Dykeritz, Shaky Hands, Dahlia, 50 Foot Wave and the end of Saturday
Posted by: Greg | From: July 30, 2006
Good morning. I'm coming to you live once again from my bed. It's a little bit before 11 which gives me an hour to get you caught up on the total madness that went down last night since my last post, shower, dress, pick up bagels and coffee, and get to the Loveland. Are you ready? Here goes:
I only caught the very end of Dykeritz' set. I was big exhausted at that point, trying to save my energy for the big last push. Plus, I had to spend some time downstairs at my blogging station getting things down. Oh, the sacrifices I make for you people! Anyway, I'd seen Dykeritz a bunch of times before (we'd even played a show we them once), but not since they slimmed down their lineup. They also made sunny fun fractured music. And there used to be a lot of them, so it was always a party up on stage. Somehow having a third as many people in the band didn't seem to take away from the size of their sound or the fun of their presentation. Their newly laptopified sound did add a bit of eighties gloss, though, making their music feel more like it belonged over the closing credits of Ferris Beuler's Day Off, which is cool.
At this point in the night the crowd was seriously starting to get huge and we all tramped down to the cavernous first floor which was starting to feel really full. At that point the Shaky Hands took over. The Hands' music is tough to describe. Maybe the closest band to them in the festival was The Conductors, but the Hands lie on the other side of the College Rock/Alternative Rock divide. They also had a loose jam band aspect, that was amplified by their bass player's scruffiness.
I don't think anything, even the evening's earlier decadence, could have prepared the crowd for Fleshtone. Fleshtone consisted of two djs, three scantily clad dancers, one scantily clad singer (I guess the normally perform topless, but fleshtoned it down a bit for our all-ages crwod), and one guy who dressed variously in: a jock strap, a diaper, and raver gear. They performed a long narrative cycle of songs about drugs and sex, huffing and penises, with music that merged 8bit with 80s stadium pop metal accompanying lascivious dance routines of the kind slutty girls choreograph to Britney Spears at high school talent shows. While a very few people were offended enough to leave, the great majority of the crowd, including all of the high school-aged kids there, was totally into it.
Next up, with almost no switchover time, was former Portland fixture and now re-transplant, Dahlia. Just back from spending a period of time in NY, Dahlia's music used to be a mixing pot for a deverse series of styles. Depending on who you'd ask you'd hear about her as chick-power singer-songwriter in the mold of Ani DiFranco or about her trance-inducing weekly gig at the Ohm. Her time back East seems to have been spent in the New York club world and that influence was super evident in her deafeningly loud laptop driven set.
Finally, there was 50 Foot Wave. I'd never had the opportunity to see Kristin Hirsh live before a couple of weeks ago at a quiet acoustic (actually totally unamplified or mic'ed) solo set at Mississippi Studios. There, her songs were interlaced with confessional and funny banter about her past and family. It made for incredibly intimate and personal music making.
Last night, could not have been more different. As soon as the band plugged in Kristin got this blankly agressive stare in her eyes and they just totally tore into a half-hour of roaring blistering hard rock over which Kristin's voice roared and screamed in ways I never would have thought possible after seeing her in that other setting. There was a large group of kids moshing like crazy up front the whole time and while the late hour caused some attrition, those lucky enough to have stuck around were treated to an appropriately intense end to yesterday's long day of music.
Ok, I've now blogged so long that I'm going to have to hustle not to be late to this morning's first set. There's going to be all kinds of great music all day today, so be sure to stop on by. If you miss it, you'll have to wait until next year!
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