Music of the Weak: We’ve Got Lots to Say About Austin City Limits 2008, But Here’s An Extended Drum Solo Instead

When Band of Horses played Webster Hall in New York City, September 2006, Ben Bridwell had only recently divorced himself from his writing partner, Matt Brooke, and reassembled a touring band.  Their first album, Everything All the Time, had received a deserved amount of positive attention, and this newly-constructed Band of Horses had been promoted to headliners so quickly that Bridwell openly worried he didn’t have enough material to play a full show:  “The album’s only 30 minutes long!”  Though their music sound muscular and epic live, Bridwell gave an extremely introverted performance, barely even opening his eyes.

Last Sunday night, at Austin City Limits music festival, Ben Bridwell looked out into a crowd of maybe 40,000 people and seemed absolutely blown away.  Band of Horses went on to play one of the best shows of the festival.  Of course, their songs adapted perfectly to the setting—a large open field at dusk—but what made the performance truly special was Bridwell’s embrace of what might be the largest audience Band of Horses will ever play.  Aside from the many thank yous, and even a, “Man, you guys look beautiful,” at one point, he infused his music with an openness and a joy of performing that had largely been absent the rest of the festival.  His eyes were wide open, and he was very obviously enjoying every moment of his time on stage—an epic difference from the timid, self-conscious musician that had showed up to Webster Hall two years earlier.

For their final song, Band of Horses played a bluesy song, presumably from an upcoming album, that suggested a new direction for the band, and Bridwell worked his ass off.  Already drenched in sweat, he ran back and forth between the audience and the band, making sure everyone understood each phrase of the song.  At one point, he climbed down into the audience, becoming the one performer we’d seen all weekend to physically breech that divide.  It was a great moment—one that got interrupted by the band on the adjacent stage who decided to begin their set early.

Foo Fighters always seemed like a bit of an odd fit for Austin City Limits.  While most of the bands in the 2008 line-up seduced their fans with excellent writing and true musicianship, Foo Fighters basically pummeled theirs into submission with make-up heavy music videos revealing Dave Grohl’s secret desire to be a sketch comedy star, consistent rock-radio “hits” that bled into one another, and the incessant licensing of “My Hero.”  But with Grohl announcing a couple of weeks ago that the band would take “a long break” beginning in October, speculators hoped the headlining slot at ACL would be their last gig.  Ever.

When Foo Fighters began their set early, needlessly interrupting what had to be one of Band of Horses’ finest moments as a band, they kicked off a performance completely antithetical to the band that had played before them—self-aggrandizing, self-interested, and self-satisfied.  Grohl spent the entire concert over-promising and under-delivering.  He told the crowd, “We’re just going to play as many songs as we can until they shut us down,” and then let Taylor Hawkins take a five-minute drum solo.

Later, Grohl introduced the band’s other percussionist as their “triangle player” and told the audience, “Clap for Drew Hessler.  Right now.  He needs the fucking attention.”  You have to admire the psychological douchebaggery of the guy, because that’s a classic double bind—announce the dude as a special guest and then passive aggressively undercut his applause.  It didn’t stop there.  Grohl then goaded the guy into playing a triangle solo, which actually ended up being the best part of their set.  Of course, Grohl cut it off early, presumably because the audience was enjoying it.  Ladies and gentlemen, I give you Dave Grohl: The Nicest Guy in Rock.

Even worse, during the times that Grohl & Co. weren’t avoiding playing music with mean-spirited jabber and percussion-wanking, they were actually, you know, playing music.  Dave Grohl’s sense of entitlement motivated most of their songs.  On the rockers, he screamed like he something to prove—sort of like the kid who goes, “Hey, guys, look: I can jump this high.  No, wait.  Don’t go away.  I can jump THIS high!”  On the hits, he slowed things down to a crawl, presumably to let the audience spend what he felt was the appropriate amount of time with them, possibly to avoid playing other songs by turning, say, “Big Me” into a 10 minute slow jam.  Of course, he ignored the fact that the hits might have become hits because of the way the band played them on record.  For “Everlong,” potentially his biggest sing-along tune, he dismissed the rest of the band from the stage and proceeded to turn what may be Foo Fighters’ best record into a Damien Rice song.

