Scorchin' Gorge-in'
What better way to enjoy Memorial Day weekend than under a cloudless sky with a sweltering sun on the hottest day of the year? Seattlest hates hot weather (we tend to sweat easily and a lot), but we braved Saturday's exxxtreme temps to catch some outstanding music at Sasquatch. When it was all said and done, we had seen eight full acts and pieces of another three; we also managed to successfully avoid sunburn.
From previous Sasquatch experience, we knew to head out early to avoid the caravans streaming from Seattle. We were inside the gates (sans our contraband Gatorade) not long after 11am---early enough to catch a bit of Math and Physics Club on the Yeti stage. While they are super geeky-cute (consider them "Happy Morrissey"), sunscreen was already running into Seattlest's eyes, so we had to move on and cop a squat. We were lucky to find a choice spot in the shade to catch local act United State of Electronica. Even though it was already shaping up to be a scorcher, U.S.E. brought high energy to the stage with their breed of Daft Punk/Junior Senior disco boogie. Next up was London's Bloc Party. Seattlest was excited to see them live, and with their solid set of post-punk dance-rock anthems, they did not disappoint. After that it was Jem and Ray LaMontagne on the mainstage, and while we are not opposed to either artist per se, we left our blanket manned and headed over to the Wookie Stage for Britpop-lovin' Montreal band The Dears and solo New Pornographer A.C. Newman. Big ups to the audio guys who let Seattlest get outta the sun under their tent.
After a couple hours, we returned to the Sasquatch mainstage, only to find our shade had disappeared with the moving sun---damn you, huge, flaming, life-providing orb in the sky! [As an aside...we'd like to offer one word of advice, if we may, for attending an outdoor music fest, especially one with hot, sunny weather: umbrella. This item was the only thing that made the 95° temps close to tolerable.] Having thusly created our own shade, we settled in for the Arcade Fire, who, as would be expected, played the stand-out set of the day. We fully expected them to put on a great show, and they still managed to dazzle and move us. Even in a large outdoor venue, their passion was palpable and contagious, and they played most of the songs off their debut album, including fan favorites "Neighborhood(s) 1" and "3" and "Rebellion (Lies)". Truly, they brought the heat, or at least coincided with it.
Post-Arcade Fire, we had originally planned to catch a bit of Crystal Skulls on the Yeti Stage, but that was just not gonna happen. Instead, we stayed at the mainstage for Wilco, who played the longest set of the day to that point, every song trailing off into feedback and trippy guitar noodling. Wilco stuck mostly to their last two albums, but managed to throw in a couple of their older hits. Jeff Tweedy seemed to be in high spirits, and this time not from the pain pills.
The sun was low enough in the sky that it had started to cool down just in time for maestro producer/MC Kanye West to take the stage. Kayne performed a bunch of tracks from his first (numerous awards-winning) album, as well as a few songs from his upcoming release, Late Registration---which, in the parlance of the industry, is set to drop July 12th. We like musicians who aren't too full of themselves to engage in some self-criticism (far too rare in the rap game), and we love how Kanye's geeky enough to do karaoke over some of his favorite jams. In fact, there’s so much that's wonderful about Kanye that we find it more than a tad disquieting that he's now grown enough of an ego to begin referring to himself in the third person as "The Roc."
After Mr. West's encore, we headed over to the Wookie stage for the tail-end of Joanna Newsom's set. Her harp-picking fingers were bleeding, her voice was odd and lovely, and we wished that whomever set up the Sasquatch schedule hadn't made us choose between her and Kanye. By this point, the sun was over the mountains and it had cooled off considerably, putting people in a much better mood. So it was as good of a time as any for The Frames to come out and play. Since the band is fookin' huge in their native Ireland, they totally know how to work a crowd. Towards the end of the set, we could hear Modest Mouse on the mainstage from afar, promoting singer Glen Hansard to call them the "backing band."
And yeah, that's right, we skipped Modest Mouse. For a few reasons: we've already seen them 912 times; we don't like 'em much to begin with (you heard me); and we're really sick of their sorority girl fans who only heard of the band from The O.C. Seriously, we saw three Delta Delta Delta girls in a row, each wearing the standard issue green buffalo MM tee, paired with a white ruffled miniskirt---a trend that was already over, like, last summer.
But then...oh yes, then, we were in for the treat of the night: Matisyahu. You've read about him in the New York Times; you've heard him on NPR. He is quite possibly the world’s only Hassidic reggae rapper, and he avoids the fate of mere novelty act by being completely awesome. At its core, reggae is spiritual; Mastisyahu continues in that tradition, replacing Jah with Yahweh. Rocking the mike in traditional garb, he is such a self-assured performer that he automatically ranks among the Coolest People Ever. He tackles subjects like politics, the teachings of the Torah, his faith in G-d, and the exodus from Egypt (as in Moses, fool). He is certainly the only rapper we've ever seen who jumps around on stage and then checks to make sure his yarmulke's still in place. He is prone to beatbox. Oh sweet Jesus, we love Matisyahu.
At that point, Seattlest was beyond exhausted and a little cold and pretty stinky, so we headed home early (again, to beat the traffic). We didn't stay for the Pixies---we saw 'em last year at Bumbershoot, so we've already had that concert experience. Plus, there ain't no way that Frank and Kim could out-perform Matisyahu.
Pics courtesy of intrepid photographer Galen Ward.
