Everybody always asks, “what’s your favourite?” and “what’s the best?” so I figured: what better way to describe this year’s Treasure Island Music Festival in San Francisco than a superlative awards ceremony? The two-day extravaganza was intense, wonderful,
MOST IMPROVED: Passion Pit
The five college buds from Cambridge, Massachusetts just recently released their first full-length album Manners this spring, but they’ve been steadily gaining notoriety since 2007. As a new band, they’ve had some kinks to work out, but unlike previous gigs, Saturday’s show went off gloriously. I saw Passion Pit perform in February in Leeds, and although their talent was apparent, their performance was marred with technical difficulties and frustrations. This time, thousands basked in the afternoon sunshine overlooking San Francisco’s pristine coastal skyline from the man-made Treasure Island, while simultaneously soaking in lead singer Michael Angelakos’ dreamy robot-angel voice harmonizing with the band’s signature buzzworthy-beats and electronic pop melodies. The temperature and mood rose steadily as the crowd sang along to “Little Secret”, chanting “higher and higher and higher”, and many attendees did just that.
MOST FUN: Dan Deacon
Known for his dedication to small, intimate shows, it was unclear how the Baltimore native would handle an audience of this grandeur. Deacon knocked it out of the park with his crazy electronic vocals, fifteen-man band, and off-the-wall energy. Normally, Dan plays solo, but he managed to turn his menagerie of musicians into a well-organized choir as he quite literally conducted an orchestra. In addition to dance-till-you-drop video-game beats that our parents would never understand, he was able to organize a dance contest (the number one rule: it had to be “Sassy as fuck the whole time!”), spread the sea of onlookers to surround one leader for a massive game of Simon Says, and create an absolutely brilliant several-hundred-foot-long round of London Bridge. Recess and kickball, anyone?
MOST OBNOXIOUS: The Streets
Most Americans love a good English accent no matter what words accompany it, but Birmingham-born frontman Michael Skinner managed to crush all good feelings with his obscene performance. Songs such as “Dry Your Eyes” were tedious, slow and boring, and even though they were out of place amongst a lineup full of indie and electropop, they would possibly have been bearable if Skinner hadn’t stopped all the time to make nonsensical and inappropriate comments about how everyone should be naked and how his bandmate was going to have sex later. At one unbearably awkward moment, he had audience members turn to a stranger and say, “I love you.” Gag me.
MOST FREAKY: Brazilian Girls
The music took the backseat at this show, as frontlady and lead vocalist Sabina Sciubba literally strutted her stuff. Dressed in skintight black lace from eye to toe, little was left to the imagination. She also donned a huge padded red heart with an armhole over her chest and a little heart tail that she retained throughout their fifty minute set, despite the obvious physical hindrance. Continuing merrily along in their "weird-for-the-sake-of-being-
MOST EPIC: MSTRKRFT
Canadian duo AI-P and Jesse F. Keeler are certainly masters of their musical craft. High expectations surrounded their performance, but they were met and exceeded as the day faded into darkness and thousands melded into a sea of rhythmically pulsing human waves. "I hope you like house music 'cause we're gonna play some fucking house music," they chimed. The pair saturated our ears with pounding beats, plateaus, and intense releases, making it impossible not to dance harder than ever. Most notable renditions include the remix of John Legend's "Heartbreaker", a long snippet of Queen's supreme hit "Bohemian Rhapsody", and an all-consuming execution of Benny Benassi's "Satisfaction" which boasted the most exaggerated, unanticipated buildup and then sweet, heavenly, orgasmic release in quite possibly the history of house music. Satisfying indeed.
MOST DISAPPOINTING: Girl Talk
Arguably one of the most anticipated, the Pittsburgh native mashup superstar let us down. Perhaps it was the misfortune of playing directly after MSTRKRFT, or perchance it was performing on the more modest Tunnel Stage rather than the Bridge Stage, or maybe he just wasn't on top of his game. Whatever the reason may be, Girl Talk's set did not live up to his performance at previous shows. He chose to play slower mashups this time, and while the inclusion of a Black Sabbath song was impressive, most people were in the mood to dance and were unable to do so. Additionally, the sound level was too quiet for comfort, and although the lucky few dancing on stage seemed to be having a party, folks who were positioned ten feet or more from the stage were excluded from the festivities.