I will say this for the Foo Fighters:  Taylor Hawkins has some white ass teeth.  Watching the drummer smile on the Jumbotron was like having a stroke.  Odds are high that, with the Foos on indefinite hiatus, Hawkins will carry on the corporate rock mantel with his band, Taylor Hawkins & the Coattail Riders.  (Notice the same passive aggressive shittiness posing as self-deprecating sarcasm that Grohl uses and win a prize.)  By getting out of the game, Dave Grohl could be passing on Foo Fighters’ musical legacy down to the drummer the same way Nirvana’s musical legacy was passed on to him—except, instead of taking his own life with a shotgun, Grohl’s just waiting around for Britain to tickle his balls. 

Yet Foo Fighters may have been the only raging egomaniacs at a festival otherwise packed tight with artists more interested in playing tightly constructed music than showboating.  The majority of the artists we saw sounded spectacular—from Yeasayer’s Middle Eastern-tinged prog-rock to Fleet Foxes’ four part harmonies.  If there was a time recently when being a virtuoso musician wasn’t a pre-requisite to being a rock star, you would never know it from the ACL line-up.

Early Friday and Saturday afternoons, a couple of newbies proved themselves more than worthy of the adulation they’ve received this year.  On day one, Vampire Weekend took to the huge AMD stage and played through their entire repertoire (which fit neatly into an hour)—including new songs and Factual Opinion favorite (and non-album track) “Ladies of Cambridge.”   Claiming their performance as the final show of their tour (even though they’ve got a ton of stuff scheduled for October), their songs sounded tight and road-tested—two adjectives that rarely describe other blog faves.  On day two, Fleet Foxes stormed the same enormous stage.  Dudes can sing.  However, though a cappella phrases in songs like “Sun Giant” and “White Winter Hymnal” showed off the band’s sweet pipes, set closers “Mykonos” and “Blue Ridge Mountains” truly hinted at Fleet Foxes’ future.  They may have complained that they’re “not a festival band,” but on that stage, Fleet Foxes music sounded huge.

Offsetting Vampire Weekend and Fleet Foxes’ new blood were performances by veterans David Byrne and John Fogerty, both of whom dipped heavily into their old bands’ catalogues.  Neither shied away from playing the hits.  David Byrne kicked off his set with his delightful new single, “Strange Overtones,” and sprinkled his set with solo material, but he dug into plenty Talking Heads powerhouses, including “Once in a Lifetime,” “Life During Wartime,” and “Crosseyed & Painless.”  Byrne also set himself apart from other festival performers by having three backup dancers, dressed all in white (as was the entire band), doing choreography and improvised dance through the entire show—a completely gooney move perfect for Byrne’s music.  John Fogerty’s crowd-pleasing hour was a lot more straightforward, as he charged into the kind of bluesy rock he made his name with in Creedence Clearwater Revival.  The notoriously prickly rocker seemed genuinely delighted to be there, as he ripped through guitar solos and led the crowd in a singing “Who’ll Stop the Rain?”

The festival’s few disappointments cropped up when artists’ music didn’t live up to their records.  Erykah Badu’s band could not match the ambitious funk of her latest album.  She needed Parliament, but only bothered to put together The Dazz Band.  She also came on stage 10 minutes late, which is a total drag at such a tightly moving festival—though she may be forgiven, since she was also pregnant as hell.  Badu rescued her performance with fiery attitude and incredible singing, which is more than could be said for Gnarls Barkley, whose Cee-Lo offered little in the way of stage presence to compensate for his band’s lack of thunder.

Iron & Wine also suffered from the lack of a solid band—though Sam Beam’s xylophonerific arrangements of his songs did more to turn them into Captain Easy Rock & the Drift-Tones than the musicians did.  And we didn’t really need a 10 minute jam session on “The Shepherd’s Dog” either.  When Beam closed out his hour with a solo version of “Dead Man’s Will” it was stunning, but also a good indication that he should have done the show with just him and a guitar—or at least hire a band that can rise to meet his songwriting.

Hot Chip’s performance didn’t do them any justice, either.  Not only did their Made In The Dark-reliant set highlight that album’s weak material, they played an uninteresting version of arguably their best song, “And I Was A Boy From School,” trading the off-kilter beat and maudlin vocals from the original for rinky, tinky, bargain-basement electronica.

Then again, outdoor festivals do lend themselves nicely to straight-up rock and roll much more than twisty dance music.  Drive-By Truckers and The Raconteurs both proved this with relaxed, classic-rock feeling sets tinted by country and blues, respectively.  Punk bands Gogol Bordello and Against Me! topped even that with raucous energy and immediacy.  The urgency that each of those bands brings to live performance cuts through each of their anachronistic qualities (Gogol Bordello’s “gypsy punks” gimmick; Against Me! sounding trapped in 1994.)  Beck and Manu Chao both lived up to their headlining slots in ways that Foo Fighters did not—Manu Chao with his ability to get people dancing, the diversity of his music, and his graciousness; Beck with his solid parade of great songs, his light show, and his bringing the entire band to the front of the stage to play three songs on 808 drum machines.

