With the long lines sorted and better weather than anyone could’ve hoped for, the second day of Fun Fun Fun Fest unfolded beautifully with a lineup of artists that spanned garage rock, punk, pop, rap, and world music. I love the level of artists FFF brings in. Even those in the know, good friends who like great music, find themselves with opportunities to see several bands they don’t really know. What makes the fest so great is that every artist is killer.
UK band Fat White Family is one such artist. The band played early in the day on the black stage and likely a whole slew of folks have a brand new band to tell all their friends about. I knew the set would be a must-see from all the wild photos our friend and 101X photographer Glen Brown shot of the band during SXSW. Indeed, the band did not disappoint. Frontman Lias Saoudi doesn’t have a wild glint in his eyes; he is the wild glint in the eyes of every true rebel. The guy is pure energy unhinged. And that doesn’t mean he’s always turned up to 11. More often, it means you just never know what’s coming next.
Onstage, he cracks a Red Bull and takes one sip before sending it sailing through the air, a spiraling stream of liquid trailing behind it. It thuds against the stage, splashing across camera lenses. Later, Saoudi walks to the edge of the stage and takes a few swigs of water and then douses a girl in the front row with a few good shakes of the what’s left in the bottle. He paces back and forth onstage, shirtless, croaking vocals over laid back punk riffs. If you missed ’em, put ’em on your radar and don’t let it happen again.
Garage rock trio King Tuff played the orange stage in the early afternoon, delivering overdriving guitars and no frills rock ‘n’ roll. Donned in denim and sporting scraggly long haircuts, the band is a head to toe physical manifestation of exactly what their music sounds like. Nothing wrong with being unabashedly rock ‘n’ roll through and through, and you can see the pride in frontman Kyle Thomas’ mischievous grin.
San Fermin’s live act employed so many more people onstage than I ever imagined. A quick search for images of the band would’ve proven this fact, but I just assumed there would be more loops and tracks in the live setting. Consisting of several singers, guitarists, and brass players, the band gave the FFF crowd a set of soaring baroque pop tunes. Outside of the expansive arrangements, band member Charlene Kaye’s vocals and energetic stage presence are convincing factors in the band’s live show.
I’ll admit it: I just wasn’t ready for Gary Numan. His performance on the Blue Stage was legendary. I’ve heard friends talk about being excited to see Numan or how his past shows have been great, and I assumed that it hinged at least some amount of nostalgia. No way. The dude is relentless onstage, shoving the mic stand around, belting out lyrics, and contorting his body in violent dance moves. Believe it or not, Numan has released material steadily since his heyday in the 80s, and his most recent effort was released just a year ago. Some festivalgoers mentioned that the bass was overpowering, but I found the ominously buzzing bass notes to be powerful and sinister in the best way possible. Sure, Numan played “Cars,” but he also proved he’s up there for true fans so much more than the guy there to hear the hit.
Still, I had to cut watching his set short to see Courtney Barnett, with whom I’m increasingly enamored. I love Barnett’s laid back, lo-fi, haze-rock EPs, which featured breakout track “Avant Gardener,” but her live show is notably heavy. The guitars are crunchy and full of bite and Barnett has exudes energy as she bobs up and down onstage, her messy brown hair tossing and her bangs nearly covering her eyes. Barnett delivered one of the weekend’s best sets, and we have more to say about her in our post about her Nites show as well as in a post that well run later this week (stay tuned!).
I’ve been telling everyone to see Iceage for weeks. Usually their interest is piqued by the phrase “Danish punk band,” and a few have been excited by the fact that their moniker alludes to a (fairly obscure) Joy Division song. I hope they all enjoyed the set as much as I did. The band’s dour demeanor is perversely exciting. I’m thrilled watching just how bleak and austere the young Danes manage to be onstage. Frontman Elias Bender Rønnenfelt stumbles around, falls to the floor, leans out over the crowd and moans through lyrics. There is no stage banter. Before beginning the next song, he simply slurs the song-title, devoid of investment. How can a band come off so uncaring and so passionate at the same time? It’s a question at the center of what makes Iceage so compelling.
I don’t know when Neko Case got so big or Dan Bejar or Destroyer or the New Pornographers themselves for that matter. If you had never strung these beads together, both Case and Bejar are members of the band along with A.C. Newman, who has released a couple of standout solo records of his own. New Pornographers are something of a Canadian indie-rock supergroup and they were among the bands I was most excited to see at this year’s fest. I can remember seeing the group around 2003 or 2004 at Emo’s and I’ve loved them ever since. On Saturday evening, the band didn’t reach back as far as any tracks from their debut Mass Romantic, but they did play “Testament to Youth in Verse,” a personal favorite from 2003’s Electric Version. I wished the set could’ve gone on for twice as long, one of the primary drawbacks to festivals. Alas.
Tinariwen has become a mainstay on the festival circuit these days. The group, comprised of Tuareg musicians whose culture consists of nomadic peoples in Saharan Mali, plays an entrancing variety of world rock music. Yes, the beats and sounds are unmistakably “world” music, but there’s enough electric guitar to make it feel similar to western rock music. The melodies are often dark and grooving, and the entourage of members makes the live set visually and sonically transfixing. I hope you all caught this set.
Nas. Nas! The guy is hip-hop royalty. I get chills every time I think of the stories of his days as a young NYC rapper who blew the entire community out of the water with the release of his debut album Illmatic. Now, that album is more than 20 years old, and Nas is out touring to celebrate. As such, he played almost all of Illmatic, skipping a couple tracks and jumping ahead to its final track “It Ain’t Hard to Tell,” in order to make time for set closers “Street Dreams” and “If I Ruled the World (Imagine That).” Yelling out, “Sleep is the cousin of death!” with a swarm of true hip-hop fans while Nas sang “N.Y. State of Mind” absolutely ranks among my weekend highlights.
I’m starting to feel silly, claiming every set I saw Saturday was one of my favorites, but damn, the lineup was just that good. I haven’t seen Modest Mouse since 2004, which sort of blows my mind, especially since I like the band a ton and they must’ve been here between then and now. With Isaac Brock at the helm, the band was furious and energetic as vibrant bursts of light exploded onstage. Brock slung his guitar around and thrashed with abandon as he and his band plowed through an awesome setlist consisting of songs from across their discography: “Fire it Up,” “Out of Gas,” “Dark Center of the Universe,” and crowd pleaser “Float On.” The band is one of a few that my significant other and I both love, so dancing our asses off throughout the set was a perfect way to end the night. I looked forward to Fun Fun Fun for months and after day two, life was excellent.
Peruse our FFF Day 2 photo gallery below. All photographs © Bryan C. Parker & Pop Press International; all rights reserved. Click any image to open set in slideshow viewer.
