the show, but now I’m hooked.

Decemberists has a beautiful stage backdrop that looked like their album cover art, with little shrine statues scattered about the instruments like a treasure hunt. The sound quality was again excellent, and Colin Meloy was great at engaging the audience (and he was a ray of sunshine by comparison – even singing a song about murdering children.) The rain also cleared out during their set.  They had a long set, which is unusual for the acts I go to see.  We left after an hour and they didn’t seem to be an the end yet. There were tons of songs I knew, plus a sampling of new works from the album. There was one song I LOVED live that I can’t identify. In it, Colin rocked out and it switched back and forth between a husky alto female singer and him. It might have been a cover, but it really worked for me.  I think it might have been the contrast between that sound and the rest of the folksy set. A blog follower (Wonderfox - interesting secret identity there!) IDed it as "The Wanting Comes in Waves/Repaid." Thanks for the tip!

One thing I really noticed: my heros are getting old. Colin Meloy looked the youngest on the stage (he’s a year younger than I am),  and some of his band mates appeared to be at the older end of the middle age spectrum. On the one hand, it’s affirming to see middle age people creating and performing great music. On the other, mortality reminder. The accordion player is rather famous for her recent fight against breast cancer.

In all, loved the mood of the show. If it weren't for the rain, it could have been one of my favorites of the year.

Purity Ring, early show May 29, 2015 at 9:30 Club

Purity Ring is not a Christian rock band - it's a an electronic pop band that likes to be abstract in an artsy way and has a lights fetish. I mean all those things in the very best way. The duo is wonderful to watch live - I've seen them three times now, and was impressed every time. In March, Natalie became a big fan of some songs from their 2015 album, notably Push Pull and Bodyache. When the early show tix for Friday night went on sale, we grabbed them for Natalie, Eric and I. Then a few weeks later I realized that we could turn it into her birthday party celebration, so I bought three more for her BFFs and arranged a sleepover for my son, then loaded up on glow gear.



The night of the show, I picked up the girls from school, painted their faces and bedecked them with glow lights, took them to a hibachi restaurant for dinner, then drove to 9:30 Club, where I got them all shirts. As we entered, I told a couple 9:30 Club employees that it was Natalie’s birthday, then I tweeted both the 9:30 Club and the band. During the second opener, the tour manager found us and told us that Megan (Purity Ring’s singer) saw the flashing glow lights and wanted to offer VIP box seats to us.  I don’t know which tactic actually worked. We were actually standing on the balcony, in view of the window to the dressing rooms. Net effect: we got to sit in VIP with the best view in the house. Even better, Megan called out Natalie from stage and led the crowd in Happy Birthday.  As we left, tons of strangers wished her a happy birthday. It was the best 10 year old birthday EVER.

Here’s the video.

 The show itself was excellent. Sound was good and the light show amazing.

I honestly don’t remember much about the openers. Born Gold had a dark stage and danced weird, (according to the girls). I remember Natalie being grossed out by the singer showing his armpits and a lot of jumping around on stage. BRAIDS was a little more pop/dance, and the keyboardist had an interesting dance that resembled a seizure. Here are the set times: 6pm Doors, 6:30 - Born Gold, 7:15 - BRAIDS, 8:15 - Purity Ring.

From Eric:
We just caught Purity Ring at the 9:30 Club. I have never thought much for their music when I have heard it on the radio, but it really comes across great live. However, the star of the night for me was the light show. I typically do not take notice of that kind of stuff, but it really was amazing. Each song had its own personalized light theme and there was always some component that was linked directly to one of the instruments or vocals. If you are into concerts, I would consider this a must see act.

Of course my impartial judgment of the evening is a bit tainted by the fact that the club offered us seats in the VIP section thanks to Anita Wiler’s guerilla Twitter tactics. She dropped a few notes that our daughter was celebrating her birthday that night, and we ended up with a seat upgrade and the band even led the entire crowd in a rendition of “Happy Birthday”.

Thursday, June 4, 2015

Sweetlife Festival at Merriweather Post Pavilion, May 30-31, 2015

The Sweetlife Festival aspires to be Austin City Limits. It’s not there yet. They’ve got music, food, and fun, but on a much smaller scale than ACL.

