After having a blast at last year’s Monolith Festival, I was excited to return to scenic Red Rocks Park to partake in this year’s festivities. Now in its third year, the two day event presents a diverse lineup of indie music, sprinkled with a few hip-hop offerings. The festival takes place in a naturally beautiful location that, as Matt described last year, is perhaps only paralleled by the Gorge in Washington. Unlike last year however, I would be covering by the festival by myself without the support and company of Matt or Knife. In order to come close to covering the same amount of artists as last year, my schedule had to be well planned and any breaks carefully considered, but mostly I just had to hope for a bit of luck.
Day1:
Arriving inside the festival grounds I noticed the setup was nearly identical to last year: three outdoor stages, including the famous amphitheatre, plus two club-sized indoor stages. The event offers several types of live music going experiences, part SXSW, part street festival, and part outdoor amphitheatre. I started the first day off with a band I hadn’t seen before, The Antlers, in one of the indoor rooms. Their excellent new album has a wide range of sounds, so I was a little surprised to see only three people take the stage. Live, their sound was harder, more rockier, than the album and the vocals were stronger as well. All in all, it was not a bad way to start the day. I quickly made my way down to the main stage, the first of many treks up and down the steep amphitheatre for the weekend, to catch Thao with The Get Down Stay Down. They were one of the first bands to play the main stage and the group’s playful songs got the early crowd dancing. Thao Nguyen also told a humorous story about how this wasn’t her first time at the famous amphitheatre. She came here once during her college days but could barely remember the experience due to “partying” a little too hard. After catching most of their set I made my way back up to the top of the amphitheatre where the second largest outdoor stage resided to catch Edward Sharpe and The Magnetic Zeros. The band whose name is as long as its lineup of members, ten to be exact, have only started performing recently but you couldn’t tell that from the great crowd response. It was definitely one of the best received performances of the weekend. The band also seemed to be loving the experience as much as the crowd.
A band I haven’t seen in a while was OK Go. They have been working on a follow up to their breakout 2005 album Oh No. You may remember one of their wildly popular videos featuring the members dancing on treadmills. The four guys looked the same, dressed in suit and tie, but soon I noticed something crucial missing in their performance – dancing! They played their all their old hits minus the well choreographed routines. Oh well, we’ll always have YouTube to remind us of their less serious days. A band that always lifts my spirits is The Walkmen. Lead vocalist Hamilton Leithauser has one of those powerful voices that can convert anyone into a fan. The band didn’t disappoint this time as the set slowly built up to their best known single “The Rat.” By now it was dusk and the overcast day had turned cold, high 40s, and rain was falling steadily. Next up on the same outdoor stage was mysterious hip-hop artist Doom. Mysterious in that he always wears a metal mask when performing. I don’t know if it was technical difficulties or actually a calculated move to build up anticipation, but the multi-talented rapper did not come on stage until almost the end of his scheduled set time. The long delay did give his DJ ample time to plug their upcoming collaboration with TV on The Radio’s Dave Sitek – news that was supposedly revealed for the first time anywhere. When he finally did come on the volume was so low on his mic I could bearly make out what he was saying. The fans still ate it up.
Back on the main stage the anticipation was building up for Girl Talk, aka Gregg Gillis, who has quickly become a music festival mainstay. An organized line had formed to the left of the stage of people wanting to get on stage to dance beside their favorite laptopalist. Little know fact, but my first ever contribution to Ice Cream Man was photos of a Girl Talk show nearly three years ago. The same dance mayhem that Gillis created back then was in effect tonight just on a much larger scale. Another artist that ICM have covered a lot is Of Montreal. By now the Athens group’s elaborate stage show has become well known while the band keep things fresh with an ever changing script of on stage characters. Does all of it detract from the music? Maybe. But their music still has strong hooks that get the crowd moving.
The rain came back just as the headliners, Yeah Yeah Yeahs, came on stage. The steady drizzle didn’t deter the crowd one bit as people stood two per row in order to get a closer glimpse of Karen O and her wardrobe. After each song the crowd cheered, louder than any other band I’ve seen at the venue. The volume of the cheers also proved that the acoustics coming down from the top of the amphitheatre was just as good as the one emanating from the stage. As usual the group played material from all three albums but I was especially happy to hear “Hysteric” for the first time live, a song that even more than their hit “Maps” shows off the group’s sensitive touch. Karen, amidst all the usual kicking, twisting, and posing through the set, called over a couple of girls in the front row to help sing “Soft Shock.” After a fifteen song set the band came out for a frenetic encore of “Y-Control.” As I was walking back to the car with the rest of the crowd, I noticed that the confetti that was shot in the air had gotten on my jeans, only that with the rain it looked like someone TPed my pants.
