Sub Pop 20 fest: Redmond, Jul 12/13 '08

How were the drum solos?

OBITS: grossly underseen band. They kicked off the festival, but most people didn't show up til later, which is too bad. This is Rick Froberg's current band. If we're gonna compare to Hot Snakes.. Obits are more sparse, more Saints, less Wipers. A lot of people liked them who never heard of Hot Snakes or Jehu. "That dude's singing voice is really great!" Always good to hear.

no sax though.. I'm talkin (I'm) Stranded more than Know Your Product tho

ERIC'S TRIP: I never really cared for the albums, and hence the band, so I didn't see them back in the day, but DAMN these guys were really really good live today. They probably win the day for the long hair whip action factor. Certainly reminisc of Blake Babies/early Replacements.. but much grittier.

SEAWEED: the first band to get everyone jumping. Everyone in the band pretty much lost their hair, except the singer slightly grew out his short hair a little. He still does his Seaweed aerobics frontman thing, and he doesn't look like he's aged one bit. His voice hasn't changed at all. Another performance that perked me up more than expected. This is a trend that continues throughout the day, happily.

At this point, I should point out that there are two stages. "This" stage, the big one; and "That" stage, the slightly smaller one... although "This" stage was more like the "pretty" stage, and "That" stage was the "Loud" stage.

HELIO SEQUENCE: Probably the most disappointing band of the day, which is saying a bit, because their set had a few great moments; just not a fan, that's all. They made their fans really happy, and that one hit song they have which sounds like a nip of the Chameleons' "One Flesh" was a highlight for obvious reasons.

PISSED JEANS: Uh buh. Many many great performances followed the Jeans, but these guys won the day, easily, no fucking contest. Seaweed may have been the first band to get people jumping, but people started moshing and going apeshit when Pissed Jeans took the stage.. I think many people had no clue who they were and kinda got electrified by them. Guitarist is my hero. I'm not going to say the singer is as good as Lux Interior or Alan Vega or Iggy back in the day, but he's as good as they get in that vein these days... certainly more comical.

Best moment was when he took a white towel that was stuffed in his jeans against his ass the whole show, out of his jeans, dipped the towel into a near empty plastic cup of beer, let the towel absorb the beer, then squeezed the beer like a sponge into his mouth from above, then his face just transmogrified into this thing that looked more disgusted than anything, started spitting out the ass towel soaked beer around.. Set ends with a bonus song from "Shallow", crowd goes fucking nuts, set ends.

singer: "see you all next time at the 40th anniverse*DROPPED MIC THUD*"

If this is an average Pissed Jeans show, I might have to follow them around on tour as a groupie/stalker.

FLEET FOXES: Probably the most wrong live music festival segue coming out of Pissed Jeans you could concoct. Just seconds after Pissed Jeans tored up "That" stage, the Wilson-esque accappellas started.. it felt like calming in-between music, as I headed back to take a break.

Something happened though. From afar, when talking to friends, we all kinda realized that while none of us were Fleeties or anything, we kinda dug what they were doing live. So we wondered back to give them a chance.

While The Fleet Foxes album sounds really good, there's nothing that's all that catchy on it. I kinda wish I could get excited about the album. So we wondered back.

...in brief: THIS LIVE SHOW SHOULD HAVE BEEN THE ALBUM! This is probably the biggest most pleasant surprise of the day for me. Everything I thought was left to be desired off the album, they supplanted for the live show and then some. And I'm sick to shit of Beach Boys influences, but still the set was quite amazing and silencingly(?) good.

THE FLUID: I'll let others speak here. The band made a LOT of people happy, but I never got into them then, and wasn't really amazed today. But the band seemed really really happy to play today, so that's cool.

LOW: This is when I started noticing the surroundings a bit more, as the sun was slowly descending into the area of large trees, peaking behind the branches for the following hours. Marymoor Poor in Redmond is really gorgeous, and it really was the best setting for this festival. If only if weren't for the bridge closure, and the lack of transit proximity to downtown Seattle, I wish I could go to shows here all the time. It really is a very gorgeous setting. I mention this, because while Low still bring it low, and are more captivating then ever, you can't help look AROUND you when they play as well, which is when I realized just how near perfect this festival was.

