And then we all got sick. Yeah, all of us. There were six of us in the car, one of whom was sick on the way up and I guess all the coughing and sneezing in that cramped little car and then on the floor of that cramped little apartment got into the systems of each of us. But upon waking up on Sunday I said to myself, no way am I gonna let this (excuse me, gotta blow my nose...okay, back) get in the way of all the fun fun fun (okay, maybe one fun, but no way this'll stop three) -- is what I said to myself. So away I went.

The first band I saw on Sunday was Frightened Rabbit. This summer I did an interview with lead singer Scott Hutchinson for this very site before their show in Washington D.C., and after speaking with him that night I was even more impressed with his demeanor onstage. He seems to be a very kind and generous artist with (let's face it) some incredibly difficult demons he's had to deal with, which he expresses with sometimes uncomfortable vulnerability in his lyrics.

On Sunday, though, that vulnerability wasn't there as much as it has been before. Hutchinson seems, while much more confident in his ability as an entertainer, a little bit detached from the songs that seemed before to mean so much to him. This isn't to say that this is a bad thing -- I think what he's doing, as is natural, is giving his audience his songs to use for themselves. I think before he was so close to some of the things he sang about ("I might not want you back but I want to kill him," is one example) that he had a cavalier attitude to the people (those who bought his records) not inside his head.

But now it's like he's back to having a presence that says, here, take this emotion and use it as you will. It's yours now. And that was nice to see -- the band seems happy. They only had 30 minutes, so they had to get through seven or eight songs quickly, but all the favorites were there -- "Good Arms vs. Bad Arms," "Keep Yourself Warm," "The Modern Leper," and -- my favorite of the afternoon -- "Old, Old Fashioned."

It was hot at this point, really really hot. And I needed to sit down. So I did -- and Spinto Band came on. I've really loved these guys for years, basically for the reason I think everyone loves them. They make music that makes sad people happy. Those girls with the huge polka dotted sunglasses that ironically look like 1982, or those guys in the kitschy cut offs, Spinto Band is for the young. They take us to a place with a certain kind of worldly indifference where bopping heads are the only things that seem to matter.

And that's exactly how it was on Sunday--all the shit that was bothering you was magically forgotten about; and since the thing that was bothering most people was that huge cloud of dust hovering diabolically above our heads -- Spinto Band made it all secondary to kicking your feet to and then fro, making the dust go I'm coming straight for you, eyeball. But it didn't really matter at the time -- there was dancing.

Annuals were up next, and my god these guys can do wonders with instruments. They're kind of like a reincarnation of Broken Social Scene without the enigmatic schedule of are we together or are we broken up. They're from Chapel Hill, NC -- once a hot bed of up and coming indie rockers, and that's exactly what Annuals are. There are two electric guitars (sometimes three), one acoustic guitar, keyboards (sometimes two), drums (sometimes two, sometimes three, sometimes one electric with one standard), slide guitar, bass, and I might be missing more. But they are a band that relies on their instrumentation, and the audience on Sunday got a heavy dose of what these guys can do.

We mostly got songs from their new record, Such Fun, which is okay--not nearly as good as their older stuff, particularly the drum heavy stuff from Lay Down Dry and Be He Me. But overall it was great -- Annuals are one of my new favorite bands, one who I'm sure will be staples on the festival circuit for years.

I was basically able to stay put on stage one all day (thank god, lest I enter the wall of brown surrounding me), and was able to see the inimitable St. Vincent next. She is Annie Clark and she is a virtuoso on guitar. Clark was once a member of Polyphonic Spree as well as Sufjan Stevens' (huh?) touring band, but now that she's on her own we're all the luckier for it. She plays songs with such jest that you think it's coming from three or four different people, but it's not. It's just her. Sure she has backup musicians, but they don't count. Clark is the brains behind this outfit, and the pretty huge early evening crowd got more than I think they bargained for.

St. Vincent transfixes you into musical delirium when she accompanies her voice with her guitar, and when she goes into a song like "Marry Me," or especially "Your Lips are Red," you sort of don't know what to do with yourself. Her music is easy to admire and easy to not understand and easy to be jealous of the fact that you'll never be able to do what she'd doing, and hard to turn away from. It was one of the best shows of the festival for sure.

