Ice Cream Man

Sasquatch has always been one of my top five festivals but it took until this year for me to realize it’s possibly the best festival in the country. The only other one that might usurp it would be All Tomorrow’s Parties but they’re not doing the chalet/resort setup this year in the Catskills so Sasquatch is likely to take the cake. We talked about why this was the case a lot over the weekend and it pretty much boiled down to this:
– The Gorge – the coolest, nicest, most scenic venue in the country (huge plus).
– The size – you can only cram 25k people into the Gorge which is a third the size of the biggies like Lollapalooza, Bonnaroo, Coachella and others.
– The main stage area. Do to the natural amphitheater, you can easily and comfortably it on the plush grass and see and hear the main stage bands (assuming it’s not too windy which can funk with the sound occasionally). The best part of this is that the concrete standing area up front that holds maybe 4000 people is never that full and you can always get withing a couple hundred feet of the main stage.
– The lineup. They might not have Eminem or Arcade Fire but you get large bands like Foo Fighters and Deathcab for Cutie and longer headlining sets from Modest Mouse and Wilco. On top of that, there are so many great smaller and middle sized bands on the bill and, with three stages and a dance-y tent, you can always find good music from noon till 1 in the morning. On top of that, bands show up to play, it’s hard not too when you’re surrounded by so much natural beauty and everyone is in a great mood cuz it’s the beginning of the summer.

Cory and I drove 1300 miles north from Long Beach to give away 2000 Ben & Jerry’s treats and some new Airheads Popsicles to all the workers and people hanging out backstage. We weren’t sure if we were actually going to be able to make it but a few folks stepped up to pitch in to make the trip possible. HUGE thanks to Viddy, wehadamoment.com, Jakprints, and House of Zacks for allowing us to have such an amazing weekend. Thanks to our extended crew for stepping up and helping out too. Without them I wouldn’t have been able to run away from the truck for a couple hours to catch Guided by Voices > White Denim on Monday.

Other highlights of the fest were an early Sunday that allowed us to catch Archers of Loaf>Gayngs>Flaming Lips performing Soft Bulletin>Modest Mouse. I’m getting chills thinking about how unforgettable that run of shows was. Soft Bulletin was very impressive live but Wayne was chatting even more than normal which broke up the continuity of the ‘album’ and even though they had an hour-and-a-half set they only made it through the ten tracks on the 58-minute album.

I think Modest Mouse was my favorite of the whole weekend. I think most people wondered how they’d follow up Flaming Lips but they got all of the lips craziness off the stage and setup up all their gear in a good-sized rectangle across the stage. As we were walking down the hill they kicked off their set with “This plane is definitely crashing” from “Shit Luck” and any doubt about them stepping it up was thrown out the window. I’ve seen Modest Mouse around 15 times over the last 15 years and this was, by far, my favorite set from them. The rest of the set featured the hits, like “Float On” but also some more hidden gems like “Baby Blue Sedan”, “Dramamine” and “Wild Pack of Family Dogs” along with the classic MM “Cowboy Dan.” They ended the set with “Whale Song”, a song I wasn’t familiar with that rocked up so hard I was holding on to both pant legs while head banging. oh man… you should have seen my dance moves during MM. Ever since I starting getting more jerky with the pop n’ lock/robot moves at Ghostland Observatory in San Fran last month, I’ve been pulling out all kinds of new (and likely dorky) moves.

Thanks a bunch to everyone who made it possible to be at Sasquatch for our 6th time and also to our crew who helped with all the slinging. Thanks to Stumptown for the coffee, Tzar for the dumplings, and Adam Zacks and Lynn Resnick. It’s only been a few days and I already miss Sasquatch. oh…. and someone stole our Bigfoot action figure if you see it around.

Check out archived sets on NPR