How Doe Bay Fest 2010 Could Out-festival Sasquatch!

The audience on the second day of Doe Bay Festival 2009.

When it comes to outdoor summer festivals in the Pacific Northwest, Sasquatch! is currently king. So, it's no surprise that I spent a few hours on Saturday afternoon thinking about how Doe Bay Fest matches up to the Memorial Day monster. On the surface, the festivals already bear similarities: Both are hours from Seattle in breathtaking settings and allow total immersion into live music. But Does Bay have the potential to be better than Sasquatch? Head-to-head comparison after the jump.

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Topics: Concert Reviews, Rant, and Sasquatch

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Pop Quiz: Hippie or Hipster?

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Topics: Sasquatch

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Champagne on the Radio

Renee McMahon

Tunde Adebimpe at Sasquatch

One of the many highlights to being at Sasquatch over the weekend was the noticeable interaction between artists off stage that were just hanging out, sharing meals, and shooting the shit with one another. I noticed some of the guys from TV on the Radio conversing with local hip-hop group Champagne Champagne on Sunday, and it looked like a really friendly exchange. Thomas Gray of Champagne Champagne, asked me, half joking, if he could review the TVOTR show and I said yes. After the jump, check out his magical account of hanging out with those guys, and how two crazy Indian kids got to jam with TVOTR at Sasquatch.

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Topics: Concert Reviews, Love, and Sasquatch

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Sasquatch '09: "And The Boning Comes in Waves"

So I didn't have any celebrity encounters this weekend, but I was witness to some rather provocative happenings. Like hundreds of people watching The Decemberists' set on Saturday night, I was more than surprised when someone in the VIP section spotted something gawk-worthy at the top of the lawn.

The Decemberists had just started playing " And the Wanting Comes in Waves" from their new album The Hazards of Love, and I debated whether to look or concentrate on the stage. The crowd quickly caught on to what was going on off stage, and I unable to see where everyone was focusing their attention asked the girl next to me what they were looking at. She giggled and said, "There's a couple fucking up there, and they both stripped butt naked."

It was like magic, as soon as she said it I saw it, a naked (most likely intoxicated) couple doing the dirty as the entire mainstage cheered them on. Concert security hauled ass up the hill to do some major damage control, and literally had to pry them apart. They stumbled around trying to find pieces of their clothes, the crowd return to the show in progress, and the Decemberists finished out a pretty impressive set.

Surely I'm not the only one with a public sex story from Sasquatch. So, if you have a good one, please share.

Topics: Sasquatch

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Sasquatch '09: A Word of Caution

Don't get injured at an outdoor music festival. Or, to put it more precisely, don't get injured at an outdoor music festival if you're from the great white north and do not have personal insurance. Witness the plight of Robin Feagan, a University of Calgary student making her fourth trip to Sasquatch.

I'd first noticed Feagan as she limped towards the fence after the Monotonix show ended. She'd been standing in the scrum surrounding the band when, she says, a member of the Live Nation (the organizers behind Sasquatch) security team stepped on a few of her toes. She was later taken to an med-station where she was given Tylenol and her foot wrapped in a bandage.

Unfortunately for Feagan, the organizers did not see fit to outfit the aid station with crutches, nor could they arrange a ride for her back to her car, which was parked three miles from the venue. But even if Feagan had made it to an area hospital, she does not have travelers insurance, meaning that the cost to X-ray her possibly broken toes would have come out of pocket—money that she says she simply does not have. Moreover, leaving the venue would have cut short the festival for her and however many of her friends she could get to accompany her to the hospital (There's no re-entry at Sasquatch, kids). And with the trip back to Calgary some 11 hours by car, she decided to tough it out.

When last I saw her, she was standing behind the Wookie (mid-level) stage. Yonotan Gat, the drummer from Monotonix, had heard about the incident and given her a pass to get into the VIP area at the bottom of the hill near the main stage. Unfortunately, she was not able to get a ride back. So, with swollen toes she made the climb herself, arriving just in time to miss all but the last two minutes of Explosions in the Sky. Disappointed, she turned back towards the main stage.

"I'm not missing Ben Harper," she said before limping off.