Festivals are supposed to be comfortable. You shouldn't have to feel like you're in human traffic jams missing bands just to catch others playing in parallel. No bands played simultaneously today. It was relaxing and simple. Seriously, fuck Coachella. SP20 is the anti-Coachella.

I've seen stellar Low shows, so I won't say today's was the best ever, but it was really great. It was quite aggressive for them, even post Great Destroyer. They went back and forth between soft and loud songs. I think they covered Neil Young(?)

Festivals are supposed to be comfortable. You shouldn't have to feel like you're in human traffic jams missing bands just to catch others playing in parallel. No bands played simultaneously today. It was relaxing and simple. Seriously, fuck Coachella. SP20 is the anti-Coachella.

Terrastock was like that. One of their best qualities.

MUDHONEY: I saw them kickoff their recent shows at a record store in town.. to a much smaller crowd. They were really really tight. They toured, and I think ended this tour with this set, which was a couple of songs from The Lucky Ones and then all of Superfuzz Bigmuff. I think everything kinda went wrong for the band today, lol. they broke strings constantly, which triggered missed cues, and all sorts of stuff. Mudhoney aren't really famous for being perfect and precise though, so it was all still fun. It helps that they know how to recover quickly. This is when I realized that there was a very large out-of-town contigent here. Mudhoney play Seattle all the time to this day. Today was the biggest, rowdiest crowd I've seen them have since I think 1992?

THE VASELINES: I'm still trying to describe why I really really enjoyed this set. Mind-blowing isn't the right word. I think the band just provided such a comforting breather of airy pop for a huge appreciative crowd. This is when I was surrounded by band members of almost every 90s Washington state band I could remember. (I was kinda upset when two kids ran up excitedly and knocked Heather Lewis back onto me while she was excitedly taking cellphone cam pics of the band. I mean this woman has been waiting much of her life to see the Vaselines live for the first time, most likely, given how much Beat Happening probably owe to the Vaselines by their admission. Kids, RESPECT THE FORMER BEAT HAPPENINGS ESPECIALLY WHEN THE VASELINES PLAY THEIR FIRST EVER U.S. SHOWS K THX BYE)
Eugene and Francis were backed up by three members of the Belle & Sebastian mafia, I think. Eugene and Francis are dirty dirty people when it comes to stage banter, but I think this is not surprising for any Scottish rockers really. Anyway, seeing the Vaselines felt a bit like seeing the Velvet Underground in a way... I have that everything CD, but it took the live show and seeing every other Seattle/Oly/Tacoma band watching attentively, hopping around to realize that the Vaselines were like gods to these bands. The band were super energetic or anything. They were quite still, but it was a nice contrast.. to have everyone at the festival get excited about a band that doesn't jump around nor stress thee heartwrench for once..

IRON AND WINE: Friends and I were super hungry, so we kinda skipped Iron and wine, and instead waited in line forever to get unexpectedly excellent Indian food. Iron and Wine were/was pleasant music from afar to munch on excellent vegetable samosas and garbanzo curry to...

FLIGHT OF THE CONCHORDS: Tall Dwarfs will remain my favorite witty NZ rock duo, but it was clear these guys were the main attraction tonight. They were really funny, mainly because they took time to do banter in between songs. I like the show, and the two are funny, but I'm not really into the album all that much. The description "Tenacious D for politically correct indie rockers" is abominably bad, but I do see some parallels, and FOTC was certainly for girl friendly. In fact, there were girls screaming for them then entire set non-stop. Hey, whatever works! Had to leave early to avoid painful festival departure, but Flights are great live, just not so great on record.

Onward to Sunday! (ur, later today)

Overall, best single rock festival day ever?

Nothing sucked. The worst performances had their moments and served good purposes. Again, see LOW comments about setting and how well everything went.

It was a giant picnic. aside from some isolated sun stroke incidents (it wasn't really hot, just sunny non-stop), no one looked miserable. That's really rare for rock festivals.

