My daughter Natalie joined me (Anita), Dana, and Jill at the All Things Go Fall Classic on Saturday, October 8, 2016. The line-up was great, so we were really looking forward to it. The weather leading up to the day was excellent, then a hurricane struck to the south and it ended up lightly raining for the first six hours of the concert. It was a poorly attended muddy mess, which really is a shame. I was bummed that the Landmark festival did so poorly it won’t be repeated. I’m hopeful that this show grows into a real festival someday. Biggest drawback: the mud, of course, but also the 30 minute wait between each act with nothing to do but eat and drink. There’s only so many Korean tacos any one person can eat! It would have been so much better with a second stage. The sound mixing was often good, with occasionally heavy-handed bass that bothered me. (It shouldn’t hurt with earplugs in!)
Dana: I didn't mind the rain and mud, as we were all fairly well prepared. Sometimes I'm so excited to be at a music festival with friends
Ace Cosgrove – None of us saw this act, but none of us like this artist either, so no love lost.
Sofi Tukker – Natalie was impressed by the personality of this duo. They are young and met their senior year at Brown University. The man, Tukker, used to play college basketball, then some illness left him bedridden for 8 months during which time he reignited a passion for music. Sofi had a very international upbringing that sounds like an ambassador’s kid’s life. She’s German-born and Italian-educated and taught herself guitar and Portugese while on study abroad. Both have ready smiles and engaging personalities on stage. I loved their exuberance, and the book-tree-drum thing they used for synthesized sound reminded me of early Purity Ring and their use of light-sound machines.
Pop Etc – This band used to be named Morning Benders. They were boring on stage; we really just watched the videos above them, but the music sounded good. They ended with the song everyone was there to hear. (“What Am I Becoming?”)
Bishop Briggs – AWESOME, according to Natalie. She has an amazing voice and a twitchy style of movement when she’s not hunched over on herself. Surprisingly, her horrible posture doesn’t affect her singing. I loved her Mickey Mouse hair buns and deadmouse-esque icon. She looks goth but sounds like a church revival with naughty lyrics.
Christine and the Queens CANCELED. That’s right. Here’s what Christine said on Twitter as her reason:
Prima donna much? So instead, Sofi Tukker did an extra set with Ace Cosgrove joining for a while, and maybe some others. They even crowd surfed. Very fun.
Sylvan Esso was surprisingly disappointing. It says something about the low quality of performance at Firefly 2015 that Sylvan Esso wowed by comparison there and bombed at All Things Go. Part of it was that you just couldn’t see them through all the smoke machine smoke. Such a stupid effect outdoors! (And I would argue, indoors as well.) Natalie felt ill during this act and there were still four hours left until the end of the concert, so we bailed. Standing around for 6 hours, unable to sit down on the ground had taken a toll on us both.
Passion Pit - Anita and Natalie missed this, which Anita didn’t mind at all.
Empire of the Sun - This was a real bummer to miss (the entire reason I bought tickets!!) But it was just too much standing around in the cold and wet weather.