My initial attempts to speak to a Live Nation official on medical policy for minor injuries were unsuccessful. More on this to come.

Topics: Sasquatch

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Sasquatch 2009 Wrap Up: Nine Inch Nails, Erykah Badu, Kings of Leon, and Plenty of Peeps

Renee McMahon

Watch a slideshow of Saturday at Sasquatch 2009 featuring Kings of Leon, Animal Collective, and more.

Saturday, May 23

Jonathan Cunningham on King Khan and the Shrines: "There aren't a lot of lead singers that can perform at a music festival dressed in solely underwear, a gold cape, Airwalk shoes, and a headdress. But if anybody can pull that off, it's King Khan."

Plus, notes on Doves, Blind Pilot, Dent May, M. Ward, Shearwater, Sun Kil Moon, The Decemberists, Yeah Yeah Yeahs

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Topics: Sasquatch

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Photos: Monday at Sasquatch 2009

Renee McMahon

Watch a slideshow of Monday at Sasquatch 2009, featuring Monotonix, Santigold, Erykah Badu, and more.

Renee McMahon

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Topics: Concert Photos and Sasquatch

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Sasquatch '09: Monotonix

Renee McMahon

Watch a slideshow of Monday at Sasquatch 2009, featuring Monotonix, Santigold, Erykah Badu, and more.

Indeed, there is a moment that comes halfway through the show when you legitimately begin to fear for lead singer, Ami Shalev ( who looks like a the love-child of Frodo Baggins and Frank Zappa). You think: "Surely, he's not going to stand on a snare drum that is supported only by the man-sweat covered arms of a dozen or so audience members—all of whom are probably blazed out of their minds if the smell is any indication." And then: "Surely, he's not going to dive head-long into the crowd from that perch?" And then later: "Oh my God he's dead" during a momentary pause in the vocals after he takes that dive and disappears. But then he pops back up, none the worse for wear save for a trickle of blood flowing down his cheek. Meanwhile, the rest of the band continues shredding through towering, Thin-Lizzy like riffs, and some in the crowd have taken to tossing tortillas like so many frisbees. Given the chaotic energy of the show, this somehow makes sense. The security guards, however, look very much nonplussed..

Topics: Sasquatch

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Sasquatch 09: Erykah Badu

Renee McMahon

With the sun just going down over the Columbia River, the soothsayer of urban soul, Erykah Badu, just spent the past hour taking the crowd at Sasquatch on a journey through the various stages of her career. She came out dressed in sort of a dominatrix Betty Davis vibe with intensely tight playtex pants and a Public Enemy hoody. For those lucky enough to be on stage watching all of this from the rear, I've got to say that Badu was looking shapelier and tighter than you would expect anyone to 3 months after having birth. Frankly, she just oozed sexiness (she even wore a pair of pumps) and it was an energy that fitter her well.

What many of us witnessed was Badu's return to performing after recently giving birth February 1. For the most part, she moved and grooved like she always does. I'll say she wasn't bouncing all over the stage doing somersaults like she was the last time I saw her but she still had plenty of energy and a voice that continuously gets better rather than worse. Many of the songs she performed were from her 2008 release, New Amerikah Part One (4th World War) like "The Healer" and "My People," but she also dipped into older songs off of her Mama's Gun and Worldwide Underground discs as well. My favorite song of her set was "Kiss Me on My Neck," but no mater what tracks she performed along with her band, it sounded great.

Topics: Sasquatch

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Sasquatch '09: Silversun Pickups

The weekend is winding down, and I can't explain why watching Silversun Pickups gave me a serious case of heartburn. They have the MTV formula down, not emo enough to be scary, but not unique enough to really distinguish them from any other act. Fortunately for them, that often means the big bucks and a spot in the TRL line up. I hadn't even realized that the sound coming from the stage was not the female bassist's voice until the second song. The sound is unintentionally Nickelback meets Yellowcard meets teen movie soundtrack, and maybe that's where they lost me.

