If your kid is 4 then he´s going to want to paint because allthough he´s outdoors and its sunny he can´t run off or move around a whole lot, there´s too many people, there´s nowhere to run. There´s also some funny rockabilly music floating through the air in the beautiful early afternoon at the main stage of the Gorge Ampitheater, 3 hours away from Seattle. The problem is that when you have 2 kids and the younger one is a ruthless toddler, she´s going to want to chew off the tip of each marker for the same reasons that your 4 year old just wants to freely but carefully paint on the coloring book.
The live soundtrack was being conducted and performed by M. Ward, a guy that looks like a second generation lebanese tv star from a South American tropical city, not a rockabilly musician; and yet he's from Southern California, he has a big guitar between his hands and big hair, he grew up listening to Johnny Cash and Elvis and the Ronettes, probably. Now he writes and performs pleasant and smart pop songs which he always gives an old "feel" to, using old guitars, singing them in a mildly rugged, crooning voice, wise beyond its years.
But when my family and I arrived at the Sasquatch Music Festival this past Saturday, the first thing we heard was a band called Passion Pit, finishing their set of electro dance tunes in one of the smaller stages. It sounded fun and its the new hype all around, among many other things. There is so much hype now, so much hope and expectations for the things to mesh together and fit and make sense, for memories to be filled.
There were a lot of people going in at that time too, a ton of people already inside, in front of the stages and a lot of people still outside drinking beers in the hot hot day, setting up their tents and bar-b-que´s. The endless flow of people gives you the sense that in Music Festivals the music bit is completely secondary, it´s in the background, these great artists are rotating simultaneously and silently on the different stages, there´s always more; and yes, music IS definitely secondary at Festivals, I suppose, but at the same time, its the only thing that´s worth something.
We arrived to the Music Festival, as I was saying, pushing the stroller towards the very back of the lawn in front of the main stage. M. Ward and then Devotchka and then Animal Collective and then the Decemberists went on and looked small from where we were sitting. Even the TV monitor in which they were amplified and spliced up into immediate montage looked small, but they were there and the sound system was up for it and the weather was fine and the view amazing, breathtaking.
Your kid´s going to want to spot some superhero monsters while you´re there, so play along and let him lead you, even if your favorite band hasn't finished their set
My kid was wearing his Robin Hood costume and walked around proudly in it. A lot of people congratulated him for it or made comments from afar, pointing him out to someone else while whispering "he's so cute" and that sort of stuff.
Animal Collective let loose some repetitive watery sounds, like a motorboat cutting up the body of a lake. They opened with "Summertime Clothes". They brought it out of nowhere, casually, painlessly. Started singing from down below and all of a sudden a melody had come afloat and they were in it, we were in it. The water. Some people thought that it needed to be dark out for Animal Collective to work. Felt their music on Saturday produced tension. But I have the impression that Animal Collective doesn´t go on stage wanting to please the crowd, they're all about creating tension. They are legitimate suffering breathing artists, I think. Screaming out there aches and pains and their joys. Not hope. You can tell they haven't fallen at all for the recent boom their music has hit after the release of "Merriweather Post Pavillion". And there is no reason why they should. Their performance was inspiring in this sense. Personally, seeing them live has made me want to listen to their music more and more and pay even more atention to it. I think that one of the reasons why their latest album is so good is precisely because they've been rehearsing most of the songs on stage (you can listen to one of their shows from 2007 and another amazing one from 2009 at http://www.npr.org/music) and the songs themselves reflect that very process. They´re about being on the road and at festivals. The title of the album is the name of a music venue close to their home. The songs are also about the conflicts between taming and giving in to sexual instinct. But anyway, the other thing about the Animal Collective set at Sasquatch was that my 4 year old insisted that we go looking for superhero monsters. And there was no way to negotiate a mutual benefit agreement. So I ended up looking through peepholes at the Festival's fences into acres and acres of vineyards and farmland. My kid sitting on my shoulders with a clearer view. And in our isolated wandering I also caught parts of a band called King Kahn and the Shrines at another stage, an explosive funk rock and sex act. We returned just in time for the end of the Animal Collective set. THey said "Thanks. Have a sweet night" They´re only spoken words towards the crowd. In a way, I felt like the very nature of Animal Collective´s set was to make you deviate from it and explore and experiment with the unexpected.
The toddler will take a nap
The Decemberists are a very popular band. Specially in the Pacific Northwest which is were they are originally from. Their music is attractive. I believe they played the songs from their most recent album "Hazards of Love", a powerful recording. It's supposed to be a folk opera with medieval ballad narrative. But I can do without that. Its fine if they want to do it, if that's what fulfills their souls and intellects. What was important to me was Colin Meloy's classic, poised, stage presence, and the bits and pieces of hard rock that intertwine in between the slow scenes about fairies or whatever, and also, above all, the female vocals in many of the songs. These are magical, rivetting, at moments Tori Amos and at moments Grace Slick. And as I said, they are a band with loving local fans who support them even if the natural environment around them is so much bigger then they are. During a part of their set our toddler took a nap and I went for another walk with my 4 year old. He got up on my shoulders again and we caught a part of Ra-ra-riot whose music I thought was just harmless and not interesting at all.
