Continued from Day 2
Unlike the previous day, when we moved around from spot to spot and got hot in the process, we came early on the third and final day of the festival and secured a spot in the shade off to the left-hand side of the Connector stage and it would be where we would remain for the entire day. Luckily my friend Mike was also there, so when we wanted to venture off to a different stage, he was there to guard our spot.
DEERHUNTER opened the day’s festivities with a set shorter and far less intense than their incredible performance just days prior at the Starlight Ballroom here in Philadelphia. Then again, it was only 1 PM, the sound was shaky and they just work much, much better in a dark, sweaty club at night than they did in broad daylight.
MENOMENA followed Deerhunter on the Connector stage. I have to say that right away, I noticed that they’d improved quite a bit from the previous time I’d seen them. Their brand of experimental indie-rock has no obvious antecedents or contemporaries (other than perhaps ONEIDA) and in this day and age, that’s quite an accomplishment, so I will give them credit for innovation and originality. However, they didn’t have any songs or anything else that really grabbed me. I want to like them more than I really do. However, when multi-instrumentalist JUSTIN HARRIS played the alto and baritone sax on a few songs, I was riveted as his style reminded me a lot of DANA COLLEY (formerly of MORPHINE and more recently in THE TWINEMEN), which pleased me greatly since I was a big Morphine fan in the ‘90s.
For the next “shift”, we wanted to see JUNIOR BOYS, especially since we skipped their show here at the First Unitarian Church a few months prior. It turns out that we probably missed a terrific show as they were great! Honestly, I don’t like much early ‘80s synth-pop of the more commercial variety and the synth-based stuff I tend to go for has more in common with SUICIDE or THE SCREAMERS or early GARY NUMAN or KRAFTWERK than say, HUMAN LEAGUE (past their second album) and their ilk. However, I do have a bit of a soft spot for NEW ORDER (amongst a few others) and I’ll be damned if Junior Boys (even more so than the similarly terrific and obviously much more well-known duo THE POSTAL SERVICE) don’t capture the spirit of Power, Corruption and Lies better than anyone these days aside from perhaps HOT CHIP, though their sense of melancholy has way more in common with the aforementioned Postal Service and even early DEPECHE MODE than anything associated with the (generally great) DFA label. Focusing mainly on their most recent album So This is Goodbye, Junior Boys owned the stage on this day despite the persistent sound problems that plagued their set. It’s to their credit that, though they looked visibly annoyed, their momentum never stopped and they kept going as one speaker kept going out throughout most of their set like a bad stereo to receiver connection. This was a shame, as it was the one weak spot of a great set that was the biggest surprise of the festival for me as I hadn’t seen them before.
After this, I took a long break to eat, buy some more records, play basketball (again), inadvertantly running into an old friend from college in the process as well as some folks from Philadelphia, so I didn’t watch any more bands until
STEPHEN MALKMUS’ set on the Connector stage at 6 PM. There had been buzz going around for days that there might be an impromptu PAVEMENT reunion during his set since former bassist MARK IBOLD was around during the weekend, having played bass with SONIC YOUTH several nights prior, so the hopes were high. However, much to my disappointment, he played a mellow, boring solo set that was completely inappropriate for a large stage at a festival, though it would’ve worked much better in a small club. I’ve never been much of a Pavement fan, but I thought he was surprisingly fantastic when he played with YO LA TENGO a few years ago on July 4th at Battery Park. Thus, I was looking forward to more of the same and was left disappointed. When he played with a drummer, as he did for most of the second half of his set, it was slightly better, but again, it felt like a moment was squandered.
After Stephen Malkmus, we watched OF MONTREAL. They were playing on the Aluminum stage, but we chose to watch them from the comfort of our spot in the back rather than go up to see them. Although I really enjoyed their set when I saw them a few years ago at North Six (soon to be reopened as The Music Hall of Williamsburg), I wasn’t as impressed this time. I will say this, though. Their sense of fashion and theatricality is to be admired, but I just didn’t care for their newer songs as much as the (in my opinion) far superior material from The Sunlandic Twins that they also played. Perhaps I need to hear the recorded versions or maybe I needed to be closer to see them better, but it felt like I was watching a band paying tribute to SOFT CELL’s Non-Stop Erotic Cabaret album.
Fortunately, THE NEW PORNOGRAPHERS then came on and made me forget any feelings of disappointment that I’d experienced prior to their set. They were, quite simply, the best band I saw all weekend. I’d seen them play a bunch of times before, but I’d never seen them as tight, yet having as much fun, as they were on this evening. Of course it doesn’t hurt that CARL NEWMAN is one of the best singer-songwriters in the business right now and that they have now four (!) excellent albums in a row from which to pick and choose material. Sure we got a lot of material from Challengers (their excellent new album), but we also got lots of earlier material as well, including a great encore of “My Slow Descent Into Alcoholism” from their 2000 masterwork Mass Romantic. It should be noted that neither NEKO CASE nor DAN BEJAR showed up for this show, but it didn’t matter. Newman capably filled in for Bejar, singing the DESTROYER leader’s “Jackie, Dressed in Cobras” and KATHRYN CALDER once again skillfully sang Case’s amazing lead vocals on “Letter from an Occupant” and her soaring harmony vocals as well.
It was a fitting end to a great festival that I look forward to attending in the future. At $35 a ticket for all 3 days, the price can’t be beat and I also have to applaud the adventurous choice of venue (a public park that ordinarily houses softball fields instead of a regular concert venue), admittedly in part because it allowed them to pick food vendors that represent local Chicago-area businesses with plenty of organic, vegetarian and vegan options, not overpriced, corporate-controlled swill ala other bigger festivals.