Elsewhere, Sharon Jones & The Dap-Kings proved their universal likability with a boisterous, high-energy set; Neko Case played five or six new songs, including one about a killer whale and an elephant teaming up to hunt for babies; and one of the highlights of the festival was when The Swell Season’s Glen Hansard, frustrated because his bandmate’s piano lost a key and another loud band’s sound bled over from a distant stage, literally strummed a hole in his guitar during a vicious cover of Van Morrison’s “Astral Weeks” and nearly hit one of his fans in the face with the flying, splintered wood.

But the artists who stood out among the rest were the ones who really connected with the audience: Jamie Lidell and Okkervil River rose to the same level of performance as Band of Horses.  On paper, both Jamie Lidell and Okkervil River look like mishmashes of tons of obvious influences—Jamie Lidell cobbles Motown, funk and Matthew Herbert-dappled experimentalism into a new version of blue-eyed soul; Okkervil River sounds like what Bright Eyes would sound like if Bright Eyes were good, with some of Wilco’s soundscaping tossed in for good measure.  In person, each of them transcends their influences with sheer musicianship and generosity of spirit.

Jamie Lidell cranked out a couple of soulful numbers from his fantastic 2008 album, Jim, before slowing things down with that album’s closer (and best song), “Rope of Sand.” Doing softer songs instead of up-tempo pleasers is a tricky proposition when ¾ of your audience might not even know who you are, but Lidell belted confidently and touchingly with one of the best voices of the festival.  After powering through another handful of great tunes, and rocking some electronic pyrotechnics involving sampling his own voice, Lidell looked like he might run out of material.  He and his whip-tight band started improvising off of “Where D’You Go” and built it into an incredible, nearly-a capella version of “Multiply.”

Even more of a surprise, Okkervil River, playing a hometown gig, took the best songs from each of their last three albums and turned each of them into an anthem.  Frontman Will Sheff delivered his labyrinthine lyrics like he was having a conversation with the audience—albeit an anxious, high energy one.  They were possibly the only band both to sustain such a high level of energy through their entire set and to have the songs to make the set truly memorable, which is even more remarkable considering they had a slot Sunday late-afternoon, in the dregs of the third day of the festival.

As a whole, Austin City Limits 2008 came off as an enthusiastic indicator for the current state of rock & roll.  Day one bristled with world-music influenced acts (Manu Chao, Gogol Bordello, Anitbalas, Vampire Weekend, Yeasayer, David Byrne), while days two and three were peppered with Americana (Fleet Foxes, Okkervil River, Neko Case, Drive-By Truckers, Old 97’s) and political-leaning voices (Erykah Badu, Against Me!, John Fogerty.)  Virtuoso musicians excelled over those without comparable chops, and the guys who stuck out could not only play, but reached out to the crowd and maintained a relationship with the audience.  Any band with that kind of ability would know that a five-minute drum solo is always a horrible idea.

-Martin Brown, 2008

-All photos courtesy of Martin Brown

Comments

[andre]

wow u saw some awesome stuff

[Squidhelmet]

Kickass overhaul of the festival! I feel like I was THERE!

[Kenny]

I agree with andre, you saw some awesome stuff, but why all the Dave Grohl hate? I don't get it. Reading your review, it sounded like the Foo Fighters had one Hell of a fun set. But other than that, it sounded like it was one great show!

[Philip Dhingra]

For some reason, I let myself be the only chaperone for someone who really really wanted to wait up near the front for Foo Fighters. I'm not really familiar with their repetoire, at least I thought I wasn't, but when I heard their set, every song sounded familiar. Could be all the licensing of their music. So you can say I sort of heard their music as a "first-timer," but I had about the same lack of exposure to their earlier stuff as the O.J. Simpson jury had. The music kept rocking my body but I had this nagging desire to just leave. I was simultaneously thinking, "okay, this music feels good, it's easy to digest, and just kind of moves me" and "ugh, get me out of here." Anyway, my least favorite set.

In a way I kind of feel like an old fart at age 26. I never thought that would happen coming up in my years. But my favorite acts were people who reached the height of their fame before I was born: David Bryne and Robert Plant.

As for Byrne, I too adored the pseudo-improv modern dancers. They always kept you guessing. Very dynamic.

And for Plant, I don't know, I just did.