MOST ANTICIPATED: MGMT
Day one ended smoothly with a stellar set by MGMT, which surprised many who doubted their live abilities. Original members Andrew Vanwyngarden and Ben Goldwasser, who met at college in Connecticut in 2002, integrated with a full a band swimmingly and informed us that because this would be their last show for a while, they'd be playing the entirety of their wildly popular Oracular Spectacular. This news was met with a wave of energy and a buzz of excitement, and they boys stunned us all with a truly organic and raw version of their 2005 album. The cherry on top of the sundae was an intense guitar solo during "Electric Feel" and the crowd melded together to sing and sway along to the magical mystical melodies of the band who is shaping up to musically personify our generation.
MOST UNDERRATED: Grizzly Bear
I didn't know or care who Grizzly Bear was before, but I definitely do now. Harmonic dream-like melodies produced with harps, infused with booming pulses that traverse your body and transport you into the future lifted me off my bum and towards the stage like a moth to a flame. Day two was brutally cold, but the honeyed voices of these four angels warmed our souls and invited us to partake in what can only be described as musical heaven. Some of the vocals reminded me of Devendra Banhart's, but the vibe was a lot less pretentious. Like a creepy choir, we sang along to "Lullabye," chanting "chin up, cheer up, chin up, cheer up" to a strange atmospheric lullaby as the title suggested.
MOST MAGICAL: Beirut
From the moment I heard Beirut's Gulag Orkestar two years ago, I knew it was love. Strangely enough, though, I had never sought out images of the band or frontman Zach Condon, so when the 23-year-old American appeared on stage, I was surprised to find that he was not actually a god, but in fact, a mere man. His form may have been that of a mortal, but the tunes were like sweet ambrosia. The set began with "Nantes" and we all swooned as Condon's rich, forlorn voice carried over their signature French-inspired horns and folk-gypsy accordion. We were treated to favorites such as "A Sunday Smile" as well as new material from March of the Zapotec which was made in and inspired by a trip to Oaxaca. All of their songs seem to be about smiling, and there was no shortage of those during this set.
MOST MESMERIZING: Yo La Tengo
As the sun set on day two, Yo La Tengo graced the stage and induced quite a trance with their undulating rock melodies. The whole set blurred together to form what seemed like one immense experimental pop-rock adventure, that fit the mood perfectly. To the left of the stage, the fifty-foot ferris wheel oscillated and emitted color patterns guaranteed to entertain the sober and intoxicated alike. Skyward, gulls danced overhead and the combination of trippy visuals and sound made for a unique sensory experience.
MOST INSPIRING VISUALS: Decemberists
I was never a huge fan of frontman Colin Meloy's whiny high-pitched voice, but the Decemberists startled me with their performance Sunday night. They played songs from their fifth and most recent album Hazards of Love, which features a lot less of Meloy's unsavory vocals and a lot more surreal experimentation, including female vocals inspired by classic rock goddesses such as Janis Joplin. Just as impressive as their sound this evening were the visuals that accompanied their presence on the huge screen behind them, including beautiful slow motion videos of underwater organisms spewing matter, exploding mushrooms, strange flower growths, and adorable dancing raccoons.
MOST OVER-THE-TOP: Flaming Lips
After a complete rearrangement of the stage that took 45 minutes, the Flaming Lips were ready to burst on stage, and burst they did. Literally. They descended individually through doors in the middle of the jumbotron, amidst smoke and flashy lights in a fashion solely reserved for the most revered rock stars. Every person in attendance was up on the lawn for the grand finale, so if you were one of the lucky select who could see the stage, you were saturated by at least a dozen massive bursts of confetti, people in panda costumes on stage, and an extreme closeup of frontman Wayne Coyne's nose and eyes throughout the set. There were 8 foot balloons that spewed confetti once popped and a song dedication to Obama. After more than an hour of pure glory, the band was running out of time and so rushed off stage to "give us the illusion of an encore," which featured the most extended and epic version of "Do You Realize" in existence. Bravo.
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