Thursday, January 24, 2013

Events : USA : WA : Gorge : Sasquatch!

When : Friday, May 24, 2013 - Monday, May 27, 2013

Where : 754 Silica Road NW, George, WA 98848 (Gorge Amphitheatre)

Time : TBD

Price : 4 Day Pass : $300 (Purchase Tickets)

Sasquatch 2012 at the Gorge in Washington delighted festival-goers with good times, great music and phenomenal scenery over Memorial Day weekend. Tens of thousands packed into the spacious amphitheater overlooking the picturesque Columbia River for four days of camping, jamming and all night parties. With headliners Bon Iver, Jack White, Beck and Girl Talk, there was absolutely something for listeners of all tastes.

It wasn’t all about the huge names, though. Metric blew away the massive crowd with old favorites combined with new material from its forthcoming album. Riot grrls Wild Flag rocked hard and played with awe-inspiring energy and precision. Not only did country-rockers Deer Tick slay with their first (and only scheduled) performance, they proved to be excellent pinch hitters. After a last minute cancellation by Mogwai, they played a covers-only set to a pleasantly surprised crowd.

Sasquatch! Review By Royal Stuart : Another Rainy Saturday

The day started out with Dale Earnhardt Jr. Jr. on the main stage. I’d heard nothing but good things about these guys over the last couple of years, but this was my first time seeing them live. I think the appropriate word to define their set is WOW. This trio of guys from Detroit, Michigan really go all out. Scissor kicks, screams, extremely loud guitar wailing, the whole bit. Their cover of the Beach Boys’ “God Only Knows” was the only song I recognized, but that didn’t matter. I will definitely be checking these guys out again.

Next up on the main stage were the folk / Americana outfit Trampled By Turtles. The quintet cover all the usual indie folk instrumentation, with a mandolin and fiddle filling in. This was another band I didn’t know much about before, but was pleasantly surprised by on stage. That’s what’s so great about a festival like Sasquatch!, giving you the ability to see bands you’ve not heard before, and walk away with some new loves. Trampled by Turtles had the best goddamn fiddle player I’ve ever seen play. And I’m the type of person to seek out good fiddle, so I’ve seen quite a bit. Hands down the best.

Moving over to the Bigfoot stage, Brooklyn indie-rockers Here We Go Magic were just going on. I was looking forward to this set, and I was only partially disappointed. Clashing music from competing stages is a mainstay at places like the somewhat tightly-packed Sasquatch!, but the problem has been exaggerated this year with the addition of the 5th, smallest “Maine” Stage. It’s a great spot for Seattle-based hiphop acts to get a small gathering of people, but with its speakers pointed directly at the face of the Bigfoot stage, the mashing of both bands into a cacophony of unpleasing sound is inevitable. For next year, I hope the Sasquatch! crew can schedule the “Maine” stage acts to play only in the 30-35 minutes between Bigfoot sets. It’s a perfect little window of time, and wouldn’t clash with any other acts, allowing both performers to sound better overall.

But I digress. Here We Go Magic were great. The foursome play Talking Heads-ish electronic-based indie rock, with a lot of long droning-beat interludes stringing multiple songs together. The wind was blowing strong from the South, causing the hair of bassist/keyboardist Jen Turner to blow straight out behind her as she did her Tina Weymouth thing on the bass and backing vocals. The band ended the set on the very catchy “How Do I Know,” with the whole audience bouncing up and down in a mad frenzy.

The War on Drugs, who followed HWGM on the Bigfoot stage, surprisingly fit very well with the previous band’s set. Both bands artfully string long droning psych-out instrumental stretches between songs, making it hard to distinguish where one song starts and another ends. But where HWGM sounded vaguely like Talking Heads, The War on Drugs feels more like a Fleetwood Mac clone, but only if they were led by Bob Dylan, as lead singer Adam Granduciel’s voice has the same affected lilt as the aging folk god.

I then caught a bit of M. Ward’s set on the main stage, but not enough to write a decent paragraph about. The man continues to do his thing well, I’m just not that big a fan of his thing.

Now it was time for a little dancy interlude. We headed over to the Banana Shack to catch most of Tycho’s set. Tycho is the electronic music persona of graphic designer Scott Hansen, also known as ISO50. I’d met Hansen years ago at a graphic design convention, bought a tee from him, and never thought I’d see him again, especially in such a change of venues. But the man, along with a live bassist and drummer on stage (and him on the occassional guitar) blends together fantastically poppy electronic soundscapes. The Banana Shack was overflowing with people happily getting their mid-afternoon dance on. It was beautiful.

And now back down to the main stage to catch Seattle’s newest big-stage rockers The Head & The Heart. THATH have the festival thing down. Their songs are well known and loved, with every one demanding some sort of audience singalong, and they still continue to play with excitement, two-plus years of performing essentially the same songs. The highlight were the four new songs the band played, proving that they will be able to continue in the same vein with songs that will be every bit as infectious as their previous works. The trip-hop version of “Cats and Dogs” was also fun to see.

One of the sets I’d been looking forward to the most was up next on the Bigfoot stage. The Walkmen are severely underrated in my book. The NYC/Philly based quintet know how to sell a song better than most, and lead-singer Hamilton Leithauser’s straining vocals are unlike anything you’ll hear in any other band. But yet, competing against The Head and the Heart and Beirut on the main stage ate away at the potential Walkmen following, meaning this was more of an intimate performance than should be expected on the 2nd-biggest stage at the venue in the prime sunset slot. They played a variety of songs from their five albums, as well as a handful of new ones from the forthcoming Heaven, due out next week.

Some day I’ll be able to catch these guys headlining their own tour again, but for now, these festival and opening-slot interludes will have to suffice.

The final two bands of the night for me were on the main stage, but my heart feels that neither band should have been given the timeslots they were. Don’t get me wrong, I love Beirut and Bon Iver probably more than the next guy, but they’re sound is just a bit too delicate to survive the acoustic clashes that happen at Sasquatch. Hearing Beirut mix with the overtones of Zola Jesus wafting in from the Yeti stage, and then later trying to parse the quieter sounds of Bon Iver amidst the din of beats coming from the turntables of James Murphy from the Banana Shack proved difficult. Additionally, the music of Beirut and Bon Iver is lost on most of the youth at Sasquatch!. The loud conversation happening all around us during the bands’ sets forced us into moving twice on the hill, to no avail. The youth of today will not be silenced! I’ll just have to catch these guys on their own tours next time through town.

I hate to end it on a slightly-sour note, so I will say that Sasquatch! Sunday 2012 was the best day so far, and will probably stand out as the highlight of the entire festival. Too many good performances jammed together, and with the hazy sun beating down for most of the day, it was the kind of perfection that can only be had at the Gorge.

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Sources : Sasquatch! Photo | Sasquatch 2012 Video | Sasquatch! Information | Sasquatch! Review By Royal Stuart : Another Rainy Saturday Review | 2012 Line Up

Thursday, January 24, 2013

Events : USA : WA : Gorge : Sasquatch!

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