Last Saturday Westword Magazine put on their 16th annual music showcase. This is a festival which brings in several well known indie bands, but generally promotes the local music scene. It was my second year going, and the experience was much more enjoyable thanks to the fact that I was finally 21.
We got there right as the first act on the main stage Oh My Stars were finishing, and it sounded like we did not miss much. Sorry guys. Later we went to Vinyl which was the nearest bar with live music. On the rooftop, there was a heavyset rapper and dj combo by the name of Manerok. I was impressed with his flow and tenacity, but unfortunately its a bit hard to pick out lyrics, when the bass covers up just about everything. Anyway, when the dj put on some Wu Tang beats, the crowd was digging it. An energy filled hip hop set so early in the day, started the festival off right for me.
We stayed longer at Vinyl and saw a two piece female rock band perform their form of reverb drenched garage rock to backing drums tracks. Nothing great, but they did quite alright for what they were working with. Also, once the guitarist learns to play guitar a bit better, they will be worth seeing again live.
For the headliners:
Neon Indian played first at 4:30. If you are unfamiliar with Neon Indian, the songs "Deadbeat Summer" and "Should have taken acid with you" are stellar. Live however, they were not bringing it like I expected them to. They went through their deubt album, with not as much energy as I would have liked. In between tracks, there was also endless noodling and messing around that brought the momentum of the show to near a halt. The highlights of some of the songs did make up for an otherwise underwhelming show.
Next were the Dirty Projectors. Dave Longstretch tried to warm up the crowd by talking about how the Rockies are now good. Unfortunately his lack of baseball showed immediately as he called it Coors stadium, and did not know the Rockies have been good for a little while now. As they played, the crowd slowly began to fade away from them. The stellar guitar playing heard on the album was not present, and the pretentiousness of their sound drove me away from the act.
Also, my friend wanted to see a recommended heavy metal act. His act played at a nearby gay bar, which did not bother me at all except for the fact that unlike all the other bars they were not selling $2 PBR's. Anyway, after a very tired and redundant act, we left disappointed.
Arriving at the main stage just in time for noted indie rockers SuperChunk, we got settled into the middle of the crowd. This was the first show together for a long time, and they were playing this festival before they got started on their major nationwide tour. At first the apprehension of playing before a large crowd showed, but once they got going they were full on rocking. Classics like Slack Motherfucker raged on, and the set almost felt too short as they were finishing. This is a band I wished I heard of earlier, which is sad considering they have been around for over 20 years.
The last act of the night, which brought in all the festival attendees was Ghostland Observatory. The choice of Ghostland Observatory, an electro dance group, seemed strange since last year Built to Spill headlined, and the year prior Drive By Truckers did. Ghostland, did not disappoint though. Playing to a crowd, that I thought would exceed the capacity for music like this, the guys played with ton of energy and brought an exceptional light show with them. For the better part of an hour the crowd was having a great time dancing along to the synthesized and processed beats. A solid way to end a great day of live music and heavy drinking.
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