Beware the hot sauceR says that the way to avoid the rain is to carry an expesnive umbrella around with you. Given the way that the weather radar looked before we headed out today, she must be right.
Walking in, heard a little bit of
Ben Kweller. Nothing too original sounding there.
Headed to the north end and caught the second half of the
Nickel Creek set. They were okay, and earned some points for a cover of "Toxic" by Britney Spears. (Amusing since NC could be loosely categorized as alt-country.)
Today's sets were plagued somewhat by sound issues. This was unfortunate, since the first two days I thought the audio production was pretty good, all things considered (the naturally iffy acoustics of a big outside space, sound bleed-over from other stages, wind shear, etc.) Those issues started with the
Andrew Bird set. He did play some good stuff, and his instrumental multi-tasking abilities are undeniable. But unless you had heard his recordings, the subtleties and originality of his work may have been hard to distinguish. Oh, well, it was nice to hear him anyway, and I wouldn't mind seeing him again.
Then we turned around to face the other stage for the
Shins. Where Bird's set suffered from bad production, the Shins were plagued by blown speakers; the sound barely carried halfway across the field and even that required starining somewhat to hear it (as opposed to the previous day, when we could hear Manu Chao playing on that stage from as far back as Buckingham Fountain). We stayed for about twenty minutes of that, then drifted off for some food. R went to see
Matisyahu, and reported back favorably on his set. I preferred to see
Of Montreal. They were the highlight of the day. Dressed as brightly as anyof the random clowns walking around the fairgrounds and cavorting across the stage as if it were electrified, they were obviously having a good time and doing so in spite of yet more technical issues (the lead singer's guitar pedal crapped out about halfway through). I liked this band before, and even R, who liked some of their stuff but was a little iffy on them in general, confessed a new respect for them after seeing the latter half of their set.
Next we caught the end of the
Poi Dog Pondering set; they were decent and put in a solid if not particularly energetic performance. And then
Wilco, who were on the stage that the Shins had been on previously and where the sound issues continued. We put up with that for a little while before heading out, catching some of the
Queens of the Stone Age set on the way out (I think they are okay, but their stuff all sounds like other bands to my ears).
Overall, I would grade today a
C+The whole festival gets a solid B; they did a good job mixing up the styles, and despite the sound issues, the production was decent most of the time. There were some unfortunate scheduling conflicts, but I did get to see the majority of the bands that I really wanted to see and that made it worth the price. Even though three days is a bit draining, I'll look forward to seeing what they come up with for next year.
