June 2007 - Posts
Widespread Panic
If I owned a VW Bus, and my bus was having mechanical trouble, I would be so psyched to run into the guitarist of Widespread Panic out on the road. He looks like he must be the greatest VW mechanic in the known world. In fact, all the members of Widespread Panic could claim to be able to fix my bus and I would believe them, except maybe the guy who looks like a diamond merchant that plays the congas.
Just to establish my credentials here, let me state for the record that I saw the Dead twice, once at RFK with Edie Brickell and once at the Tacoma Dome with Santana. I’ve seen jam bands at their jammiest, and can attest that jamming is fun, both as a player and as an audience member, if you’ve been smoking pot all day and people will let you get away with it.
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White Stripes
It was clear that the White Stripes should have played the mainstage. Whether or not they’ve sold enough records to be considered the big headliner is immaterial. For this kind of show they were unsurpassable and everyone knew it.
The field in front of the second stage was packed like a London Underground station during rush hour, and there was no earthly way I was going to get close enough to see the show without some major trickery. The vast majority of festival attendees were converging on the same spot at the same time. My all-access passes weren’t worth anything; every hotshot in Tennessee was trying to talk his or her way into the backstage, the side stage, the photo pit, wherever…
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Wilco
I have no real problem with rock mythologizing. If Slash from Guns N' Roses wants to act like he’s too busy playing with his Burmese Python to have sex with the foxy model in his bed, OK. Likewise when Eddie Vedder traded his high-tops and Lakers jersey for combat boots, a flannel shirt and a drinking problem.
There’s only one type of rock mythologizing I can’t abide, and that’s the “I’m so fragile, so sensitive, that I’ll just DIE if I have to do one more press conference” type. Jeff Tweedy made a feature-length film about how much he hated being on camera, (and so did Radiohead, come to think of it), and people lapped it up like clotted cream. Barf.
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Feist
I’ve also toured with Feist, but now that I’ve established my journalistic integrity we can dispense with formality. She’s a first-rate guitarist and musician who is inspiring some cult-like devotion from her fans.
I didn’t hear cheering anywhere else like the cheering for Leslie Feist — she’d arch her eyebrow and the place would blow up — which always makes me wonder what the heck is going on. Her songs are minimalist and inventive, and she has a good voice and a good ear, like a PJ Harvey who’s not so mad at boys, but the rabid fandom is usually about something else. She must be code for something that I haven’t figured out.
Decembrists
In all fairness, I should probably recuse myself from reviewing the Decembrists. They are a band I know, we’ve toured together and I’ve appeared in one of their music videos. Also, Decembrist Chris Funk guested on the Long Winters’ most recent album. I can’t possibly review their show impartially, because I like them too much.
On the other hand, I’ve been in a “fake feud” with them for several years, involving some “smack talking” and pranking, which despite my best efforts has failed to catch fire mostly because they reciprocate too passively. (I think they’re holding out for a fake feud with Sufjan Stevens or something). So I can’t really be trusted not to call them a bunch of fruity, Vaudeville, pirate-song-singing sissies just to burn their britches a little.
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Elvis Perkins
Here’s a guy that if I told you his backstory you’d hardly believe it. In fact, most writers want to talk about his story so badly, and how it influences his melancholy music, you can tell they aren’t really listening to his tunes. They figured out what the story is before they heard a note.
Elvis and his band played lyrical folk in a Newport in ‘65 kind of way, with acoustic and electric instruments in equal measure. The real highlights were the tunes he announced as coming out on their next release. These new songs sounded like early Animals or Troggs, and the extra energy was like a shot in the arm. The Bonnaroo audience got an early taste of the songs they’ll be singing along with next year. Hail, hail rock and roll!
The Bonnaroo Guide
Wow, why didn’t I look at this thing sooner? There’s a wealth of information in here that would have enabled me to represent like a real music journalist. For instance, many of you probably already know that Maynard Keenan from Tool is also in A Perfect Circle! Scintillating!
