Cool Nutz, Strategy, Copy, and Ohmega Watts bring the festival to a close with a giant dance party!

As some of you seem to have noticed, I didn't manage to blog the last set of the festival the next morning as planned. In my total exhaustion, I decided to take the day off from work and ended up sleeping the late afternoon.

Anyway, one thing lead to another and it's been a few days. But now I think I'm finally rested and recovered enough to give it a shot. We had a festival organizers' swim party up off of Skyline. I collected some great photos of the last set from excellent Portland music photographer Jason Quigley (I was too busy dancing my butt off to get any of my own, but more on that in a minute). So, here goes:

In a gutsy move, that brought a definite payoff, this year's booking committee decided to end the last night of the fest with a full block of dance and hip-hop -- no guitars were to be seen. Somewhere along the line, we started referring to it as "the pdxpop dance party" and that's totally what it was.

Longtime Portland MC Cool Nutz, got the party started off with a set that did double-duty as a kind of hip-hop academy. Nutz refused to let the crowd do the normal indie rock immobile arms-folded slouch, constantly calling on us to wave our arms back and forth, shout out in call-and-response choruses, and actually move our feet in something that resembled dancing. He refused to stop until he had every last person with him, even singling out particular audience members who weren't getting involved. In one particularly poignant moment, he asked for a show of hands by "everyone who'd ever lost someone" before launching into a song about dead friends.

Cool Nutz also seemed to really get the spirit of the festival, pimping the pdxpop comp by suggesting that everyone should buy three or four copies so that they'd have extra to give away to panhandlers at the side of freeway offramps. This set went by far too fast.

Next up was Strategy, a pretty legendary Portland IDM DJ (I hope I'm getting that genre right, I definitely don't have a very strong grasp on all the many fine distinctions within dance and electronic) who almost never plays out anymore -- during his set he explained that the reason for this is that he's been working full time on an album that he can never finish and then went on to play the central track from that album.

Charmingly, Strategy seemed nervous, accidentally putting his trucker-mic down in such a way as to cause horrible wails of feedback followed by sheepish apologies a couple of times. It took a little while, but by the end of his set the crowd was definitely starting to get warmed up for the serious dance workout it was about to get.

While Strategy's set was great (and especially fascinating for those of us who were previously less clued in to the Portland electronic scene), it was Copy's relentless 8-bit beats and blips that really got the kids jumping around and shaking it (that great portrait of him in action is courtesy of Jason Quigley, by the way). Pretty much immediately after he got started a big many-armed and legged cluster of teenagers pushed its way to the center of the crowd and started to boogie. Their enthusiasm quickly spread to the rest of the crowd and after that, the dance party was unstoppable.

It took some cajoling, but during this set we managed to get most of the core PDX Pop crew of volunteers and organizers out on the dancefloor. For most of us, this is nothing like our natural habitat, so this was something of an achievement. It was also a total blast, a great way to blow off all of the stress and effort that weant into making this event happen, and a fittingly fun celebration of what we've achieved. (Not everyone was out of their chairs yet when Quigley snapped this shot, but that's definitely my hairy arm on the right.)

And then there was one. Breakout Portland MC, Ohmega Watts is a multiple threat, producing, arranging, and graphic design sitting side by side in his arsenal with rapping. In fact, Watts is so busy right now trying to finish up his new album before leaving for a stint on this year's edition of Lollapalooza on Friday, that he arrived for his after-midnight festival slot directly from the studio.

If Watts was harried though, you'd never have known it. I don't think I've ever seen another performed more relaxed on stage. It was as if we were all hanging out in his living room and he was just spinning records and talking to us. Combined with his non-stop rapid-fire rhymes, this laid back attitude comes across as less slacker and more simple charisma confidence. It was hard to avoid the thought that Watts is going to be a big star.

He also turned out to be just about the nicest artist we've ever dealt with, sticking around for a long time after his set to talk to fans and chat with volunteers as we cleaned up trash, put away the merch, and packed up the decorations (which are still filling my car's trunk and backseat, I just realized).

But, before we get to tear down and tears at the festival's end, there's one more awesome thing to describe. As his set ended, Watts got the crowd to form a big circle in the middle of the room and introduced us to his b-boy crew. He went on to spin a few Bob Marley remixes he'd made while they hit the floor, spinning, jumping, and flipping the crowd into a frenzy. I shoved Quigley in front of me to make sure that someone got a great shot of the action and he came through:

The b-boys were still going strong when Watts' record of remixes ran out and, sadly, one of them had to leave disappointed since he was calling for another track (it looked like he had some serious moves planned -- they been kind of upping the ante with each go 'round).

Anyway, I couldn't think of a more fun way to end this year's fest. So, thnks to all of you that came out this year. Be sure to visit pdxpopnow.com to keep track of our activities and to volunteer to help out. I'll be seeing at next year's fest and out listening to lots of Portland music between now and then!