And now the festival was almost over. Only one more act to see (sadly I had to choose between Clipse, Bad Brains, and Clap Your Hands Say Yeah). I chose Clap Your Hands. And it was well worth it (though I'm still sad I missed Bad Brains -- I mean, BAD BRAINS! shit). Anyway, I'd seen these guys I think four times before tonight, and they always seem to put on a confusing show. Alec Ounsworth, lead singer and sometimes lead tyrant, regularly gets pissed off at sound guys, light guys, and even his own band guys, but tonight he seemed to be relatively at ease. CYHSY played an hour's worth of songs, mostly from their eponymous debut record.

They played four songs from their next album, due early next year -- songs that are incredibly dark and somewhat overwrought with historical yes-we-cans (one is about Leon Trotsky, for example), but songs that sound like they'll fit in with the overall ethos of the band eventually. Something interesting about this band is that they are so reliant on audience participation that new songs just don't seem to work live. They could have played more from their second record, Some Loud Thunder, but chose not to. They thought the new stuff would fly, but it really didn't.

That's not to say it's not good -- it is, it's just not what the audience wanted. They wanted to sing as loud as they could and they wanted to dance their inebriated asses off (which they did for the most part, but only for the most part). "Satan Said Dance" was particularly fun, as it always is, and "Skin of My Yellow Country Teeth" almost caused a mosh pit (a mosh pit, at a Clap Your Hands Show. So good). Overall it was one of the better CYHSY shows I've seen.

And so it ends. I wonder how long it's going to take FFF Fest to realize that we need a third day. Next festival, SXSW? See you in about 100 days.

Labels: FFF Fest, Live Reviews, Musical Crap, Out-of-Town Stuff

Brandon Hernsberger || Link || E-mail || 0 comments

Just woke up from a long, incredibly long day in Austin at Fun Fun Fun Fest, and I'm fairly confident in saying that my god festivals take work. First, though, I wanted to say a big thanks to Jeremy (man, you gotta come to one of these some day!) for allowing me access to his blog to write about the goings on at the qf (I don't think that moniker's caught on just yet but I'm holding out hope -- the q stands for quad and the f stands for fun, oh and then it stands for fest there at the end; kind of catchy, right?). In any case, thanks, Jeremy.

The moment I arrived downtown to park, there was a feeling in the air that this was going to be a different type of festival experience than any I've had before--there was actual parking on the street (for free) close to Waterloo Park (which is close to Rick Perry's house, lucky bastard), the weather was in the high 70s rather than the low 100s, and the weight of anxiety (felt by people who know they're gonna have to sit through Blues Traveler to get to Band of Horses -- sigh, ACL) tied to musical boredom seemed to be lifted. It was going to be a good day.

Or maybe everything was better because of Obama, which is very very possible.

So I got to Waterloo Park at like 1:00 and the whole place was kind of empty. Which was good. Because I had the chance to wander around the grounds and take in everything the fest had to offer, and there was a ton. And I know I mentioned to port-a-potties during my SXSW blog, but goddamn--those lavender smelling boxes are the physical manifestations of how far we're progressing as a nation--we're fucking coming for you, China. Oh but then at the end of the night, they're totally gross. But whatever. Waterloo Park is great -- there are actually trees (unlike Zilker, really); there are hills and park benches and swing-sets and walking trails and places so easy to hide and smoke weed that it's sort of ridiculously perfect for a place to see ten hours of music.

The stage setup at FFF Fest is brilliant. There are four stages. Stage 1 (the main stage), is broken up into 1A and 1B, something that allows artists to play for their allotted time (between half an hour and an hour), and then allows the next artist to begin, literally five minutes later. It's incredibly well thought out and accessible for the audience, and other festivals would be wise to take some cues from this type of set up. Another thing that gf does that no other festival I've ever been to does, is give the stages a genre. Stage 1 is basically the indie/pop/rock sort of combo, not sure what stage 2 is because I never ventured over, stage 3 is the punk/hardcore place, stage 4 is the dance/electronic stuff. It makes decision making so easy, and again--ACL--listen up. THIS IS THE WAY AUDIENCES WANT TO CHOOSE THEIR MUSIC. STOP MAKING US WALK A MILE BETWEEN SETS WHEN THE SETS ARE LIKE 45 MINUTES LONG. Fun Fun Fun Fest is doing things right.