Examples:

FOOD – Lots of local food, but where ACL makes sure that the menu covers all allergy and special diet needs and posts menus online, in advance, Sweetlife doesn’t. They tried, but my dairy allergy wasn’t well met. The vegan options were slim after the only vegan food truck bailed. Another food truck (Sprouted Pot) advertised a couple vegan options, but put sour cream and cheese on them. They might want to look up “vegan” in the dictionary. Also, ACL had a fantastic wristband system that let you link a credit card to your wristband and pay with the band at all food outlets. Many of the Sweetlife food outlets only took cash, which was annoying to discover on the first day. One positive: LemonadeLove -  the only kiosk for non-alcoholic frozen drinks. The line was insane, but the product was good. I know they are local DC, but I can't find a link for them, just a few hashtag mentions on Twitter that don't seem to be about the same company. I wish them luck.

MUSIC – ACL had 39 acts per day on a total of 7 stages. Sweetlife had 21 acts per day on 3 stages. (One of those stages was a tiny one for local DJs.) They could have easily put all the acts on a single day, but instead they spread it to 2 days. I imagine they did it to increase the food sales and reduce the stage rigging/renting expenses.  Problem is, the two festivals were priced exactly the same, so Sweetlife continues to feel like a rip off.  Both festivals tried to appeal to a variety of genres, though ACL has more cutting-edge alt and EDM acts acts plus country, kids music, and gospel. Sweetlife did alt, EDM, and urban.

FUN – ACL has lots of vendor activities, art, and local wares shopping. Sweetlife had a little of that, some of it identical to the most recent ACL. Just on a much smaller scale.

ACL sells out every time to huge crowds for two weekends. Sweetlife never does, and more than half the pavilion seats were empty, which looked BAD from the perspective of the performers on stage.  It also doesn’t function as well as a festival because there isn’t enough churn to keep people moving between stages. You need enough acts competing for the same time slot that most people have to make hard choices about where to be when and don’t just park themselves at one stage all day.  There was also the elitist vibe of sitting in the mostly empty pavilion while so many people baked in the sun.  They should have done something random to fill up more seats – like a lucky winner who walked in every so often, or scavenger hunt, or pick up trash. They even tried a trash pick-up program like ACL, but the rewards were not desirable – water bottles and cheap sunglasses. They should have done a shirt and made the rules of the program more obvious.  Oh, and the shirt designs were as uncreative as you can get- just white words on gray. No images at all. Not worth buying at all. Another random bitch – what was the mainstage light designer thinking? He pointed 90% of the lights into the audience, blinding us and obscuring the artists. Lights should be used to help the audience see the artist.

Overall, not an awesome festival, but local and close to my home, so still worth it to me. Now for the acts.

Saturday, May 30, 2015

The Bots
The Bots were a garage rock duo of black men who wore all black (including a big black hat on one of them) on a black stage. If I hadn’t been near the front, they would have been impossible to see. Horrible sound mixing – the instruments were much louder than the instruments so I couldn’t hear the vocals and it was painful to listen to, even with earplugs.  It was impossible to tell if they were any good with the sound quality so bad.




Aurora
Aurora is a Norwegian woman who does haunting, pretty songs with a lilt in her voice. She was expressive, cute, and friendly on stage, with a free-form way of dancing and a quirky Nordic fashion sense. I’d recommend seeing her if you like her recorded sound. Published future tour dates are all in Europe.










Misterwives
Misterwives – A six-piece band with a female lead on vocals. Dancy alt music with some brass. Good interaction with the audience  - they looked like they were all having a good time on stage. The singer sounded like an old-school crooner sometimes, and she had serious vocal chops.  There was a nice bit which a vocal-trumpet call and response that sounded impressive- and she apologized more than once for the quality of her voice because she was ill. Her stage act gave me the impression of an aerobics instructor-she had SO much energy. There was even a feminist bit involving pushups.  There was another bit where the vocalist and drummer swapped places for an old cover song. There were lots of fun interactions with band members. This act made some new fans at the festival. They were a frenetic fun-house for their last number. Really great performers. Playing Sunday night, November 8 at the 9:30 Club in DC.