Day 2:
The temperature returned to normal on Sunday and my legs were only a little sore from the day before. What better way to celebrate the return of a sunny day, I thought, than by watching Australian group The Grates. Lead singer Patience Hodgson is a fireball of energy and jumps on stage like it was a trampoline. She also has the most infectious smile this side of, well, Karen O. While other bands throughout the weekend remarked about the altitude sapping them of energy, she told the crowd that it made her fart constantly during her performance. How many artists could say something like that on stage and still have the crowd thinking, “Aw, how cute”? Next up on the outdoor stage was Israeli group Monotonix. Instead of plugging in their equipment where The Grates had just cleared theirs, they placed all their amps on the ground right below the stage. Drums were then set up where the band typically starts from, the middle of the crowd. The crowd slowly grew until you couldn’t see where the rows of people ended. The obvious drawback to this kind of setup is that only a few people can actually see the band at any one time. But as you’ll see in photos of the many past wild shows Monotonix have put on, they do a good job of playing to the whole crowd.
I barely got in to see LA band HEALTH. I saw Love Language on the same stage right before – who by the way rivaled Edward Sharpe & The Magnetic Zeros for the happiest feel good band of the festival – but then I stepped outside to get some water. The small indoor stages can fill up very quickly and there were many people that didn’t get in as the show started. Having just released a new album that week, HEALTH introduced their new material to a predominately young crowd. Every time I see the foursome their sound seems to be tighter. Some of their new dancier songs like the single “Die Slow” do a good job of balancing out some of the more noise driven songs in the set. Another band I was looking forward to seeing again was Passion Pit, “Sleepyhead” being one of my favorite songs of the year. I’m still waiting for a killer performance by the band, one that does the song justice and inciting and entire crowd to go nuts. The band doesn’t lack energy but on stage it looks to me like they’re holding back. Lead singer Michael Angelakos has ditched his seat and keyboards from previous shows, allowing him to move around the stage freely during the songs. This helps and the crowd still enjoy themselves but I can’t keep thinking that their live shows have so much more potential.
Just when I thought everything had run smoothly and that this would be the first festival I had been to without a schedule change, I was informed that MSTRKRFT had cancelled due to illness. In order to fill their time gap, the organizers decided to move Phoenix from the outdoor stage to the main amphitheatre. This was fortuitous move because you couldn’t ask for a better act in the lineup to see before headliners Mars Volta. Phoenix’s clean sound was a prefect contrast and a good way to cleanse the musical palate before MV’s sonic assault. Phoenix have put out one of the best albums of the year and the band are enjoying much deserved recognition because of it. The band also sound great live as they started off with their latest single “Lisztomania.” They ended the set strong with back to back singles “Too Young” and then one of the most ubiquitous indie songs of the year, “1901.” The set seemed to go by too fast and again was just the perfect prequel to Mars Volta. One thing that was added this year was a DJ booth directly right of the main stage. I thought it was a great idea to entertain the crowd between sets. Plus it gave local DJs an opportunity to show off their talents.
Almost exactly 9:30 pm, Mars Volta took the stage to close out the festival. It couldn’t have come any earlier as my legs barely had enough strength to stand up. Just like the night before the crowd gathered two per row. The band had a sparse setup, with drummer Thomas Armon Pridgen large gong being the most prominent thing on stage, well that and singer Cedric Bixler-Zavala’s hair. I had seen Mars Volta many times before but never from the angle of looking down at the entire stage. It allowed the crowd to see Bixler-Zavala’s James Brown-like dance acrobatics in all its glory. Throughout the set he also abused his mic stand around like no one else I’ve seen, throwing in the air, using it to support his full bodyweight, etc. Towards the end of the set he thanked the crowd for having “patient ears,” and added, “I know our music can be difficult.” Difficult yes, but also rewarding if you give it a chance much like the steps at Red Rocks amphitheatre during Monolith.