The first band I saw was Colourmusic, out of Oklahoma. I had never heard of them before, but was pleasantly shocked that artists from Oklahoma not called Flaming Lips could produce such interesting music. For comparison's sake, I'd say Colourmusic sounds a bit like Yeasayer -- touches of tribal drumming, a few heavy electric guitars over spot-on screaming. If I had to put these guys into some form-fitting genre, that genre would be: irony-dependent neo-fuzz freak pop (oh and Wikipedia says they're communists, but Wikipedia's idiotic). Good start to the day.

Parts and Labor were up next. Everyone go and read Jeremy's review of this band -- it's kind of exactly what I would like to say but won't because Jeremy can so clearly do it better than me. I will say this, though, the record label they're on -- Jagjaguwar -- seems to be out Sub-Popping Sub-Pop, signing bands that just seem right, you know? The type of band that is just what a certain percentage of a certain sect of the indie music community needs at a certain time. Parts and Labor are that band now. Oh yeah, one other thing -- please, all bands, please pretty please can we put a moratorium on songs about the Iraq War? You hate it, we hate it, Bush sucks, yada yada. It seems like these things no longer have any lexical meaning anymore. New days dawn; let's dawn with them.

Centro-matic alt.countried me to blah-town (turn right at Son Volt junction, pick up some turkey jerky and admire the tight denim button downs). It's boring here.

Bishop Allen, who only three nights ago played a show at Rudyard's in front of literally 8 people (five of whom I came with), was on stage 1 next. They sing pop music that makes people smile. That's it. A line from one of their songs is "Take another picture with your click click click camera." It was adorable, and the people loved it. They have a new record coming out in February and I was promised that they wouldn't let the low turnout get in the way of their return to Houston. (But seriously, H-towners, come on.)

Before The Blow turned into an uber-feminist karaoke singer, The Blow was fucking amazing. She churned out danceable pop songs that questioned everything from heterosexuality to date rape to bicycles. What The Blow used to be, Yacht is now. It should be noted, of course, that when The Blow was good, Yacht was in the band. But I digress -- seeing Yacht on stage 4 (it's amazingly small but way cozy) was the perfect transition to the night bands. Wearing a Palin (get it? nice) shirt, the male vocalist (not sure of his name, but before last night I though this dude was the only person in Yacht, but I was wrong) and female vocalist (I wish I had time to look up their names) wove their way through 30 minutes of straight dance music.

By the time Deerhoof played, the air was so brown with dust that the spotlights coming from behind the stage looked like silhouetted cigarette smoke blown from tight lips through the tiny holes in a piece of rye bread. It was disgusting and it was beautiful. What was disgusting and not beautiful was that one dude who walked right past me with vomit (seriously, vomit. like, vomit vomit) covering the entire left side of his face. But Deerhoof, it was one of the best shows I've ever seen at a festival. It was violent, it was loud, it was full of artful angst, it was over the top, and it was so much better than I could have imagined. Deerhoof resemble gods.

The last show of the night was the National, and it's a show I've been waiting to see for years and years and years. It did not disappoint. I had no idea that lead singer Matt Berninger was capable of channeling his inner Frank Black (or Avey Tare?) to give us some of the most inspiring screams in music. That's not really heard on the records, but it is heard brilliantly live. The National played songs from their records Alligator, Sad Songs for Dirty Lovers, and Boxer, all of which sounded like they belonged together. The most outstanding tracks, in my opinion, were "Squalor Victoria," and "Apartment Story." They were transcendently gorgeous, filling the Austin sky with something like majesty.

I think it was the best first day any festival has ever provided. On to Day 2.

Labels: FFF Fest, Live Reviews, Musical Crap, Out-of-Town Stuff

Brandon Hernsberger || Link || E-mail || 0 comments