Topics: Sasquatch

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Sasquatch '09: Blitzen Trapper, Fleet Foxes

If your dad is anything like my dad— an old Neil Young-worshipping hippie who used to be in a band— he regularly gripes about how music sucks these days. And I humbly propose that the remedy to this tired complaint is to burn the guy a copy of Blitzen Trapper's Furr. I think the reason the band's done so well is because while their music derives its sound from all the classics all us 20-somethings grew up on— Led Zeppelin, CSNY, the Doors, etc.— the result has its own personality that's distinguished itself from its sonic predecessors. In a show of worship I've had yet to witness at this festival, the crowd sang along almost the whole time and went particularly apeshit for the title track from Furr, in particular. I half-expected my dad, circa 1972, to roll up rocking his yearbook Jewfro and ask me for a Zig Zag.

The most striking thing about the Fleet Foxes' idyllic late afternoon set was that Robin Pecknold played the entire show standing up. Every other time I've seen this band, he sat down to play (though admittedly, it's been a while since I've seen them live). I don't personally think it matters one whit whether he sits or stands, but it was a stylistic choice he was known for, and now he's switched things up. Sort of like his hair, which is short now. Otherwise, the Fleet Foxes played a characteristically precious set complete with "White Winter Hymnal," lots of angelic, harmonized "oooohs" and guitars played with bows while a cluster of barefoot neo-hippie chicks performed an impromptu interpretive dance (meanwhile, everyone else blazed some dro and mellowed out.)

Topics: Sasquatch

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More Photos From Sunday at Sasquatch

Watch a slideshow of Sunday at Sasquatch 2009, featuring Perry Farrell and Jane's Addiction closing set.

Renee McMahon

Renee McMahon

Jane's Addiction's Dave Navarro

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Sasquatch '09: The Dutchess and The Duke

Kassi Rodgers

I would personally hire The Dutchess and The Duke to play every single one of my picnics, cookouts, rainy days, etc. if I had the money for it. They're not quite Sonny and Cher, but who said they had to be. They do indie folk music a sincere justice, a lot of the sort I've seen over the course of the weekend. They are to their genre what Kid-N-Play were to happy rap, and I can't imagine a road trip without 'em.

Topics: Sasquatch

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Sasquatch '09: Bishop Allen

I'm the kind of music nerd who overdoses easily on cute—which is why I found myself feeling a bit faint while taking in Brooklyn's Bishop Allen. Yeah, it's bouncy enough to be compelling for ten minutes or so, and it was, for tin minutes or so. But if you can get past your own cynicism, which is something I often struggle with, the band is pretty fun, if also safe as a non-alcoholic beer.

Topics: Sasquatch

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Sasquatch '09: Nine Inch Nails

Funny that after joking that Nine Inch Nails' live show should come with a warning for epileptics that I would actually meet one in the crowd.

Asked if she ducked out of the set after the strobe-light show began, Fiona, who has been taking meds to suppress epileptic episodes all her life (and who declined to provide her last name) said no, but added that Sunday's anchor show on the main stage was the best she'd seen Nine Inch Nails in years. She speculated that it was because lead singer Trent Reznor is noticeably beefier these days. Fiona has jokes.

But as Jonathan Cunningham mentioned earlier, as you near the Gorge's general seating area where Fiona and her friends were seated, the sound become noticeably worse. I'd hurried over after the close of M83's set just in time to hear the opening chords of "La Mer," and though the industrial roar on that particular song doesn't kick in for at least three minutes, the sound was noticeably not as good, or as loud, as it could (should?) have been.

Thankfully, Nine Inch Nails is the kind of band that can compensate for sound issues—as they demonstrated throughout a blistering, two hour set.

A final note: As the show closed I saw two couples engaged in what I'll call a quadruple kiss—think the more popular triple kiss with the ante upped. Now, anyone who has spent some time in the camping area outside the venue will tell you that Sasquatch '09 has a Spring Break-like flair—maybe all of these outdoor festivals do. Still, it strikes me as strange that anything plucked from the back-catalog of Nine Inch Nails could get someone, let alone four people, in the mood for baby-making. I've listened to enough of NIN's music to realize that it can be intense, even sexy at times. That said, D'Angelo Mr. Reznor is not. So, what am I missing? Can someone make me a mixtape?

Topics: Sasquatch

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