Intonation Festival: Day Two
July 23rd, 2005If you’re planning go to a few outdoor events, I cannot recommend strongly enough picking up a few collapsable chairs. I popped $15 for two chairs from Walgreens that morning, and it made all the difference in the world. Standing in the heat sucks, and sitting on the hard ground in the heat isn’t much better. But sitting in a comfy chair with a built-in cup holder for a cold beverage makes the whole experience different.
Something I forgot to mention about the festival yesterday: there was a lot of talk about the impending revolution. I didn’t catch specifics, but I suspect it had something to do with capitalism, and the war in Iraq. On the first point – I like capitalism. Capitalism has been very good to me over the years. It’s largely the reason I can afford to have an iPod, buy CDs, and go to lots of concerts. I believe in things like welfare (to a degree) and social security (perhaps with a few updates), but I think people confuse the evil of capitalism with the evils of corporations. To me, ranting against capitalism is just a bit like ranting against air – it’s what’s keeping us going at this point. If someone comes up with details of a better economic organization that motivates individuals and rewards achievement, I’m all ears.
Back to music talk. From my chair, the day kicked off with a high energy set from Thunderbirds Are Now!. It’s gotta be rough being the first band of the day, but it didn’t appear to phase them in the slightest. They rocked.
But now were were going to get into a block of bands I didn’t like. First in the block was Dungen. Personally, I don’t get the fascination with this band. It sounds like a lot of music I wouldn’t normall notice, except it’s sung in Swedish. G. referred to them as the Swedish Allman Brothers. Eek. After that, Xiu Xiu took the stage. They remind me way too much of Bright Eyes. The wavering voice, the frail songs. Smells like emo to me. I kept my distance. After that was Out Hud – thumpy dance music. Relatively listenable, and a lot of fun to watch. What they lacked in live instrumentation, they made up for in over the top dance moves. How a person can move like that in the heat is beyond me. After them, The Hold Steady took the stage. They remind me the Def Poetry Jam if the backing band only knew indie rock. I can only take so much singing that actually just talking and/or yelling.
Once we got through that dark patch of suck bands, it was pretty smooth sailing. Andrew Bird flawlessly performed a set of new and older tunes with his distinctive style. Every time he performs a song it’s sounds new, due to the way he builds layers from loops of things recording on the fly.
After Andrew came Deerhoof. Woof, they were awful. I mean, unusually bad. For a moment, G. and I thought Yoko Ono made a surprise guest appearance, but no. We suffered through their set for an hour, assisted by beer.
The Wrens were up next. I didn’t think that much of their CD, but they rocked live. A somewhat dark, alt-rock sort of vibe – they reminded me a bit of The Doves. We actually moved our chairs out of the shade and sat a bit closer for this one. I would definitely see them again if they come back to Chicago for another show.
I didn’t actually see that much of Les Savy Fav, but I’ve read that I really missed out. From the few songs I stuck around for, it looked like he was wearing a red outfit and throwing sheets of aluminum foil into the audience. I hear he got down to a speedo, but I was thankfully absent for that bit of eye candy. I was hanging out in the DJ tent listening to Diplo, since I missed him at Coachella. It’s hard for me to get real excited about seeing a DJ. So we just hung outside the tent and had another beer.
The Decemberists finished off the evening. They perfomed well, and I suspect folks found them a lot more accessible live then on their albums. I’m not wildly familiar with their catalog, but I recognized a few songs of their new album and one or two off their older stuff. Overall, it was a pretty mellow set – a perfect way to end two days of sweating in the heat.