Continued from Day 1
Well, the day started off promising enough without a hint of what was to come. The first band that we watched was BLACKALICIOUS on the main stage. Having never listened to them before, I enjoyed their soulful take on hip-hop.
After their set, however, was the event that I was really anticipating. Of course, this was the reunion of all four original members of the incredible BAD BRAINS. Not that this was the first time that such a reunion has happened. When I saw them reunite in the late ‘90s as SOUL BRAINS, it was awful. The energy wasn’t there, singer HR was in another place and they played twenty minutes of hardcore followed by an hour and a half of reggae. There was also a fight that night, too. Furthermore, when I had seen them in the early ‘90s with a different singer, I wasn’t impressed, either. And lastly, I was disappointed with the new album Build a Nation. All of these factors had me thinking that though I really wanted to see Bad Brains again, they probably wouldn’t be good this time. Boy was I wrong! They were absolutely on fire, playing an excellent mix of old favorites like “Pay to Cum,” “I Against I,” “Sailin’ On,” “FVK,” “At the Movies” and several others as well. These short blasts of power and energy were mixed nicely by the laid-back reggae of tracks like “I and I Survive” (from the Destroy Babylon 12” EP) and several songs from the new album that sounded considerably better than their studio counterparts. The only weird part about it was that HR was standing completely still while the band was going nuts, not like the days of old when he would be so fired up and unpredictable that you wouldn’t know what he would do. Regardless, what HR lacked in energy was made up for by the three other members, especially fiery guitarist DR. KNOW. All in all, their set was one of the unexpected highlights of the festival for me.
And then everything changed and not for the better. What had started out as a warm, sunny day became incredibly windy, so much so that THE POLYPHONIC SPREE (who followed Bad Brains on the main stage) had to postpone their set for fear of things falling down onto the stage. Such were the conditions on the main stage that the music was postponed for over three hours. Nevertheless, the music continued on the other two stages and so we went to go see SMOOSH at the Yeti stage, which was considerably more full than it would have been otherwise due to the lack of music at the main stage. Having never listened to them before, Smoosh really impressed me with their brand of Northwest-patented indie-pop that harkened back to the genre’s early ‘90s heyday. If you closed your eyes, you would never know that this was a trio comprised of three, pre-pubescent girls.
After Smoosh, we took a short break and then caught some of THE BLACK ANGELS, who were playing on the Wookie stage. Although I like similar bands like BLACK REBEL MOTORCYCLE CLUB, THE WARLOCKS and BRIAN JONESTOWN MASSACRE, I just wasn’t feeling their brand of distortion-heavy rock on this afternoon. Thus, it was off to the batting cages, where I hit a respectable number of pitches and then I took the pitching challenge, too. Let’s just say that I wouldn’t give major-league hitters any nightmares regarding the speed of my fastball.
As there was still no music on the main stage after all this time and as the fans grew impatient waiting for SPOON to hit the stage, I decided to head back to the Wookie stage to check out THE DANDY WARHOLS, who I’d never seen live before. They were supposed to go on at 7:15, but didn’t end up going on until 8. In their defense, it had turned considerably colder during this period and it kept getting colder by the hour. What had started off as an 80 degree day with sunshine had turned into a 40-degree day with a strong wind chill to boot. I was completely unprepared for this, wearing shorts and forgetting my sweatshirt at the hotel, thus having to plunk down for a sweatshirt that barely fit me at the merch table! Nevertheless, I was miserable and to make matters worse, some drunk guy fell and spilled his beer all over me during the wait for The Dandy Warhols. Fun fun fun. I watched about four songs of their set before I decided that it was just too cold and that the sound (clearly affected by the cold wind) was just too poor for me to enjoy it. I’d like to see The Dandy Warhols one day under better circumstances, but on this day it wasn’t meant to be.
After seeing other people flee upon finding out that Spoon had finally started their set on the main stage, I headed back there but after several songs, me and my girlfriend both decided to go home since we were both extremely cold and didn’t think it worth risking frostbite while standing out there for four or five more hours. Thus, we missed the rest of Spoon’s set as well as INTERPOL and THE BEASTIE BOYS. I really regretted this as I’d really wanted to see both bands, but I consoled myself by saying that our health and well-being were more important and that I’d just seen Spoon the month before here in Philadelphia. Furthermore, I’ve seen The Beastie Boys and Interpol several times each over the years and had just seen The Beastie Boys play a great instrumental set the day before on the much more intimate Wookie stage.
From what I heard, both bands played good, but much abridged sets, but of course I can’t really review them since I didn’t see them. Overall, despite the fact that Sunday was almost a complete bust, I had a great time at Sasquatch and would go back another year.