The fact is, and I speak from experience here, both as a musician and a reporter, that the fixation on trivia, arcana, timelines and pedigree, while making up the lion’s share of the conversation about music in the world, have nothing at all to do with music. It’s all glorified baseball-card collecting. I’m as guilty as the next guy, and will bore you to tears talking about George Harrison’s guitars, or which Judas Priest records are the good ones, but more often than not, too much information gets in the way.
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David Bromberg
Testing my “Happy Birthday” theory was David Bromberg, another truly gifted player who appeared to have come directly from his day job as a watch repairman in Schenectady, NY. (Actually, he repairs violins in Wilmington, Del. I’m cheating now, consulting the festival guide, and it’s comforting how close I came.)
Mr. Bromberg played a nice mix of bluegrass and folk, with a lot of fast picking and fiddling, but he was taking the piss too, and hamming it up.
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T-Bone Burnett
T-Bone is a famous producer, a man with golden ears, and if memory serves he was also the bass player in David Letterman’s band and the "Saturday Night Live" band? I can’t really fact-check T-Bone’s resume because I’m typing on a BlackBerry phone in a dirty field with 60,000 hippies, but I’m sure some concerned citizen will castigate me for not knowing more.
T-Bone obviously plays for the love of it, and his band had the feel of a busman’s holiday. Just some great journeyman players running through some oldies rock numbers for the hell of it. The stage looked like a high-end vintage music store, and those old instruments really did make appreciably sweeter tones. I think players of this caliber could play anything, could play the Happy Birthday song for an hour, and I’d still enjoy the show.
Wolfmother
When Wolfmother took the stage, I was jazzed. Right out of the gate their riffs and tones landed close to my heart, conjuring a young Black Sabbath with just a hint of pop. I love old Black Sabbath, so I settled in with the expectation that I’d be happily heavy metalled for an hour in the hot sun.
A few songs in, however, my enthusiasm morphed into incredulity. Were these guys serious? They sounded EXACTLY like a young Black Sabbath, same Ozzy vocals, same half-step modulations and even clunkier Toni Iommi solos. Was I missing something? Isn’t that illegal? Can you really DO that?
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I’ve come down pretty hard on some aspects of Bonnaroo, but one thing is undeniable: there are 80,000 people here, in the middle of nowhere, camping and listening to music, and there’s almost no violence, hostility, or even frustration being expressed. The mentality of the crowd is overwhelmingly positive and accepting.
I fully admit that I’m approaching the festival from the perspective of someone outside this culture, so I might not always be as charitable as I could. But the friendly, supportive nature of the whole affair says something quite remarkable and positive about human nature.
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Gov’t Mule
Walking backstage at a Gov’t Mule concert is like sneaking into the toughest biker bar in Alabama. I haven’t seen that many rough- looking, three hundred pound guys with ponytails since I left Alaska. The road crew, the band and the fans all seemed cut from the same cloth: a bunch of tough mofos with Camaros in their front yards, and the music was exactly the kind of gnarly roadhouse chicken- fried rock that makes you want to bust a Bud longneck on the bar and take on a guy wielding a pool cue. Thank heaven.
Gov’t Mule is the real deal, (singer/guitarist Warren Haynes was in the Allman Brothers), but this was no revival act. Now that ZZ Top is a cartoon, playing county fairs and wagging their beards, and Lynyrd Skynyrd is close to doing the same thing, it’s nice to hear some boys play Southern rock like it stands for something. You could almost taste the frog legs
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Flaming Lips
After the Police finished there was a mass exodus to the other side of the festival grounds for the Flaming Lips. There were no video screens on this stage, but to the Lips’ credit they obviously blew a wad on their lighting and special effects rig, sparing no expense to make the show a madhouse. And a madhouse it was.
Wayne Coyne is one of the most intelligent men in music, smart enough to know which part is serious and which part is fun, and he obviously works feverishly to ensure that the crowd has the time of their life.
