Summerfest 2010 Roundup
Posted 7/9/2010 by cal
The Big Gig is a messy, crowded hodgepodge of good and bad music, but this year’s experience has shown that it isn’t just the biggest; it’s also potentially one of the best, as long as you can ignore the elitist cynics who bitch about drunk people and music below their nose level. No other festival will give you Thievery Corporation, STS9, Umphrey’s McGee, Yes and Rush in the span of a week, and despite the lack of free-wristband lawn seats at the Marcus Amphitheater, you could’ve seen all of these artists and oodles more for under 20 bucks a day. It got exhausting at times, what with the getting up early on weekdays, but this year may have been my favorite overall Summerfest ever.
JUNE 26
I kicked off the
fest on its first Saturday with my first full-fledged Thievery
show. One great thing about Summerfest is that most artists aren’t
limited to truncated festival sets, so it felt like the full Thievery
experience, except for one thing: co-leader Rob Garza
was absent (reportedly due to his wife going into labor--what kind of
excuse is that?). But with Eric Hilton as the lone DJ,
it didn’t feel like anything was lacking; the bleachers buckled and
bounced to the generally laid-back lefty dance party and everybody had a
blast. It was encouraging to see a relatively young crowd getting
down, even if the message was lost in a ganja haze. You can take the
Corp’s boogie at face value and it loses none of its potency; these guys
are the P-Funk
for a new generation, not stylistically but in the sense that they keep
the groove going as sweet as anybody while they subversively try to
free your mind. They might wake you up, but they’ll never bring you
down.
JUNE 29
Next stop,
Tuesday: we caught about half of Willy
Porter’s set, which was an unusually countrified affair but
still rocked at times. This was the first time I’d heard Carmen Nickerson on
backing vocals; she performed admirably, and keyboardist Dave Adler was the firebrand as
usual, but also on his best behavior, curbing his hammy tendencies and
straight-up hammering the keys, an incredibly talented musician.
Willy’s solo rendition of his bona fide modern folk classic, “How To Rob
A Bank”, was a clear highlight, and Nickerson came through best on a
rich cover of Leonard Cohen’s “Everybody Knows”. A
pretty mellow affair overall, but the only real point of contention was Dave Shoepke’s drums, which were mixed like Tommy Lee at his
least subtle. Shoepke’s playing was fine, but the unnatural booming
resonance was distracting.
We left early to secure a
decent spot for Sound Tribe, essentially the band’s summer tour
opener; I’m likin’ this trend. The perfect companion act to
Thievery, STS9 drives the dance-athon to even greater heights of
intensity but without all the messages and stuff. It’s officially safe
to say that Tribe brings the heat to Summerfest. Last
year they relied on their usual heavy hitters, but this year
they went with a less accessible setlist and still bowled us over. Highlights included the recently revitalized "Wika Chikana"
and "Grizzly", a tribute/remix of Grizzly Bear's "Two
Weeks". My only complaint was that guitarist Hunter Brown took a
pretty subdued role, and particularly during "Moonsocket", he seemed
unable to keep the beat at times. For the most part, though, the band's
rich wall of sound made Brown's lack of firepower a moot point. The
Miller Lite Oasis was a jam-packed sea of revelers; don’t be surprised
if the band graduates to the Marcus in the next year or two.
JUNE 30
Got down to the fest on
Wednesday in time to catch the end of The .357 String Band’s
set, which was honestly a perfect choice to warm up an Umphrey’s
crowd. Wish they could’ve played much longer, actually, but what you
get with this band is a hyperspeed blast of bluegrass style and punk
rock energy, which by nature can’t last long. No chance that .357
didn’t make some new fans with this set, punctuated by a cover of the Jerry Reed classic “East Bound And Down”.
Finally,
2010 gave Umphrey’s a headlining slot at Summerfest, and they
made the most of it. Another explosive tour opener, although it wasn’t
immediately so. One stage south of us was Puddle of Mudd
(tied for third with every other nu-metal band in the Worst Band Of All
Time sweepstakes), and I had to keep relocating north to get away from
the ear-splitting drudgery. Umphrey’s played it safe for the most part
in the first set; the band started off with a funkadelic launch out of
“Resolution” but kept everything family-friendly. “Fool In The Rain”
was the highlight, making me realize how overused the term “tribute”
is. It was pure Umphrey’s, but guitarist Jake Cinninger
set his pedals to pure Jimmy Page and crafted a loving
embrace of the master’s technique while clearly showcasing his own
talent, and frontman Brian Bayliss, while obviously no Robert Plant, hewed affectionately to Plant’s trademark
vocal idiosyncrasies without ever mocking.
