Rallo Never Reek of Pee Again

Review by Hilary Cadigan

Moogfest is a music festival with a clear focus.  When Air-conditioning Entertainment's Director of Connectivity, Jeff Cuellar, offset described to me the rather nebulous criteria the festival organizers were using to select artists for their lineup, I was skeptical.  But what emerged this past weekend was a mitt-picked choice of hugely talented musicians that truly did evangelize "genre-bending music, a sound-splicing way of pushing the boundaries, artists who are testing the limits, coming upward with new sounds people oasis't heard before, challenging what music tin can do, mixing art with soundscape and creating a neat live evidence overall."  Mission accomplished, Jeff.

Nearly every performance brought the thrill of the unexpected, and the weekend as a whole was non just fun but exhilarating and thought-provoking to boot.

Upon arrival, I was immediately delighted past the awesomely bootleg decorations—main venue Asheville Civic Center had the look and experience of a high school gym gear up up for the big Halloween Dance, complete with dayglow streamers and tape lining the walls and grumpy parental figures passing out [unfortunately not complimentary] refreshments.  Merely Moogfest upped the ante with some unique festival features, including 80s-esque diddled up TV screens by the main phase, glittering space-age stilt walkers with chimera guns, and ii-person bike cars with giant butterfly wings circumvoluted the area.  Best of all was the aptly named "Cluster Flux," a spinning tube of colored patterns with a walkway inside that festival-goers entered with 3D spectacles for the ultimate substance-gratuitous trip to the v ^thursday dimension.

After some initial explorations of the cavernous Borough Middle, nosotros headed up a ramp and through a set of heavily and inexplicably guarded glass doors into the Thomas Wolf Auditorium for Tangerine Dream.

Stoic and slightly dated but still conspicuously legendary, Tangerine Dream'southward mesmerizing operation was a great way to offset off the weekend.  They followed their performance with a drawn-out curtain call that presently became the norm for the weekend—nearly every creative person took a time out before, after, or during their ready to speak direct to the audition most what an honor it was to perform at a festival honoring somebody equally awesome as Bob Moog.  And folks, I've seen the documentary and Bob does actually seem like a pretty awesome guy, beyond even his cataclysmic contributions to the music world.  This sense of mutual appreciation lasted all weekend and actually gave a neighborly vibe to the festival as a whole.

I'm not going to lie—before Moby's explosive live performance at the Asheville Civic Centre on Friday dark, I had somehow convinced myself that he was but a DJ.  Not so.  In fact, Moby is non only an expert at mixing beats, he can also brand magic on just near every instrument that touches his hands—guitar, drums, keyboard, microphone—with a stage presence so compelling that it took me about half the set to gleefully realize that he and his bandmates looked like three baldheaded triplets.  (Like Blueman Grouping, just not blue.)  At the end of the show, when he took off his shirt and squatted on meridian of a speaker, bald head shining in the strobe lights, it all became articulate: Moby is Buddha. And Buddha knows how to brand your booty shake.

Wrapping up Friday night at the Civic Center was TV on the Radio, a band that totally blew my expectations out of the water.  With their i-of-a-kind blend of pop-friendly fine art rock and indie electronica with worldly influences, their performances reek of cool, while their earnest passion and energy make them impossible to dislike.  Their new stuff is awesome and their old stuff is classic. These guys tin do no wrong.

Sat was a whirlwind of vastly different performances tied together just past the artists' shared uniqueness. Our twenty-four hours began with the disappointing news that YACHT's aeroplane "bankrupt" (YACHT, are yous okay?), therefore rendering them unable to perform their 5:00 fix as planned.  This concluded upwards beingness one of several unfortunate cancellations, including Little Dragon and Glasser.  Saddened, we headed toward the Animoog Playground, Moogfest's simply outdoor venue, where the freezing temperatures that plagued us all weekend made the hammock tent a perfect place to burrow in and listen to New Zealand indie electronic ensemble The Naked & Famous rock out.

Next upwards was Dan Deacon, but we decided information technology was too early in the day to listen to someone blather on about spirit circles, so we hightailed it to Thomas Wolfe to greet the legendary Terry Riley and his son Gyan, whose weirdly wonderful combination of psychedelia and minimalism provided a attestation to the cantankerous-generational power of experimental music.  Unfortunately, we had to cut our experience brusk to sprint over to SBTRKT's bear witness on the Civic Center Stage, which we missed nearly completely thanks to the annoying bureaucracy of the venue set-upward, which required united states to have the absolute longest way possible in order to re-enter the building we'd just exited.  Boo.

Okay, let me be the first to say that I adore the Flaming Lips.  E'er have and always will, merely on this cold and blustery evening in Asheville, I have to admit: my patience was worn sparse.  Perhaps it was the weather, or the cutting edge newness of the other acts on the schedule, or the fact that I actually had to pee.  Possibly I've but seen the same exact operation one two many times, but at a sure point, as I stood there watching the giant balloons drift s into a nearby parking garage, I felt not exhilarated, but exasperated.  Every bit Wayne, in a more long-winded mood that usual, admonished the crowd for non existence excited enough ("Come on you guys, this is all at that place is, this is information technology! Get EXCITED!"), I felt the demand to shout, "Hey Wayne, SHUT THE FUCK UP AND PLAY!"  I mean seriously, we've been standing in a freezing parking lot for an hour waiting for yous to set upward your damn hamster ball.  If y'all want the oversupply to be excited, you have to excite us, not yell at us for non cheering loud enough. I'm going to finish there, considering it breaks my heart to say these things, only Flaming Lips, hear this, from one of your biggest fans: It's time to step upward your game, and I'yard not talking about song length here (believe me, 24 hours is long plenty) or sticky encasements for your albums (although I would similar to get my easily on 1 of those skulls).  I'thou talking about good erstwhile-fashioned concert etiquette.  Too, I promise those balloons are biodegradable.