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The Police
I’m not sure who was clamoring for a Police reunion. I mean, I’m sure it sounded like a great idea to a lot of people, but why would the Police themselves agree to do it? When they broke up it was the perfect gesture. They were as big as they were going to get, they hated each other, boom: the end. Brilliant.
Now they’re back together and touring, but why? I don’t think they like each other any better, and unlike Zepplin or the Beatles it’s not as though their legend only grew in their absence. I wanted to understand the reason, because I wanted the reunion to be important and good. I didn’t want it to feel gratuitous or phoned-in. Because I like the Police. When they opened with "Message in a Bottle" (played too fast!), I sprinted across the festival to get close.
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Ween
I’ll confess up front that I cannot possibly understand Ween. For years they seemed like an elaborate prank, like eventually they’d say, “Ha! We were just kidding the whole time. We’re actually Yale cultural studies majors trying to determine how ludicrous a band could be and still have a following, and we’ve determined that there is no limit. Thanks for participating.”
They’ve been mating Frank Zappa’s scatological humor with everything from jazz to country for, what, 20 years? I get the impression that fans of Ween could listen to no other music but Ween and still have a fairly good grasp and appreciation of most musical styles. Likewise, you can listen to no Ween at all, as I have done, and still survive to adulthood undamaged.
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Franz Ferdinand
Most guitar players spend an inordinate amount of time and money trying to get their guitars to sound “fat.” It’s one of the reasons there are some many different types of guitar amps and effects pedals, each claiming to “fatten” tone. The problem is that the guitar is an intrinsically whiney, squeaky, high-pitched brat of an instrument, and when it’s amplified it can become downright painful.
Franz Ferdinand has embraced the essential truth about the guitar, building their sound around the natural “chink chink” of the unaffected instrument. And although they kick the treble like fencers clashing foils, far from sounding harsh it actually reads as “fat.” Who knew?
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Ben Harper
I remember when Ben Harper’s first record came out thinking that this was a talented guy who was on to something different. He was playing rootsy slide guitar music, but taking it somewhere different, somewhere pop and cool.
I listened to that record a lot, but as the years wore on I was disappointed by his subsequent releases, which tended to feature the rootsy blues mixed with cheesy soul. Eventually he became a staple of the college jam circuit, just playing it safe and by the numbers, despite the fact that he was a guitarist who could do just about anything he chose.
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Xaxier Rudd
Now this was some serious “world music.” Xaxier Rudd is a handsome white kid from Australia who learned to play the diggeradoo and took it on tour.
He sat on the stage surrounded by a command center of wooden instruments, reminiscent of a Hollywood set designer’s take on the captain’s chair of an alien spacecraft, if the movie starred John Travolta in dreadlocks and yellow contact lenses. Three diggeradoos, numerous gourds, shakers, gongers, dingers and flibbity-jibbitys, plus some different drums and a few guitars, all within arm’s reach.
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The Hold Steady
These fellows have a rabid popularity that leaves me deeply conflicted. Although their live show is undeniably full of energy, full of engagement, and full of whimsy, their music is full of s--t.
I mean that admiringly, since most of rock and roll is similarly full of s--t, (Jim Morrison was 100 percent full of s--t). But after a song and a half, I’d lost track of the number of total rip-offs in their tunes, so much so that their set played like a medley of the greatest hits of the E Street Band, Bad Company, Foreigner and Styx. As played by your uncle’s friends.
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Fountains of Wayne
This band gets saddled with the “power pop” label (which has a slightly disparaging undertone to my ear), but they are an absolutely perfect American rock band.
In the interest of full disclosure I should note that their drummer, Brian Young, played on my band’s first record, but to mitigate that fact I can say that I hated the video for “Stacy’s Mom,” making me again an impartial judge.
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Ziggy Marley
I’ve gone on record having fatal misgivings about the preponderance of reggae music at Bonnaroo, but Ziggy Marley comes to the stage as legitimate rock royalty. He plays reggae as a birthright, unapologetically channeling his father with every movement and note, and his show comes across as a blessed event.
