Event: Fun Fun Fun
Fest, Day 2
Venue: Auditorium
Shores
Location: Austin, Texas
Date: 7 November 2015
Introduction: I
wasn't motivated to make it to Fun Fun Fun Fest last year, but I got
excited again this year and picked the day that looked most promising
to me. (I had previously attended
one day and
one night in 2013.) The weather was cold and windy, and due to
storming, the festival was actually about an hour late in opening its
doors. It would seem that the first scheduled acts were simply
dropped, and the next round were about 15 minutes late.
I arrived just in time
for the doors to open (so I had to walk to the end of the line and
then walk all the way back to the entrance) and I got in just as
Joanna Gruesome were starting. Although the band's name might
be a gimmick (not that I particularly care for Joanna Newsom) and
their original frontwoman recently left the band, they performed
better than I would've expected. I liked the mix of punk energy and
post-punk,
My Bloody Valentine-style guitar work and melody. I'm led to believe
that their words are worth hearing, but sadly, despite many audience
requests to boost the vocal levels, I couldn't understand a word.
[Joanna Gruesome.]
Out of curiosity, I
then went to the yellow tent stage to hear Dr. Scott Bolton, a
NASA scientist often involved in education and outreach.
Unsurprisingly, he was a bit out of place at the festival, but he
maintained a consistent crowd (even if most were there to escape the
drizzle or hear whoever came next) and he did manage to get a few
laughs. His presentation was somewhat disorganized, as if he had a
lot of ideas to share but hadn't apportioned his allotted time
appropriately. His main focus was the necessity of interaction
between the arts and sciences, in that such cross-field engagement is
the root of innovation. (I certainly wouldn't disagree.) He
encouraged us to make and maintain friendships with a variety of
people with different interests and careers. He also talked some
about the mission he primarily works on (the Juno spacecraft en route
to Jupiter) and the physics of skateboarding.
I caught just the last
couple songs of both Shamir and Speedy Ortiz but not
really enough of either to get a good impression. Shamir seemed
interesting, and I liked his keyboardist, even if the programmed
parts were a little annoying. Speedy Ortiz struck me as decent indie
guitar rock but that's about all I can say.
With some reservation,
I trekked over to the black stage to see the Toronto hardcore band
Fucked Up. I must be missing something, because for all the
acclaim I hear about this band, I couldn't figure them out. There
were three guitarists for apparently no reason. Supposedly their
lyrics are good and politically progressive, but I wouldn't know,
since every single word was screamed and indecipherable. This was
accompanied by a lot of stage diving and the singer running through
the crowd for most of the set. On the other hand, this was the first
hardcore band I've seen live with a woman member. I eventually got
bored and bailed to go catch the latter half of the Charlatans'
set. Their rather generic Britpop sound wasn't much of an
improvement, but at least it wasn't as abrasive and I was able to
find a dry place to sit. I appreciated an occasional hint of funk and
the final song's progressive edge.
I stuck around the
orange stage for a while at this point. I had a passing interest in
Fuzz, and they lived up to expectation as a riff-heavy rock
band. They played wildly, a little unhinged, with non-stop energy.
They clearly have a lot of fun while maintaining good vibes, even if
there isn't much depth to it and the lyrics are throwaway. As
expected, the guitar and bass were very fuzzy, but contrary to
expectation, the vast majority of the crowd surfing was by women. I
don't know if I can take Ty Segall and his gang seriously, but at
least they did their best to be entertaining.
[Fuzz.]
Immediately after
Fuzz's set, I witnessed something that perhaps has to be seen to be
believed. I'd heard of the taco cannon, but did not realize it was a
real thing. Sure enough, the festival organizers have some sort of
propulsive mechanism for rapid-firing (sealed) tacos into the
audience. They didn't shoot any into the area I was standing in, but
I'm betting they weren't vegan, anyway.
[The taco cannon in action.]
Next up was
American
Football, one of those 90s Midwestern indie guitar rock bands
that disappeared before anyone hardly knew they existed, yet managed
to capture a fair bit of adoration in the meantime. They played
several songs from their lone, self-titled album from 1999 (setlist
borrowed from
here):
1. Stay Home
2.
Honestly?
3. For Sure
4. I'll See You When We're Both Not So
Emotional
5. The Summer Ends
6. Never Meant
7. The
7's
Their music was very chill and low-key, but yet
consistently fascinating. The guitar parts were great; they were
constantly weaving around each other and finding new spaces to grow.
The parts were extremely well written and carefully performed, such
that you wouldn't even notice the morass of unusual time signatures
if you weren't looking for them. The drummer was on point, too, and
in several songs he picked up a trumpet for an instrumental section.
The only weak part of the performance was the vocals: I guess I just
find Mike Kinsella's style to be a bit off-key or in need of some
tunefulness. Excepting that, I thought they did an excellent job, and
I was fondly reminded of
Hum and
Falsetto Boy.
[American Football.]