St. Paul & the Broken Bones
St. Paul & The Broken Bones hail from Birmingham, Alabama and have a retro sound, a little like Fitz and the Tantrums, but more southern gospel-inspired. Lots of brass. The lead singer is a large man with a HUGE personality.  You know those business men you sometime meet who look like fat balding losers, but they wear a nice suit and have an overabundance of chutzpah and end up winning everyone over for it? The singer was kind of like that. Easy to dismiss as first glance, but with powerhouse vocals and no timidity. That man was wildly entertaining.  Chad told me that he ended up writhing on the stage like he was struck down by spirit at Coachella. I didn’t see that at Sweetlife. I left early for another act and regretted it. Note: I just noticed that they've added a Saturday night - Sept 12 - show in Baltimore. I might be interested in going.

SZA – I saw a couple minutes. A young pretty black woman with a foul mouth. Her music did not make an impression on me.  She’s got friends in high places – there are lots of famous guest vocals on her recorded works.

Sinkane – I HATED this act. It was very jammy/jazzy and abstract. Left after just a couple songs.

Allen Stone
Allen Stone – I can’t believe I had to sit through a few of his saccharine pop/R&B songs because there was NOTHING ELSE. I put my earplugs in tight and read a book. The bear of a pianist wearing a vest was an eyeball-searing picture to behold.










The Bear














Ben Browning – Just another DJ. Who the hell cares?

Lucius
Lucius – Amazing vocals, as always from this alt duo. Still have the matching hair and outfits - yellow tights and black dresses this time.








Bleachers
Bleachers – It took this long for the tech people to put up an alternate image on the giant LCD screen behind the mainstage, which seemed a waste of al lot of AV money. Same exact show I saw months ago, word for word. Guy pop – good enough.







Tove Lo wins the award for the least appropriate outfit. A worn out tank swimsuit with booty shorts and a bow on her butt. She had the star quality of some random chick selected from the crowd – so almost none.  I don’t even remember her music. According to a Washington Post review, she eventually resorted to flashing her mosquito-bite boobs to the crowd. I missed that part.

Billy Idol
Billy Idol is so OLD. His face looks ancient, but then he made a big production of stripping to show off his abs, which are surprisingly good for a 59 year old man.  He sang some really bad new songs, then some embarrassing renditions of his old material. I felt like I was listening to a bad cover of his old songs, not the real deal. He seemed a bit like a doddering old dude – trying too hard. There were maybe 6 changes of shirts and jackets, 5 of which displayed his abs and 1 of which looked like ladies lingerie. Funny thing was, they were all so similar that I couldn’t tell most of the jackets apart.  He did some tongue flicking that gave me the heebie-jeebies – so gross coming from an old man.  There was a Tarzan call. There was posing with his arms raised, waiting for everyone to take photos, there were endless drum sticks and picks and extra copies of set lists tossed into the audience by the handful. There was a guitar-synth gimmick that might have been fresh in 1983. I was embarrassed for him – he was trying too hard. Nail on the coffin – he encored forever when the crowd was anxiously awaiting Kendrick Lamar and just wanted him to go away.

Kendrick Lamar
Kendrick Lamar is a genius rapper and one of the hottest acts of 2015, and the darling love of my friend Trish, so I had to watch the beginning even though I hate rap. Trish tells me that Kendrick’s lyrics are full of poetry and commentary about social justice. I can’t validate that. Music reviewers tell me that his new album is genre-smashing and incredible. I haven’t heard anything that appeals to me from it. But the crowd LOVED him. As I was leaving the 40-something lady in front of me was complaining “why did they end the day with HIM??” to her much older husband. I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. She had to walk by the same crowd I did to leave and they were INTO Kendrick – you could see endless people stretching back into the night, arms waving.  How could you NOT end with him? High point of the night according to Trish (that I missed) was when Kendrick brought a random girl from the crowd up on stage to rap a song with him and she nailed it.  Watch the video on Sterogum.

