Wow, guys.
It’s been a long time, I know, but the last time you guys
heard from me I was woefully unemployed, single, balancing on the precipice of
alcoholism and beginning the embarrassing descent into self-pity that only
leads to internet dating. NOW – a few shining, sweaty months later, I can
confirm that I am successfully employed, still… yeah, ok, still single… Still drinking, but like, less during the
week, I guess? …but yeah, man, single as fuck.
BUT I did get the chance to rock out at some truly singular
music festivals this summer, an opportunity I haven’t been able to take
advantage of in the past due to work engagements that I will go over in more
detail in a future article entitled ‘Treeplanting Ruined My Life (But Also Kind
of Saved It)’.
So I saw some pretty awesome acts this summer, including but
not limited to Jack White, John Mayall, Procol Harum, Outkast, Arctic Monkeys,
Foreigner, Old Crow Medicine Show, Queens of the Stone Age, Gary Clark Jr., The
Replacements and about a hundred more.
Music festivals really are the tits – show up, grab a
violently overpriced beer, and meander from stage to stage, hoping the sound
bleed isn’t too bad and the acts don't behave like pricks. I saw Neil Young a
couple years ago at the Austin City Limits festival and left halfway through
his set because he was acting like such an asshole to the crowd. I was drunk
and maybe a bit sensitive, but the dude didn’t acknowledge the audience once
and just faced his bass player the whole time. Not even a ‘hey, how are yah?’, just
churning out Crazyhorse tunes until his hour was up. I stumbled across the
field to where Jack White was co-headlining and had my mind blown. I hugged a
dozen random strangers when he closed the show with ‘Seven Nation Army’ and
brought the house down.
So the festival I was most excited for this summer was
definitely Osheaga. Three days of rock and electro held in Montreal’s Jean
Drapeau Park: you can barely tell you’re in the middle of a major city – you’re
surrounded by trees and river and kids dressed as neon flower children drenched
in bodypaint and so ripped on zoomers you start thinking you’ve been
transported to another planet’s Woodstock.
My gal Lauren and I drive up on the Friday, and get there
just in time to catch some smaller indie acts I’ve been aching to see, like
July Talk and Montreal’s own Sam Roberts Band. Both awesome, and after
semi-suffering through Ottawa’s Bluesfest a month before – ten days of gray
hair, lawn chairs, apathetic crowds and Blake fucking Shelton fans, I’m loving
Osheaga and it’s young, jazzed up hipsters. Who cares if every girl there is
channelling this weird, Lana-Del-Rey-meets-90’s-grunge aesthetic, and you
couldn’t walk five feet without being caught in six thousand selfies? People
were excited to be there, and for the most part were really into the music, so
I was pumped. On Friday the headliners were Outkast, reunited and it feels so
good, but playing right before them was Chromeo, a band I vaguely like but
really really wanted to see because I had brought drugs with me and wanted to
Just. Get. Messy. And who better to
start the fun off with than two Canadian techno-hipster punks with light-up
ladies legs as keyboard stands?
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| Am I Right!? |
Chromeo was amazing, if you ever get a chance to see them,
take it. Same with Outkast. If they ever do a second reunion tour, I am there.
Dancing to ‘Hey Ya!’ live should be on everyone’s bucket list.
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| I was so high, I thought this was the sagest advice I'd ever heard. |
The second day was rough, the drugs had gotten on top of us
a bit at the end of the previous night and it was a slow rolling start in the
morning, but we dragged our asses to Reuben and the Dark’s show and after a
couple beers were flying at full mast by the time HAIM took the stage. HAIM
(I’m told it’s pronounced HRRRRRRRRggggkkk-AIM) are three sisters from Studio
City, California who dress like boho-hipster messiahs but play a dozen
instruments each and rock every single one of them. Their debut album ‘Days are
Gone’ was kinda unremarkable the first time I heard it, besides the first
single ‘The Wire’ blatantly stealing the opening riff from the Eagles’
‘Heartache Tonight’, but after seeing these gals live I am fully, fully sold.
They jammed, had long instrumental breaks, engaged the crowd like seasoned vets
and the fact that they were obviously having a great time performing for us
poured out of them and enveloped us all and made for one the best shows of the
festival. But seriously, check this out:
Also, the bass player sister, Este Haim, pulls some of the
best faces while playing. I love it.
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| These are my three-stages-of-sex faces! What a coinkidink! |
The headliner that night was Jack White, my second time
seeing him, but the real showstopper was Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds, who
played right before Jack. If you’re unfamiliar with him do a quick google
search and you’ll realize that he is the original goth kid. He probably showed
Edgar Allan Poe how it was done. Also, his song ‘Red Right Hand’ gives me
awesome chills every single time I hear it. Now, Nick is not a young man, and yet
he spent 80% of his set balancing on the rail of the stage barricades, arms
flung wide like some tent revival evangelist, groaning and cawing at his scores
of older fans and the legion of terrified twenty-somethings caught in his
crossfire. Lauren stood enraptured for his whole show, staring up at him with
her drug-addled mouth open, swearing every minute or so that he was a vampire.
It’s not a stretch of the imagination.
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| The Original Gothster. |
The third day was more relaxed, there were only a few shows
I really wanted to see so everything else was a bonus. We laid on the grass and
watched The Temper Trap from afar – they threw in a cover of ‘Rock the Kasbah’ that
was really well done.
The most exciting shows were the last ones, though. We
squirmed and strong-armed our way to the front for Lorde’s set and I was pretty
fucking impressed. The stage was pitch black, full of smoke, and nearly empty –
her drummer and synth player hidden at the back – but her lightshow was
mesmerizing to my fizzling brain and she strutted and herky-jerked her way all
over the stage with insane confidence for a seventeen year old. The only
disappointment had to be her telling a ten-minute story about the inspiration
behind one of her song’s lyrics:
It’s about not fitting
in and feeling apart.
Cool, got it.
It’s about being
different and feeling left out and being lonely.
Yeah, nice, we got it.
It’s about being a
loner and feelings being unreciprocated and being the black sheep.
Yeah, high school is rough! Get on with it!
That being said, she closed the show with ‘Royals', and that shit really is an amazing song. With only
a synth beat and Lorde’s full-throated vocals, the song has a surprisingly huge sound behind
it that had everyone singing along like they were alone in the car.
Lykke Li closed out the festival for us. The Swedish witch was
at a smaller stage, was dressed all in black and loved the crowd. She did her
old hit ‘Dance Dance Dance’ telling the crowd “You’ve gotta do it with me, I’m
too shy” – but she really made everyone fall in love with her during the
creepy, intense ‘I Follow Rivers’ and especially the slow-burn ‘Never Gonna
Love Again’. Seemingly embarrassed, she admitted: “This is a fucking power
ballad… but sometimes you need a power ballad moment! Raise your phones and
lighters!”
I was wrecked after the three days. But elated, too. The
uptight, defensive and impatient persona I’d inhabited at Ottawa’s Bluesfest
was dead and replaced with a freewheeling, flower headband wearing,
lover-not-a-fighter. It’s amazing what a good crowd can bring out of you – sing
your heart out, don’t just sway back and forth - fucking dance if you like the
music, joints should be passed and beer should be shared – no man is an island,
life is a song and music will save us all.