The toddler will awaken
Later, we saw Mos def from very far away, while waiting in a long line for a turn in some of the worst port-a-pots ever. MOs Def was wearing a mask or something, I was far, but it really didn't sound that good, which doesn´t mean that Black Star and the album "Black on both sides" aren´t great. Anyway, we only caught a part of it because after the pit stop we returned to the main stage were a huge beach ball designed like an eyeball was being placed. It was for the Yeah Yeah Yeah´s. We found another spot, closer to the stage and awaited, as many people do, at Music Festivals.
We had teenage girls on one side and a heavy metal guy on the other. I started conversating with the latter and eventually it boiled down to the fact that he was there for Nine Inch Nails and Jane´s Addiction which was on the following day. I told him I was from Ecuador and that old bands like Megadeth and Iron Maiden had played there recently. He said he would go to a Megadeth concert NOW. The teenagers got up as soon as Karen O graced the stage wearing a big and colorful poncho like attire. She would later put on a neon glove on her right hand. Karen O has power. She can suck all the energy out of a massive audience in front of her. She can make thousands of people quiet down. She can make people get on their feet and dance. I was remembering a documentary I saw a while back called "Kill your Idols" where the Yeah Yeah Yeahs appear. They were younger. Their first album was still very new. They were sitting on a street corner in Brooklyn and Karen O said she wanted the YYY to be the biggest band in the world. I remembered that as I was looking at her on stage, she looked so much older now, singing songs from each one of their 3 albums. A very round performance that coincided with a spectacular sunset. And the teenagers besides me knew and felt every song. But that was not all. One other element in this gigantic, darkening landscape was full of power. And it was not in the horizon or in the thousands of camera lights that appeared in front of the stage. It was not the other members of the YYY it was not even listening to the song "Maps". It was my wife and my daughter dancing freely, hair blowing in the wind, one imitating the other and the other literally and constantly feeding one. They were dancing crazy and the sun was going down and there was a beatifull pop dance or pop ballad rising up, in the ampitheater. Few moments ago my daughter had been dancing like crazy on my lap, I had been throwing her up in the air and blowing on her tummy, she laughed wanting more and more, higher and higher. Now she was dancing barefoot along her barefoot mother, my son was asleep in my arms. Fallen, after such a long day of sun and music and coloring books and superhero monsters.
The hit single "Zero" came on and the teenage girls all sat down and put their heads on the ground. It was a rebellious move. They disliked the most popular song the YYY´s have. I understood them and gave them a nod. That is what rock music is about. Kind of selfish. You love it but you don´t want everyone else to love it the same way. You want a band for yourself but that's not sustainable, so you get friends who like them too, but that's not sustainable either. it has to be a faceless, bodiless movement. And of course, in the end, the movement it is only an illusion. Rock music is one manifestation of culture, not the only one. And Rock music is put out in large quantities so it is usually smeared and torn up. All bands want to be famous and small. All bands are famous and small. Rock obtains meaning and looses it in one single motion. Everytime someone plays a song or talks about it or reads about it or writes about it. Time gives and time takes.
You can´t stay too long at the Festival because they´re is no sense in doing so, if you have kids
Anyway. Seven or eight hours, we felt, was all we wanted to put our kids through at the Music Festival. We weren´t going to stay there for three days. At 11 pm of Saturday our two kids were asleep having gone through many motions in a single day. For my daughter Cora I suspect it was a strange day, out of the ordinary, hard to explain. She always needs a little time to adapt to changes but then she´s fine, making friends and getting a lot of atention. My son Julian, on the other hand, knows a little bit more about rock and festivals. He understands that his parents enjoy music. He was very easy going on Saturday. He got into his own personal groove, always aware of his own ideas, likes and dislikes. He is very independent except from us, his parents, maybe, at least for now.
At this point the Kings of Leon were on the main stage. People were different at night then during the day, allthough some people never change that much. The Kings of Leon for some reason sounded bigger than the past perfomers. They had big lights on top of them and all the instruments sounded real strong. They also have a large repertoire. But I feel like they have lost the weirdness they had five years ago. I didn´t even realize it was weirdness, but they had a different look back then, always very worried about fashion, which is great, but there sense of dressing up, their haircuts even, were more shocking. There sound has changed too. It was more deeply rooted in american, southern, rock. Whatever. They´re still good. It just felt like a crowd full of abercrombie & fitch poster boys and girls were the most excited to see them, waving fists in the air, maybe it was just that. For some reason, the crowd reflects itself onto the artist. We left, as they were playing "The Bucket", a great great song. We were leaving but it was partly intentional, since the Crystal Castles were playing in the dance tent, and we could catch some of theat on the way out. When we got there, Alice Glass sounded completely out of control. I don´t know if this was a good thing or not. We walked slowly, listening to her banshee vocals and the mad electronica behind it. The Crystal Castles made the Kings of Leon seem like a boy band. This I do mean as a good thing (for the CC at least). Our kids were asleep. And I was sad to be leaving. Walking half heartedly, close to midnight. I wanted more. But if you are a parent you have to leave a Music Festival early because your kids need to sleep but at the same time, the your kids' sleep is the only thing that is worth something.