The following act was
the real reason I was there: Ride. While I haven't been a fan
for long, their first two albums and early EPs have become some of my
recent favorites, and I was thrilled at the notion of seeing their
reformed live show. Perhaps fully aware of the relative mediocrity of
their latter two albums, their set focused almost entirely on the
beloved earlier material:
01. Leave Them All
Behind
02. Like a Daydream
03.
Polar Bear
04. Seagull
05. Kaleidoscope
06. Cool Your
Boots
07. Dreams Burn Down
08. Black Nite Crash
09.
Taste
10. Vapour Trail
11. Drive Blind
I was thoroughly
impressed with their ability to bring the songs alive on stage. The
signature two-part vocals harmonies were spot-on throughout the set,
and the amazing guitar parts were there in full. I also noticed far
more of Steve Queralt's bass and Laurence Colbert's drumming than I
ever had from their recordings. Put all together, it was an intense
performance and I was easily lost in the beautiful noise they
created. I could fault them for predictability or for not introducing
many variations in the material they recorded over twenty years ago,
but it was of such high quality that even those criticisms seem
unwarranted. The one dramatic departure was a long, noisy,
experimental jam between the second and third verses of "Drive
Blind". I was reminded of the extended "holocaust"
section found in
My Bloody Valentine's live performances of
"You Made Me Realise". As far as I can tell, they've been
doing this since their early days, but I was unaware until now.
[Ride.]
As Ride walked off
stage, I rushed to the blue stage to see as much of Grimes'
set as possible. However, the crowd was dense and mostly engaging in
spaced-out dancing, talking, or lighting up various substances, so I
was unable to get anywhere near the stage and my ability to pay close
attention was substantially impeded. From what I could see, she just
danced around stage while occasionally pausing to interact with
various electronics. All I could hear were diffuse drum beats,
scattered synth parts, and Grimes' passable vocals. My impressions of
Grimes has
always been very good in the past, but this live performance made me
feel like I was missing something. I could hardly tell what the
audience was holding on to. It was a strange experience; it was as if
everyone else was hearing or seeing something I couldn't.
When
it came time to pick a headliner to see, I wasn't feeling
particularly enthused
about any of my choices, but I ended up
sticking around the orange stage for Jane's Addiction.
They commenced playing their Ritual
de lo habitual
album in full, and during the first song, three scantily-clad
women came out and began suggestively dancing. I was surprised at
such a tasteless affair, and
I left in search of tofu tacos. When
I returned, the dancers were gone. In fact, I was lucky to return
when I did, as I came back just in time for them to start playing a
very distinctive riff that I immediately recognized as "Burning
from the Inside" by Bauhaus.
Instead of the normal lyrics, it appeared that Perry Farrell was
singing parts of Bob Dylan's "Like a Rolling Stone". Truly,
this was something bizarre and fascinating. It still hardly makes
sense to me, since it certainly never appeared on Ritual
de lo habitual,
which they were still in the middle of, but apparently they used to
play this weird medley back in the day. It was even given a special
name: "Bobhaus".
[Jane's Addiction.]
That odd diversion was
probably the highlight for me, as soon afterwards the dancers
returned to remind us that the five men musicians on stage apparently
only have use of women as visual props. At least the band didn't
solely rely on their sexist display to entertain their audience;
musically, I thought they had some great performances. Certainly some
songs were standard macho rock, but many others had a great sense of
atmosphere and texture. At the least, Dave Navarro proved himself as
an extremely proficient guitarist. The setlist can be found
here.
I left early in order
to get to the late night show at The Sidewinder, which I will review
in my
next post.
Scores:
Joanna Gruesome: B+
Fucked Up: D
The Charlatans (UK): C
Fuzz: B
American Football: A-
Ride: A+
Grimes: C
Jane's Addiction: B-
Final Thoughts:
I didn't catch enough attention of Shamir or Speedy Ortiz to be able
to score them effectively. Similarly, Dr. Scott Bolton was far enough
outside the usual spectrum that I don't think it would be fair for me
to try to score him. Of the acts I did score, it seemed like there
was a sharp divide between the acts that I simply couldn't make sense
of and those that fell into some sort of rock spectrum that I could
appreciate. I fear that my biases are showing through here, but I did
my best to try to branch out a bit, and it is entirely plausible that
I chose the wrong moments for doing so.
I had also originally
intended to see Desaparecidos, but they unfortunately recently
canceled their tour under vague health concerns. I was also very
curious about Gogol Bordello, but their time slot competed with Ride
and I knew what I had to do. I do wonder if I should have given the
blue and black stages more attention, though.
One last sidenote: I
think I will perhaps always have an unfair resentment of The
Charlatans for forever getting my hopes up when searching for
Chameleons
records. Their bins were always next to each other, both are usually
marketed in the USA with an appended "UK" tag, and both
have lead singers with the surname Burgess. Naturally, The Chameleons
are far superior, but most record stores seemed to have more used
Charlatans albums in their stock.
