First, I should apologize for the fact that my sloth-like nature has once again won a battle, as I completely forgot to take pictures of the entire weekend, leaving me with only words for you. So if my words do not interest you and you are just hear for the music or whatever then you should just skip this, otherwise, I’ll do my best to recall my weekend in a somewhat enjoyable-to-read manner.
I arrived in Champaign on Friday afternoon around 6:00 p.m. and met up with some friends before the evening’s festivities began at 8:00. I had already missed Wednesday due to school, which featured arguably the best 1-2 punch of the weekend in the Damien Jurado/Okkervil River tour stop, but I was plenty excited about the other bands on my shortlist.
After a terribly burnt cup of coffee from the shop around the corner from the Canopy Club, I made my way to U of I’s Krannert Center to catch the tail-end of Chicago Art-rock trio Dianogah. The band’s aggressive/subdued start-and-stop brand of noise seemed to be received well by the crowd, but began to run together after two or three numbers.
Next, Andrew Bird took the stage to a thunderous round of applause. The Krannert center is a beautiful and immaculately-tuned space, which made for a pretty cool place to see music as dynamic as Andrew’s. Maybe it was the long drive I had just taken in or maybe it was the burnt espresso I was still sub-consciously mad about but after about four songs, Andrew began to lose my attention. Let me be clear: Andrew Bird live is a pretty amazing thing: he was preforming without a band of any sort, looping picked and bowed violin parts, whistles, and guitar melodies through a giant spinning rotary speaker. The problem was, he was preforming without a band of any sort, looping picked and bowed violin parts, whistles, and guitar melodies through a giant spinning rotary speaker for 16 songs, and it just got old pretty fast.
I caught Margot & The Nuclear So and So’s later that night at the Canopy, but everyone in my party agreed to leave after a few loosely and mostly pretentiously preformed songs.
Saturday night was shaping up to be a bit better: I was looking forward to an intimate show at Cafe Paradiso which would feature Caleb Engstrom, Liz Janes, and Owen. That show was going great until Liz Janes set time, which was filled by a talented but otherwise disappointing solo xylophone player. How a performance at a festival (especially one that is run by your own booking agent) can be canceled without any notification to the people who paid to be there is beyond me, but it was. This presented another problem: Owen’s set, rather than starting on time, moved right ahead, Kinsella taking the stage about 30 minutes early. This was a big letdown to the people who got there at the published start time and paid the ten dollar door, thinking they had missed a verse or two when in fact they were 6 songs into Owen’s set.
This problem would again rear it’s ugly head later that night. We left Cafe Paradiso and got some pizza around the corner from the Canopy where we met the uber-friendly “Trout” from the band Dignan. I can’t say I’m all that familiar with their music, but Trout sure was a nice fellow! Next, it was time to see Via Audio at the Courtyard Cafe who I was beyond-stoked about seeing. I’m an avid fan of the Brooklyn band’s wonderful brand of Indie Pop, and this was the closes they had come to Nashville so far. The Courtyard Cafe is a campus venue and apparently the freshman AV club was in charge of sound. The band ended up running back and forth between the stage and booth, trying to mix their own monitors. Completely un-acceptable for the headliner of that venue to have to deal with such a thing if you ask me, but such is life I suppose. The band themselves were great, and more than made up for whatever issues they were facing.
This is when the real fun begins: we made our way back to the Canopy as quick as we could so we wouldn’t miss too much of Casiotone for the Painfully Alone’s set, which was scheduled to start 5 minutes prior to our departure. Expecting to have missed one song, we arrived at the venue to find the number two act on my shortlist, the number one on my friends (one of whom had traveled from LA to be there), and the second headliner of the last night of the festival unloading his gear from the stage. I had driven from Nashville, a friend had flown from LA, and another by train from Chicago, all of us looking forward to this set in particular, and we missed it. Again, how a set can start some 50 minutes early at a festival without any notification to the people who paid good money to be there is escaping me, but it did. It was one thing for a lower-on-the-bill act in a coffee shop to be canceled, it was another for the second headliner of the main venue, on the last night of the festival to start an entire slot early. Several people trickled in for Casiotone’s set who were visibly upset to find that Headlights had already taken the stage (who were great, don’t get me wrong) and there were mumblings all around of disappointment.
Overall, had I not had such a good time with friends while I was there, the weekend would’ve been a waste. The sound was shotty, the schedule ever-changing, and the reasons why were nowhere in sight. At least Za’s was good.
[mp3] Casiotone for the Painfully Alone – Jeanne, If You’re Ever in Portland
[mp3] Via Audio – Modern Day Saint (Buy their new record, out today)
[mp3] Andrew Bird – Fiery Crash
Hard to Find a Friend - A Music Blog 