It’s easy to forget that Rastafarianism is a bona fide religion, and that marijuana is its sacrament. Adherents believe that Haile Selassie, King of Ethiopia, was a living god come to Earth to free Africa from bondage. It didn’t turn out that way — Haile Selassie spent all his money on gold toilets and pet leopards — but the music transcended the loony religion. That’s more than the Mormons can say, anyway.
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Annuals
These kids have the look and energy of a high school band that stayed together and got good. I have no idea how old they actually are, but I was slightly embarrassed to be enjoying their set, the way you’d feel if your kid brother’s band was cooking, the way Jimmy Vaughn feels his whole life.
Apparently they’re quite popular in the UK, but you can’t hold that against them, and in their best moments they were trading instruments and playing straight rock and roll with major flair.
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Hot Tuna
It was great to see Jorma Kaukonen and Jack Cassidy in person, musical luminaries that they are (both were in Jefferson Airplane), and especially cool to see Jack Cassidy playing his namesake bass guitar.
Not many guys have their own signature model, and Jack Cassidy’s Epiphone happens to be a guitar that many of us indie-rockers choose for its inexpensive radness.
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Regina Spektor
I’ve heard Regina Spektor referred to as a “quirky” artist, in the crazy-piano-girl model of Tori Amos or Fiona Apple, but watching her play I was struck by the fact that her music is just a direct expression of her personality without almost any affectation.
Musicians these days get away with so much blatant stealing that we’re used to judging them on the small bit of innovation they manage to insert into familiar forms. But Regina Spektor isn’t imitating anybody, her influences aren’t obvious or beside the point; she’s just making music from someplace inside herself and putting it out there unadorned. Which is killer.
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Gogol Bordello
I suppose that this was “world music,” given the broadest definition of the term, but Gogol Bordello’s rocked-up Balkan music should be lesson one for rock stars everywhere. Eastern European music is such a goulash of its Turkish, Jewish, Gypsy, Spanish and Arab influences, and electrifying it with distorted guitars just improves its effect.
The show was like a revival meeting in the Church of Dante, except Mephistopheles looked like Borat goofing off playing an overturned bucket.
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Tool
In massive contrast to everything else I saw on Friday, Tool wants us to know that everything is NOT OK. In fact, going by the imagery projected on the giant screens flanking the stage, Tool is predicting that the future will be just one terrifying invasive medical procedure after another. Prepare to have your skin flayed by emotionless cyborgs, America, in 5/7 time.
It was pretty refreshing, actually, to hear a band make evil sounds and show scary videos, and the Bonnaroo audience was musically resilient enough to dance and groove to Tool like they were listening to ABBA Gold. The live sound was crushingly good, the guitar sounded like it was quadruple- tracked, and the singer spent the whole set at the back of the stage, silhouetted against the bright video screens. It was a cool effect for the singer to remain distant, highlighting the estrangement in the music, but paradoxically the overall effect was enveloping and calm.
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Manu Chao Radio Bemba Sound System
My band played before Manu Chao at a festival earlier this year, and there’s no denying that they are unparalleled at energizing a crowd.
Playing a punked-up reggae, they go from one “hands-in-the-air” moment to another, full of “AYE-YO-YO!” call and response bits, screaming lead guitar solos, and aerobic running in place. Whatever political message of liberation reggae music used to have is long gone now, replaced with uncomplicated fun, and in that sense it’s the perfect soundtrack to Bonnaroo.
There are thousands of kids here wearing the uniforms of youthful rebellion, the long hair, tie-dyed shirts, piercings and tattoos that used to symbolize dawning political consciousness, and although the air is redolent of marijuana there is hardly any other sign that these youth are interested in action.
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Dierks Bentley with Sam Bush
Dierks is apparently a multi-platinum country artist. I was pleased to see that his band had actual “country-and-western” instruments, like a banjo and a mandolin, unlike most young country artists today who dress and sound like Winger in cowboy hats. (That said, the bass-player’s Mesa/Boogie rig looked like he borrowed it from Godsmack).
