festival notes
May. 3rd, 2009 01:21 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
sub_dividedI'd never been to a music festival before, wasn't sure what to expect, but Bamboozle was totally worth the price! Saw:
1. Sing it Loud - looks like grunge but sounds like bandom - Pat Brown used to be Cobra Starship's merch guy. Before anyone says anything, yes I know that "bandom" does not have a sound. I guess I mean that it's pop-punk with absolutely no R&B groove elements. All members of Sing it Loud are very attractive and (except for the keyboardist) VERY THIN. Though as we see from this video, maintaining such thinness without pharmacological aid is a lot of work. XD; Definitely mixed messages... it's straightforward pop-punk music well performed by good looking guys with enormous levels of energy, I had fun. HIGHEST CROWD SURFER PER MEMBER OF THE AUDIENCE RATIO.
2. Bobby Ray a.k.a. "B.o.B." (Which is not an easy name to google, although he is the first hit). Hands down the best actual music of the day... but such a small crowd. XD; Some kind of crossover friendly hip hop/reggae/country fusion. With lyrics about destructive relationships and being oppressed by the System. Have a video. Festival would have been worth it for this alone, due to surprise discovery factor.
3. Forever the Sickest Kids/Metro Station/We the Kings - soooooooo many people, we pushed our way to the front, the press was enormous, a girl standing behind me passed out and had to be crowd-surfed over the barrier. Everyone in the audience knew all the words to all the songs. Candice observed that even if she'd seen a hundred dollar bill on the ground she wouldn't have been able to pick it up. Personally I think the guys a few rows back who were clearing space and vaulting over each other had the right idea. Yin and Candice stayed at the front through Boys Like Girls, partially to have a spot for Cobra Starship, but I escaped. Twice!
4. Some bands I don't remember. XD; And Kid Cudi, the "Day and Night" DJ. Hard to sell rapping over a mixtape to a daytime audience that just wanted to stand around and drink beer and get stoned... the only thing that really got a reaction was when the actual studio cut of Day and Night was played, with Kid Cudi coaching all the time: "Put your hands up. Now keep them up. Keep them up. Keep keeping them up. DON'T PUT YOUR HANDS DOWN JESUS CHRIST DO I HAVE TO HOLD THEM FOR YOU."
5. Cobra Starship. I actually worked my way back to the front for this. IF YOU HAD BEEN THERE YOU WOULD KNOW HOW MUCH OF AN ACHIEVEMENT THIS IS. Gabe Sapporta's crowd management people are true professionals. They had a second barrier erected, straight down the middle. Yin informs me that part of the problem is that the girl/guy ratio for all of these bands skews towards girls, who tend to presssssss together - whereas guys tend to elbow their neighbors and open up space. Anyway it was a really great performance. Of course. I have this vision of Gabe Sapporta staying up half the night, mainlining Red Bull, pouring over the day's news looking for material to incorporate into the next day's show patter. Sort of like a Jon Stewart or a Steven Colbert. XD And Cobra Starship HAS GROOVE - the two best musicians in the band are the drummer and the bass player. In short: Gabe Sapporta: on a mission to get white kids to dance.
6. MOTHERFUCKING JOURNEY. Also Third Eye Blind, who the tweenies don't care about, but nice for ancient twenty-somethings like the three of us.
7. Fall Out Boy. This was sort of... I don't know... a let down in some ways but very interesting in others. Yin is going to tell me I'm reading too much into it, XD, but here's my take. The band dynamics are strange because Pete Wentz is the "frontman" but not the lead singer or lead guitarist. In person, the band is stiff, except for Wentz. But Pete Wentz' style isn't to engage with the audience, instead it's to thrash around in his own world, or sometimes prowl around the stage, or sometimes gaze with intent stillness out into the crowd, as if he's looking for something. He also tried a few times to get something going with Patrick, Fall Out Boy's singer/songwriter, but Patrick only looked back, he refused to be drawn in, he's a rock against the tide. It's possibly how the band stays together but it might also have had a dampening effect on the audience. I found myself tuning out - not that I need much excuse to do this, XD, but generally it doesn't happen at rock shows where the performers work to keep you there.
Or maybe I was only disengaged because they played the three or four Fall Out Boy songs I really like, a bunch of others I can't remember at all, and two covers. If the band hadn't been the headliners it would probably have been fine, much easier to keep interest up for 3-4 hits than for a 90 minute set FOLLOWING MOTHERFUCKING JOURNEY.
Pete Wentz was also under the impression that he was playing in New York, even though Fall Out Boy has done Bamboozle before. If he was trying to alienate the audience, he couldn't have done better. (The Meadowlands are in New Jersey. New Jersey!)
