From Jason:
We started off the day EXTREMELY strong at the SPIN Party, thanks to Hannah (***Official Advertising Goddess of Smarmy Hipster***). The first band of the day was The Fratellis. They opened surprisingly weak considering how fun their music is. The music that they played was great (sounded just like their CD), but you could tell that they were mailing it in. At one point, the bassist turned around to hide a yawn. Then magic happened; out of nowhere, Pete “Freaking” Townsend steps onto the stage and fucking brought the house down. As stated earlier, we saw Pete the previous night at La Zona Rosa, but this was different. He had an electric guitar this time and simply kicked the show into another gear. It was around this time that I realized that the tequila at the bar was FREE. Free margaritas, kick ass rock ‘n’ roll, vacation from work, and some of the strongest people watching of the festival added up to a pretty special day.
At this time I would like to make a Public Service Announcement. GO HOME AND THROW AWAY YOUR FUCKING CHUCKS. I know David mentioned this earlier, but it bears repeating. It is officially ridiculous. Easily two-thirds of the audience had them. I felt like middle school when everyone HAD to have Z-Cavariccis.
OK — back to our regularly scheduled blog…
How do you follow Pete Townsend? How do you overcome being from Denmark and having woman hands? PLAY AS LOUD AS YOU CAN. Holy shit, Mew is loud. I think they were pretty good, but it was hard to tell with the blood dripping from my ears. Oh well, who needs hearing? All kidding aside, they are a cool band with great music. There is something about Noise Rock with sweet lilting vocals seamlessly interwoven that always gets me.
The next band was Galactic. Allow me to preface this by stating that I am not that big a fan of this band. I don’t like jam bands — sorry. Dave and I were stopped in our tracks on the way to the back of the crowd, however, when we saw Gift of Gab from Blackalicious take the stage. Dude was awesome. The other guest rappers were pretty good as well. I was pleasantly surprised.
Something stupid happened on the way to the Kings of Leon set. SPIN brought Jamie Kennedy to the stage with his “I’m getting paid for this, right?” face. Why SPIN magazine felt we would care if a C List celeb introduced a band he had obviously never listened to is beyond me. It was beyond the audience as well, as his ARE YOU READY TO ROCK shout was met with silence… Strange moment…
Kings of Leon was up next and did what they do best — which is, of course, play face-splitting classic rock. Not a lot to say here as all of their sets are solid, no-frills rock shows. This one was no different.
After a brief interlude to watch Texas beat New Mexico State in basketball (hook ‘em!), we got in line for the Margot and the Nuclear So and So’s at Antone’s. This is a great band and they played a great set (Editors Note: and the keyboardist is smoking hot!). The surprise for me was their percussionist. He made these strange, flowing movements prior to hitting the drum/symbol which were at once both entertaining and a little gay. Dave and I couldn’t decide if he was autistic. If so, my bad. My only complaint about Antone’s was the fucking heat. Seriously, if you are packed to the brim (which they were), you HAVE to turn on the A/C (which they did not).
Due to this inconvenience, we decided to press on to Red Eyed Fly to get there early to see dios (not that we needed to, it was pretty empty).
When did the lead singer for dios turn into John Popper pre-bariatric surgery? Damn. It’s been two years since I’ve seen them live, and he has EASILY added 80 pounds. At this rate, we will all be forced to watch dios shows from his bedroom, as he is almost too big to fit through a door. No matter… The show was great, and when the singer wasn’t taking pot hits on stage, or pulling up his enormous pants, he played some beautiful music. Music that contrasted, I might add, with the strange drummer that did everything he could to divert our attention away from the singers falling pants. One of his antics that was worth noting is that he would spit on the drums, then hit them to make the spit bounce like some low-rent Blue Man Group show. Strange.
We finished off a long day at the Tullycraft show. As expected they were upbeat (duh — they’re a TWEE band for goodness’ sake) and fun. As a nice little surprise, the dude from The Mountain Goats was there in the front row. Homeboy LOVES him some Tullycraft, as he danced and sang like the rest of us. Good times.