Sunday, May 31. 2015


Holychild
Holychild – Holy moly, I loved this band! What fun energy! The singer was vivacious and sexy, doing a bold sexy pseudo-belly dance, flaunting attitude with a smile.  The rest of the 6 piece band was composed of young men, 2 backup singers and 3 drummers/synth players.  I am not certain which of those 5 men were actually the other half of the official duo. The singer also used a loop repeater. There were no stringed instruments.  The men were dressed in island apparel and had a lot of tinsel on stage.  There was something different and interesting with the performance of each song. In one song, the back-up singers used tinsel pom-poms. In another, they hammed it up acting out the lyrics, in another the singer jumped out into the audience and lapped the pavilion, sitting on people’s laps while singing to them. The group formed in 2012 at GWU, my alma matter (finally something I like about my school!) They said they were touring in support of a new album, and it appears that they are based in LA now. Other highlights: the backup boys twerking and doing choreographed dances. The Asian boy was particularly hilarious and engaging. The other backup singer was the best looking male on stage, but needed to loosen up a bit more, though you could tell he was trying.  I would LOVE to see this band again. The music was fun and dancy, and I loved the song Running Behind. Trish missed this act because of traffic – very sad. Published future tour dates don't include DC yet, but there are a lot of holes in their schedule. They will be at ACL this fall, though alas, I will not.

Sun Club
Sun Club – Average alt/garage rockers barely of out of their teens. Hairy guys – looked like the guys asleep in the back of the class. The guitarist said a couple sentences to the crowd that included 3 “cools” and 2 “fucks.” Not a well-spoken bunch. Local act - out of Baltimore.







Raury
Raury – A critically-acclaimed young black man soloist who traveled with an all-black band. He’s sometimes folk-rock, sometimes dreamy smooth, a little rap – very much his own thing. Unfortunately, the sound mixing sucked. The instruments were too loud for the vocals.  Raury looked a little like a young Michael Jackson. His movements were big and flamboyant, which was effective on stage. He said he was from Georgia.







Charli XCX
Charli XCX – Slick pop music. She brought a great stage with her, and the costumes of her all-white-girl band were cute zebra stripe dresses, but something fell flat for me. She had great stage presence and moved well on her mile-high platform heels – she was visually playing to the back of the house – but there was something too rehearsed about the act. The audience was with her, though. Maybe the production was too slick for my taste. Of maybe it was that same one-trick-pony dance moves and cussing that annoyed me.






San Fermin
San Fermin – Greatest disappointment of the festival. I had such high hopes and fond memories of this group! Dashed, dashed all –woe unto me! Maybe that’s a bit over the top, but I was disappointed. They lost their female lead singer Rae Cassidy and replaced her with Charlene Kaye. Charlene is not nearly as talented. And, they were doing songs from their new album, which isn’t anywhere near as good as their first album. That’s a serious sophomore slump!



Phantogram
Phantogram – I really don’t like them live. They wore the same outfits on stage as the last time I saw them (black and white). The start of the act was really disappointing – like they were all playing different songs at the same time. There was way too much base and it was often hard to hear the vocals. The vocalist did a lot whipping her hair over her face, I think purposefully so she didn’t have to look at the crowd. When she spoke, I wished she hadn’t – she sounded ineloquent. Only part I liked: I was impressed by her bra – it looked very cool.


Vance Joy
Vance Joy – Aussie singer-songwriter which some very popular songs. He stood there with his guitar on stage in the spot light with his unruly curly mop of hair, smiling and singing. Cute guy, nice voice, nothing to his performance. Didn’t talk all that much.  He had very annoying lights on stage aimed into the crowd.  Here's my video of "Your Mess Is Mine."









BANKS
BANKS – Riddle me this: What do BANKS and Lorde have in common sonically? Whatever it is, it grates on my ever loving nerves! I hate this music! The only song I like by BANKS is Begging for Thread, which sounds nothing like the rest of her music. Her music was broody and pseudo-poetic. She was wearing a black bustier that create a weird visual effect on the projection screens when she danced. Her ultra-pale décolletage seemed to move a half-second after the top – like she was dancing behind a clothing cut-out that wasn’t quite timed to her movement.

Marina & the Diamonds
Marina & the Diamonds – She’s Welsh – I just looked it up, which explains the nice accent. Great costumes, elaborate stage props of giant fruit, a “Froot” lettered shiny tiara and cherry earrings – and it still took me half the act to understand that Froot is the name of her 2015 album.  Duh. Braindead much?  Marina had an impressive voice and amazing presence.  She was comfortable talking to the crowd, though she spent most of her time looking regal, controlled, and sultry. Marina did a vocal trick that was pretty cool and sometimes flashed a big expressive smile that was charming.  She had an obvious gay following in the audience.  I can’t name anything she sings, but it was a fun dance/pop show.

I took off after Marina.