They played inoffensive American country music that seemed to really connect with the flag-headband, straw-cowboy-hat set, and I was settling in for some fast-picking banjo solos when the lead singer sang, “I wish I was a slave, it wouldn’t matter what kind…” Yipes! I tried to discern what he was getting at, and it seemed to be something along the lines of wanting to yearn to be free, but it didn’t quite scan. The “slave” reference seemed like a tone-deaf attempt to forge some solidarity with African-Americans, although there were none visible in the audience, and I was suddenly unnerved by all the big, shaved-headed white dudes standing around.
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The Roots
Over on the mainstage the Roots grabbed me and shook me like a bear shakes a salmon. I’m no big fan of modern hip-hop, especially the prevalent brand that glorifies pimps and hookers, and in fact can’t wait for it to wither on the vine. But the Roots are a funk band of the highest order, so much so that even the constant rapping over the music doesn’t quite make it hip-hop. Their “hype guy” is a tuba player, for crying out loud. No disrespect to the MC, because he rapped well, and in fact he wondered aloud from the stage whether hip-hop was a thing of the past, but the Roots have the musicianship to transcend the limitations of the genre.
I was unselfconsciously boogieing throughout their set, although I didn’t devolve into hippy-dancing like much of the crowd. I boogied. There’s a difference. Music played with that much soul is intrinsically positive, and they even vamped on Inna Gada Da Vida.
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Paolo Nutini
Knowing nothing about Paolo Nutini, and hearing the music before I could see the stage, I pictured Eartha Kitt backed by the Goo Goo Dolls. Imagine my surprise when the vocalist was a skinny, young rocker dude who would've looked right at home in a Small Faces cover band. The crowd seemed to be digging it, but over the course of four songs I couldn't figure out if I was watching Perry Farrell interpret the music of Leon Redbone, or Soul Asylum making fun of Peter Cetera. Either way it wasn't pretty.
Gillian Welch
I didn’t expect the pure acoustic folk of Gillian Welch to translate well in a giant, outdoor tent, but hers was the first set to truly captivate me. Gillian and her partner David Rawlings harmonized and played acoustic guitars in a style that originated not far from where we stood: Appalachian hillbilly pickin’ and grinnin’, in the style of the Carter Family. Rawlings is a smoking guitar player and threatened to overshadow his partner, getting raucous cheers for his “blue” take on bluegrass, but the sound of their voices together hushed the capacity crowd. They even hushed the snarky voices in my head. Then, upping the ante about as far as you can up it, they bring freaking John Paul Jones out to play mandolin on two songs. My jaw actually dropped long enough for my tongue to get coated with dust. JPJ is a pretty hot mandolin player, but he played supportively and stayed in the shadows. I couldn’t help but notice that he’s the same height as Gillian Welch, which can’t be very tall, but he's a heck of a lot better preserved than Jimmy Page.
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After an insane 24 hours of shuttling around airports, bungled reservations and canceled flights, (I won’t mention the airline except that it starts with a “D” and ends with an “A” and has an “elt” in the middle), I finally hit the ground at Bonnaroo early Friday afternoon and headed straight out to make up for lost time. The weather was a muggy ninety degrees and the dust was rising, but I was hot to check out some rock and roll. The Brazilian Girls and Tortoise were first on my list.
Brazilian Girls
I’ve seen the Brazilian Girls before, having shared a stage with them at last year’s ACL festival in Austin, and their slinky, bass-heavy, world-techno-funk really grabbed me then. It seemed sophisticated and sexy/smart. Today, something wasn’t translating. Some bands that absolutely destroy in front of a thousand people seem lost in front of 10,000, and all the Sun Ra costumes in the world can’t fill the space. The singer wore a giant reflecting disc as her costume, but seemed aimless trying to rally the sun-baked crowd, and the mix sounded fuzzed-out.
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