You don’t want to burn yourself out right off the bat at a four day music festival. The best one can hope for on day number two is to have the faintest whiff of a hangover and a hankering for an afternoon nap. There are three more days to go after all and you don’t want to miss anything. So pace yourself.
Last night’s festivities launched into full gear right from the beginning. magic/CAVE opened at 5 p.m. in the #1 Legion upstairs. It’s not a band, it’s one of several art shows/installations up at different venues around town. Walking through the entrance to the pool table room in the Legion, you walk through graduation-type decorations around the door and enter a darkened space punctuated with sparkling light. Description won’t do the show justice, go look for yourself. Curator Caitlind R.C. Brown has done a great job pulling together some local talent to completely alter the space.
The young guys from Faux Fur started off the music portion of the festival at Central United Church. These kids look very young and they’ve got some serious skill. It will be interesting to see just how good they can get with a few more years under their belts. The audience began to swell as the set rolled on, with Wild Nothing up second. The room filled up for the much-anticipated show by Braids.
The Distillery was where I camped out for most of the night, along with a packed room of people, for Legs, The Luyas, The Dum Dum Girls and Blonde Redhead. Legs was astounding, with some of the deepest, richest, most beautiful vocals I’ve ever heard—you just wanted to sink into it with a tall glass of scotch. It was a tough act to follow, but The Luyas (in the photo above) made it look easy. Playful, layered music with a great live show.
From there it was a quick bike ride to Dicken’s Pub for Au. This great duo was, unfortunately, playing to a near-empty room. This is intense music and I’m just thankful the drummer’s arms didn’t flail off and hurt somebody. Au is playing again tonight at Bamboo at 10 p.m. if you want to catch them.
By all accounts The Dum Dum Girls were excellent back at The Distillery, getting the ever-growing crowd ready for Blonde Redhead. When the headliners took the stage, they left the crowd enthralled (literally, people weren’t moving, it was weird). With beautiful, haunting vocals backed by ethereal and poppy music, Blonde Redhead is a great band, but the live show left me feeling tired. I’m not sure if it was the hour, the lack of food, the fact that I put a great deal of expectation on this show, or their slow choice of music, but the opening acts were more entertaining.
Tonight it begins again. For a great evening, start with Lee Ranaldo of Sonic Youth fame, at Central United Church (dress lightly, that place is hotter than… er, never mind). From there, wander over to The Distillery for what is likely to be the best performance of the festival. You’ll miss Social Studies if you go to the church, but you can get to The Distillery in time for local rockers Seizure Salad, followed by GOBBLE GOBBLE and Man Man. Those last two acts will leave you speechless (unless they didn’t escape the first night with just a whiff of a hangover).
If art is your thing, head down to The Gallery for Swerve photographer Randy Gibson’s Photo Show #2, with music by Dan Vacon, Bob-EQ and Calvin Locke.
Enjoy.