Set one
played out as a jubilant groovefest response to STS9 the night before,
but I was itching for UM to show PoM what real metal sounds like. The
opening “Nothing Too Fancy” in set two birthed one of the best jams I’ve
ever heard Umphrey’s play, from an angelically evil surge to a
lazy-summer stroll, hazy but insistent, then building to a slo-mo “Harry
Hood”-esque peak that rivals any such recent Phish
climax. I’m not really a fan of “Partyin’ Peeps” or “The Fuzz”, but
these frantic, ecstatic jams made me love ‘em tonight. The transition
from “Fuzz” to “The Floor” was pure magic. The “In Bloom” cover was
fierce, and Jake was outrageous during a “Voodoo Chile” jam in the
middle of the “Ringo” encore. Okay, so there wasn’t really any metal--through and through, it may have been the strongest
single UM set I’ve seen, triumphant jams galore and no filler.
JULY 2
We skipped a day,
resting up for the big weekend. Despite my best intentions, only
managed to catch one act at the Cascio Groove Stage on Friday, Group Of The Altos.
I’ll try to refrain from judging after only one performance, but please
tell me this one was subpar, somebody. I’m a fan of lots of meandering
post-rock, but this was the kind that makes people not give the good
kind a chance. The genre is long past oversaturated, so it takes something truly unique to pique my interest, and I heard no interesting melodies or dynamic development, just cacophonous slow-burn with no ensemble sensibility. There was promise in the overall atmosphere of the music, but some of the eleven
members seemed more interested in making eye contact with friends in the
audience and stifling giggles or fiddling with a cigarette than paying
attention to what the rest of the band was doing. Improbably, they took an improvisational idiom and made
it seem scripted, unless this was exactly how they planned for it to sound. I won’t discount the band, though; I can think of
several of my favorite bands that were much worse when they started
out.
I can hear the jeers from the skinny-jean patrol:
“You didn’t like Altos, but you loved Yes???”
Call me nostalgic, but as much as I tried in months past to develop a
principled hatred of this band that deserted its iconic lead singer
while he was recovering from surgery, I couldn’t achieve it. Chris
Squire may be an asshole, but he’s the greatest rock bass player
who ever lived, and he made the most of his spotlight tonight.
When tribute-band transplant Benoit David
began singing “Tempus Fugit”, I admit I was creeped out: the guy sounds
so much like Jon
Anderson it’s a little weird, but in the end, I think that’s
what was required. I could essentially ignore the guy and his vocals
wouldn’t intrude on my enjoyment of the bass and guitar. Besides, let’s
face it: he can hit notes Jon wouldn’t attempt these days. Likewise, Oliver Wakeman
(Rick’s
son) was barely a factor, almost blatantly taking a back seat to Squire
and Steve
Howe, until the grand finale of “Starship
Trooper”, when he suddenly came alive and got cranked in the mix and
played an outstanding solo. Where was this the rest of the show? Of
course, Yes fans are there for the old geezers, but there’s no sense
burying a talent like Wakeman when he’s standing right there.
After all these years, the band can still shock me: the jam out
of “Perpetual Change” was monumental, probably very preplanned but it
was still hot. The legendary Howe appeared not to have
aged a day since he turned 80 (okay, he's actually only 63), but after a
pretty shaky start (and some angry gestures to his guitar tech) he
caught fire following the blissful intro to “And You And I”, and he even
played a brief tribute to recently-deceased local hero Les Paul
in between “Mood For A Day” and “The Clap”.
Sure, the
tempos of some songs were practically halved; you get used to it. Sure,
“Owner Of A Lonely Heart” is best forgotten, totally disrupts the flow
of the set, is not what the fans are here for anyway. Sure, it’s
nostalgia, pure and simple. But I’d pay fifteen bucks any day just to
listen to Squire wail away on bass, as creative and powerful as ever.
And even with fake Jon and no new material (possibly for the better),
Yes is still better than most bands half its age.