Korean BBQ in NYC tonight, followed by karaoke late into the night.![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
absenceofmind is ♥
1. Sing it Loud - looks like grunge but sounds like bandom - Pat Brown used to be Cobra Starship's merch guy. Before anyone says anything, yes I know that "bandom" does not have a sound. I guess I mean that it's pop-punk with absolutely no R&B groove elements. All members of Sing it Loud are very attractive and (except for the keyboardist) VERY THIN. Though as we see from this video, maintaining such thinness without pharmacological aid is a lot of work. XD; Definitely mixed messages... it's straightforward pop-punk music well performed by good looking guys with enormous levels of energy, I had fun. HIGHEST CROWD SURFER PER MEMBER OF THE AUDIENCE RATIO.
2. Bobby Ray a.k.a. "B.o.B." (Which is not an easy name to google, although he is the first hit). Hands down the best actual music of the day... but such a small crowd. XD; Some kind of crossover friendly hip hop/reggae/country fusion. With lyrics about destructive relationships and being oppressed by the System. Have a video. Festival would have been worth it for this alone, due to surprise discovery factor.
3. Forever the Sickest Kids/Metro Station/We the Kings - soooooooo many people, we pushed our way to the front, the press was enormous, a girl standing behind me passed out and had to be crowd-surfed over the barrier. Everyone in the audience knew all the words to all the songs. Candice observed that even if she'd seen a hundred dollar bill on the ground she wouldn't have been able to pick it up. Personally I think the guys a few rows back who were clearing space and vaulting over each other had the right idea. Yin and Candice stayed at the front through Boys Like Girls, partially to have a spot for Cobra Starship, but I escaped. Twice!
4. Some bands I don't remember. XD; And Kid Cudi, the "Day and Night" DJ. Hard to sell rapping over a mixtape to a daytime audience that just wanted to stand around and drink beer and get stoned... the only thing that really got a reaction was when the actual studio cut of Day and Night was played, with Kid Cudi coaching all the time: "Put your hands up. Now keep them up. Keep them up. Keep keeping them up. DON'T PUT YOUR HANDS DOWN JESUS CHRIST DO I HAVE TO HOLD THEM FOR YOU."
5. Cobra Starship. I actually worked my way back to the front for this. IF YOU HAD BEEN THERE YOU WOULD KNOW HOW MUCH OF AN ACHIEVEMENT THIS IS. Gabe Sapporta's crowd management people are true professionals. They had a second barrier erected, straight down the middle. Yin informs me that part of the problem is that the girl/guy ratio for all of these bands skews towards girls, who tend to presssssss together - whereas guys tend to elbow their neighbors and open up space. Anyway it was a really great performance. Of course. I have this vision of Gabe Sapporta staying up half the night, mainlining Red Bull, pouring over the day's news looking for material to incorporate into the next day's show patter. Sort of like a Jon Stewart or a Steven Colbert. XD And Cobra Starship HAS GROOVE - the two best musicians in the band are the drummer and the bass player. In short: Gabe Sapporta: on a mission to get white kids to dance.
6. MOTHERFUCKING JOURNEY. Also Third Eye Blind, who the tweenies don't care about, but nice for ancient twenty-somethings like the three of us.
7. Fall Out Boy. This was sort of... I don't know... a let down in some ways but very interesting in others. Yin is going to tell me I'm reading too much into it, XD, but here's my take. The band dynamics are strange because Pete Wentz is the "frontman" but not the lead singer or lead guitarist. In person, the band is stiff, except for Wentz. But Pete Wentz' style isn't to engage with the audience, instead it's to thrash around in his own world, or sometimes prowl around the stage, or sometimes gaze with intent stillness out into the crowd, as if he's looking for something. He also tried a few times to get something going with Patrick, Fall Out Boy's singer/songwriter, but Patrick only looked back, he refused to be drawn in, he's a rock against the tide. It's possibly how the band stays together but it might also have had a dampening effect on the audience. I found myself tuning out - not that I need much excuse to do this, XD, but generally it doesn't happen at rock shows where the performers work to keep you there.
Or maybe I was only disengaged because they played the three or four Fall Out Boy songs I really like, a bunch of others I can't remember at all, and two covers. If the band hadn't been the headliners it would probably have been fine, much easier to keep interest up for 3-4 hits than for a 90 minute set FOLLOWING MOTHERFUCKING JOURNEY.
Pete Wentz was also under the impression that he was playing in New York, even though Fall Out Boy has done Bamboozle before. If he was trying to alienate the audience, he couldn't have done better. (The Meadowlands are in New Jersey. New Jersey!)
Korean BBQ in NYC tonight, followed by karaoke late into the night.
absenceofmind is ♥