This is my day 2 analysis and comical review. Once again I am mainly writing this for humor so don't get your knickers in a twist.
This week is what I call the more "indie" week. They had some bona fide indie pop/rock acts.
I didn't catch most of this day. I didn't start watching till later because I was burned out from the first day's viewing. Which kind of sucks since I missed acts that I was looking forward to like The Buzzcocks and Flying Lotus.
Grace Potter - Kind of like a Sheryl Crow act. She has this free strong woman personality and her music might actually sell big to 40 year old moms who want to feel liberated after dropping off their kids at school and need to enjoy their only free time of the day....... so they put on some GPotter on the mini van cd player and drive a little bit past the speed limit.
St. Vincent - The frontman girl is very sexy and attractive which explains why they are as popular as they are. Their music isn't anything to get excited about, but it has its moments. She played a wickedly cool guitar.
Andrew Bird - Bird is an extremely talented singer and musician. He has an uncanny ability to whistle. However, I don't think I needed to watch much of his show after seeing it once before. No disrespect to the guy, it's just that I don't care for that "one man show" too much. He did play with a band on this though, and I will say one thing, I think he is definitely more interesting than Bon Iver.
Noel Gallagher Interview - This interview has to be one of the highlights of the whole damn festival. This guy at some moments sounds brilliant and on others...... well more than often sounds really goofy. I don't know if it's all the drugs and booze that has fogged up his mind or if he was just always that premature in his ideas. He did speak of some truths though. He mentioned how the music game changes too fast for it's own good and that the digital world fucked up the chances for most artists trying to make a descent living off of recording music. I give him full respect for bringing those issues to light. But then he goes rambling on about how the consumer controls the music that is popular now, which is not really true. He uses the focus group studies that companies use now to find what the consumer wants or doesn't. I understand that this is true but this does not make or carry the multi million artists out there. Money is what carries the artist to the masses. It takes approximately one million dollars to make one hit single today. The corporations that have taken over the music world use their money to pay off DJs and websites and advertisement to repeat the same shitty songs over and over till the consumer just accepts it due to being brainwashed by repetition. I could only imagine that the labels focused grouped him (you know cause he is old and washed up) to see if anybody would like his new music and then they realized that not that many people care for his shit anymore. The label can't risk losing out money on this old guy so they decide not to go for it. So Gallagher took this personal and grew bitter about it and convinces his ego that focus groups decide everything in popular music. He then goes on to say that the consumer doesn't know what they want and are idiots and then claims that the world didn't want Jimi Hendrix but were forced to accept him. hmm.... I have no idea where he might have constructed this ludicrous idea. From what I read over years of admiration of Hendrix was that he was discovered by Chas Chandler in a hippie commune and was given a small three piece band. He recorded his first album with his cover of Hey Joe on it. The Rolling Stones had planned to cover that song in their next album and then once they heard Hendrix's version they decided against it. Paul McCartney got a whole round table of respectable musicians together to hear this Hey Joe cover and everybody was blown away. Brian Jones presented the Jimi Hendrix Experience at the Monterey Pop Festival and the rest is history. What Gallagher has completely wrong is that Hendrix was an undeniable force of talent that the world could not deny, they weren't forced to swallow down Hendrix. His talent and creativity was so immense that it left the musician world dumbfounded and in awe almost immediately. Noel Gallagher and Oasis were just a fad with pretty faces who gave people a limp half erection that just maybe there could be another Beatles. Of course we all knew it was a big fantasy and were only fooling our selves with their subpar rock. Hendrix was a force of nature in the musician world. By the time Oasis came out musicians were no longer the desired pop star. He likes to put himself in the realm of extraordinary musicians even though his band was an alternative version of a boy band. When the hell did Oasis ever perform a legendary show like Monterey or Woodstock to prove why they are great? The answer is never. His career was made by the corporate industry and eventually broken by the industry. All and all I know he is not a bad guy and most of the time he is saying things for comic relief; the way he said "Obama" was hilarious! And his constant reference to 'rock stars' is funny too, it's like he is still living in the 90s.
Shins - Can't tell you how so not into this band I am. They have some descent tunes here and there, and over all they are not bad. But a lot those melodies this singers pulls are just so cheesy. Yeah, they are a band that can deliver a good pop song recording from time to time........ but don't hold your breath for an unforgettable live performance from them.
Bon Iver - the Indie Mecca God of right now who has entered the mainstream recently. This is Indie at full blast, all rockets and ignitions ready to go. And it is boring as shit. He won a grammy I think, so naturally they give him the second biggest slot. I call it the nap time area.
Radiohead - What more can I say that hasn't already been said about the greatest band of the last 20 years. The ever evolving force known as Radiohead put on a show worth the wait. They made two hours feel like two minutes. If I had to pick my favorite moment of the concert it would be their remix of Everything in its Right Place which I feel might actually be better than the original recording. The After the Gold Rush intro into it was absolutely sublime. Finishing the set with an old school classic like Paranoid Android was a great way to put it to rest. I looked at my clock and was shocked to see that it was one o'clock in the morning already.
That's it for day 2, like I said, I missed out on most of it.
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