As for the basics: there were plenty of portapotties.. sorry, "Honey Buckets" (sorry folks, I will never get used to that term.). The only minor complaint is that I wish it was made clear what was allowed inside or outside, whether reentry was allowed or not, stuff like that... more to the point, had I known that I could have brought food with me to the fest, I would have done that. Now i know for Sunday. Anyway, thank you Sub Pop for doing something matched only by Terrastock (if not better) as far as a great communal music festival.

Thanks for the updates Mackro - wish I could have been there.
Wherever it was?
The sound, look and attitide of Pissed Jeans take me back to the days when alt/underground music was just that.Probably mid/ late eighties

Not some universally accepted unit shifter

Ah ,of Course - clue in title. Redmond, Washington. Doopid man

I'm slightly confused about why they're celebrating their 20th anniversary when the label's been around since 1986 or earlier...?

They opened their first office in April 1988 -- thus becoming a 'real' label -- so they chose that as their official starting date. (Even though Sub Pop 100 indeed came out in 1986, and records by Green River and Soundgarden were released in 1987).

In the Pfork interview Pavitt and Poneman agree it was a demi-arbitary choice of anniversary year but it worked anyway.

Update on Sunday to come tonight hopefully.

In brief: Green River were really great... I didn't expect a drillmaster rock band, but they were far goofier than I expected, and also far heavier than I expected. Double whammy.

Kinski were the grossly underrated band of the day, though. At this point, I have to point how abominably shitty the Seattle Times SP20 blog was (I know, big shock.) It seems the main blogger only heard of Fleet Foxes and Wolf Parade. "Pissed Jeans were LOUD! It made it hard to wait for the Fleet Foxes set." I'm not shitting you.

Kinski were the grossly underrated band of the day, though.

:-D I knew they wouldn't let me down. Or anyone else.

"Pissed Jeans were LOUD! It made it hard to wait for the Fleet Foxes set." I'm not shitting you.

The pain, please make it stop.

Also, the Times blog called Kinski a "one track band" which, whether you agree or not, is the laziest fucking bullshit music reviewer sentence that can possibly be uttered. That could have said about the worst band, and it still would have been bullshit. Andrew Matson: you are one pathetic hack. (unless that was Patrick MacDonald ghostriding your blog whip.)

anyway, this is out of order but as they come..

NO AGE: I really liked them, and was probably one of 3 people over the age of 16 (WELL over the age in my case) who felt that way, but there was something was left to be desired, I think, compared to the record. I had talked to some folks who came up north to see this (Hello, A.!), and they remarked that the No Age's prime audience skews very young, and the only kinda-headliner of Sunday was a band that brought the 30-40+ crowd, so No Age was given faint praise instead of this euphoric party of bopping kids. Or maybe the few kids there for No Age were brought there by their parents who wanted to see Green River, lol.

But, the main point about all this speculation of "why didn't No Age IGNITE as SP20, man?" was kinda misguided, I felt, because technically, the No Age guitarist just took TOO LONG to retune in between songs, relatively speaking, and the drummer/singer's banter was really sparse. The entire festival had sets where bands just segued from song to song with either LOTS of banter or no banter at all. No Age kinda killed the momentum there, relatively speaking. Still, they were fun, but slightly misunderstood and slightly underappreciated by the Sunday crowd, I guess.

i saw No Age in New York (with crown of all ages)and they were awesome.
seems like nice guys too.
they wanted to play an encore but the fucker who hosted the show didnt let them

Wow, that lineup is murderous.

Great posts, Mackro. Thanks a bunch for the reportage... wish I could have been there, but you done good for second best!

oh yeah! forgot to mention U+K!!1 Jimmy from the Postal Service was at the fest this past weekend for obvious reasons. I went up to him and totally namedropped Spencer Chow, and he was all "Oh yeah, i know him! What's he up to?"

ILX: where you name drop them to rock stars, not the reverse.

Hahah. Spencer'd mentioned knowing him at some point so that's cool.

He's not the only ILX0R he knows. O_o

I'm saving my Shastadrop for a very special occasion.

<3

Just call your album that.

this was some awesome reporting, dude. pretty jealous you got to see the vaselines!

between what you had to write and what dj cherry canoe wrote on hers i was like "why the fuck didn't i drive up there for this?!" and then i remembered i am broke and busy.