Side by side up was Amon Tobin, the Brazilian-born drum 'due north' bass deviant who was said to exist performing his new anthology, ISAM, within "an 8x8 cube while 3D images – machines, layers of pulsating light – cascade from side to side, top to lesser," according to the Moogfest iPhone app.  This was non something we were going to miss, so we dipped out of the Flaming Lips' show early (something I've never done earlier) and sprinted over to the Asheville Civic Centre.

Talk about cutting-edge.  The spellbinding visuals projected onto the giant cubist structure mingled with the futuristic space noise of ISAM in a way that seemed to blur the line betwixt sound and vision itself.  However, part of me merely kept wishing that Amon would drop a fucking shell.  Call me onetime fashioned, but information technology'southward not like shooting fish in a barrel to stand in a huge open dance floor surrounded by amped-up festival-goers for 75 minutes listening to a patchwork of electronic manipulations and field recordings that stop simply brusque of forming into a steady beat.  It'south kind of like existence constantly on the edge of an orgasm with no sweet release.  Plus, information technology was hard to see the visuals with everybody standing up, leading me to conclude that this show could've been better appreciated if it took identify in one of the seated venues.

The side by side ii performances fabricated me desire to stand up upwards and dance, just unfortunately took place in the Thomas Wolfe auditorium.  Even so, that did nothing to dull the glow of the artists themselves. Offset, St. Vincent a.k.a. Annie Clark, a adult female then goddamn cool that y'all can't aid but merely stare at her in wonder every bit she strums away on her electric guitar.  Annie hits the sweet spot betwixt kick-over-the-speakers stone abrasiveness and swoony, swirly, feminine sensitivity and so dead-on that it's similar she invented both genres.  I have absolutely nothing negative to say about her.

I also have nothing negative to say well-nigh the act that followed, Battles, a band that would put anyone else who resembled them to shame, if anyone else really resembled them. An first-class example of what happens when truly talented musicians go experimental without forgetting that music is supposed to make us dance, this quartet turned trio (they lost original member Tyondai Braxton in 2010) seems collectively determined to reach perfection by the most difficult means possible.  I'm referring to the playing-two-keyboards-at-the-aforementioned-time-without-looking-at-either-of-them agility of synth-master Ian Williams besides as the hey-my-percussion-sounds-like-a-car-gun-even-though-I-decided-to-position-my-high-hat-three-feet-higher up-my-own-caput absurdity of human drum machine John Stanier.  These guys redefine awesome, and were a wonderful way to wrap upwardly a Saturday.

Lord's day began with a stroll around beautiful Asheville followed by a trip to the YMI Center for the highly anticipated "77 Million Paintings," a multi-sensory art exhibition created past the honorable godfather of modern ambience music, Brian Eno.  And let me tell y'all, Eno did not disappoint.  In fact, "77 Million Paintings" emerged as one of the biggest highlights of the entire weekend.  I don't want to give as well much away, but let me only say: multiple screens + ambient music + red velvet couches = one of the almost mentally invigorating experiences I've had in a long time.  Later two hours spent mesmerized in a darkened room, I'd decided I was going to move to Thailand, get back to schoolhouse, and first writing verse again.  This, my friends, is some powerful shit.

Lucky for me, my favorite art exhibit always was followed by my favorite alive performance of the weekend—Beats Antique. Any group that can flawlessly fuse experimental electronica with traditional belly trip the light fantastic tunes is a win in my book, and they didn't even stop in that location.  The alive Afro-Arabian beats! The alive belly dancing! The live animal vs. pro wrestler boxing finale! Does information technology get meliorate than this? No, it does not.

Side by side up: another dose of totally unexpected brilliance.  Who knew Donald Glover, a.k.a. Troy from the meta-fabled sitcom Community, could rap more ferociously than Kanye, and sing with more soulful soprano R&B charm than Usher (in his celebrity days)?  Not I, until Sunday nighttime at Moogfest.  Did I mention he was dressed like an elf in a Christmas colored collared t-shirt, khaki short shorts, and a hat with a pom pom?  He was.  And he rocked it.

We had to leave Troy behind prematurely to rush dorsum over to the Asheville Civic Center for the mysterious "Special Disco Version feat. James Potato and Pat Mahoney."  And by James White potato, I do in fact mean the founding member of the all-as well-short-lived indie empire known as LCD Soundsystem.  Murphy has as well been named one of the coolest people on the planet by more than ane magazine, and on Sun he proved that he doesn't even need to exist a frontman to retain this lofty title.

Merely let'south be articulate: LCD Soundsystem this is not.  As Irish potato was quick to remind us the moment he walked onstage, "we're but going to exist playing some records, that's information technology."  And that was information technology, but damn did they rock!  A welcome break from the experimental bleeps and blips that dominated the weekend, this was a fresh take on disco classics, spun together into a syncopated soup of sound that had the whole room dancing our pants off while aerial artists somersaulted overhead.

Sadly, all skillful things must end, but nosotros picked a keen way to conclude our Moogfest weekend.  Over at The Orange Peel, an Asheville institution in its own right, Portlandian trip-hop upwards-and-comer Emancipator, a.k.a. Doug Appling, coordinated a live violinist over soothing synth beats that had everyone in the room bobbing and swaying the nighttime to a close, with a lovely cameo from a female vocalizer to boot.  Chilled to perfection—a perfect way to slip off into the dark, back to our various abodes, and into our beds, where visions of Bob Moog would trip the light fantastic in our heads.

Moogfest, I'll see you side by side yr.

Photos by Rachel Mills & Hilary Cadigan

lombardibothe1936.blogspot.com

Source: https://solapalooza.blogspot.com/

Share this post