JULY 3
We were determined to make a full
day of it, five-dollar beers be damned! Actually, you couldn’t ask for
better prices for anything at a festival this size, and
for the second year in a row, Lakefront rolled out a brand new beer. This time it
was Fixed Gear, a hoppy red, quickly one of my faves from the brewery.
But the big one-dollar cups of ice water and plenty of fountains
throughout the grounds is something Summerfest has over virtually every
other festival, ever.
Free shuttle from Hooligan’s
got us to the grounds around 2:30, so we were able to catch most of The Blueheels’
set. They played quite a bit of new material, seemingly drifting away
from country toward jammier rock and roll territory. It’s probably a
common theme in reviews of this band, but Robby Schiller’s
voice can take some getting past; it’s very nasal, but it’s also
expressive, and while it probably wouldn’t work in many other contexts,
it works here, and blends well with bassist Landon Arkens
for vocal harmonies that could be even more effective if there were
more of them. Top notch musicianship across the board,
slightly raucous, perfect Saturday afternoon warm-up.
Time
flies at Summerfest. Seemed like we’d gotten there early but we only
caught one more set before Rush, but it was a must: The Danglers.
Frontman Jason Loveall went through an unfortunate
“guitar phase” in the early aughts, but thankfully, he’s back to wailing
on the violin (hey, Andrew
Bird, take note!). This afternoon’s set hearkened back to the
group’s late-90s heyday as if the band was no worse for wear, proggy
violin/drum/upright bass jams that make you puzzle over who is the most
amazing musician of the trio. Drummer John Sparrow is
grounded in a free jazz style, but he can slash his way through
borderline thrash metal beats with ease, and there were times watching
bassist Dave Gelting when I couldn’t help thinking
‘that’s gotta hurt’; I’ll just assume he’s got calluses
an inch thick. It’s a mistake to discount Loveall’s lyrics as well;
some may be a bit unwieldy, but the message rings loud and clear. If
you like heavy music sans guitar and chaotic edge-of-your-seat improv,
you can’t go wrong with this band.
Rush. At the
Marcus. Again. Seems every two years like clockwork,
the quintessential prog-rock power trio comes around; this is the first
time I recall having to pay monies above Summerfest admission, though.
You’d expect diminishing returns with a band whose members are all
approaching 60, but you’d be wrong. Throughout the 00s, very little was
consistent about the band; Geddy Lee’s
voice was slowly deteriorating but his bass playing never wavered. Alex
Lifeson seemed inspired on some nights, autopiloted on others.
Lee must have undergone some sort of intense therapy three or four years
ago, though, as his voice sounded more confident in 2008 than it had
since the 90s, and he hit notes I didn’t think he’d ever hit again. But
shockingly, it was Neil
Peart’s drumming that suffered on that tour; he was sloppier
and slower than I’d ever seen him.
I feared the worst,
but I needn’t have. Neil was on fire all night, throwing in creative
fills and never missing a beat, and his solo was more compact than usual
but spookier and more imaginative in the middle section, despite the
prearranged elements. Perhaps it’s something about Moving Pictures, which the band played straight
through in the second set. I definitely had forgotten how amazing
lesser-known songs like “The Camera Eye” and “Witch Hunt” are, how
perfect the album is as a whole. We probably could’ve done without three selections from the band’s latest (and one of its
weakest) studio album, though; the two new unreleased songs the band
played ("BU2B" and "Caravan") blew away anything on Snakes
& Arrows.
Otherwise, the song selection was
stellar, as Rush continues to dig deep for each successive tour, pulling
out “Presto” (not played on any previous tour) and letting Lifeson run
wild on an amazing version of “Marathon” (not played since 1990’s Presto tour). The band also got weird with some of its
classics, inserting an odd rhythmic change in the middle of “Closer To
The Heart”, a polka intro to a subsequently mind-blowing “La Villa
Strangiato”, and a reggae first verse and chorus of “Working Man”. The
band’s sense of humor always permeates a Rush show, but these were
actually musically interesting, not just oddball Canadian
tomfoolery.
Admittedly, Geddy’s voice was shaky tonight;
only the third show of the tour, so he may not have been quite warmed
up. I’m resigned to the idea that I may never get a full show with
every member in perfect form again. But aside from the vocals, this was
the best Rush show I’ve seen since 1994. For years, I kept thinking
every tour would be my last, but this year I’m dead set on seeing ‘em
again…in two years or so.