Whereupon we rise up to the grand occasion!
Look, don’t get me wrong; there are plenty of reasons to have signed onto the Pemberton Festival right from the get go. Honestly, the first two days’ line-up would have easily made the outlay worthwhile. But when (if?!?) push came to shove, there was one act above all that sold the festival for me. And that would be My Morning Jacket Coldplay.
(With apologies to my_morning_pemberton, Erik26, avenue3, Nomadic, all rabid fans from this thread on the forums. Couldn’t resist.)
I was an early adopter, signing on mere days after the announcement. This is what I was most looking forward to. But before that, others would come.
I certainly missed more than I saw today, and for that I deserve a music crime conviction. For whatever reason, the only band I caught at the Lillooet Stage were Toxic Airborn Event. Name reminds me of a bad diamond commercial: great band, bad name.
This is a tight little little band, fronted by the talented Mikel Jollett, with the enigmatic Anna Bulbrook on keys and violin, and the exotic Steven Chen on rhythm guitar. Sure, there are others too (drums, fr’instance) but those three make it. And, I’ve always wanted to write a paragraph like that.
So what’s with the name? Well, I did some digging, and found the reference to the DeLillo novel, White Noise. But hey, post-modernism is dead, so let’s move on. Besides, this band is much more clever than I. The L.A. Times calles the music
“Poetry you can dance to…nothing short of amazing”.
Too bad their first CD only comes out leter this month. I’ll be checking it out. In the meantime, there are a few streaming songs on their MySpace.
(And by the way, you can find some excellent photos by Gary Belleville over on his Flickr site.)
Part of the reason for missing much of the B stage action had to do with our evacuation plan. Word on the street had it that vehicles were being allowed into the family camping area for pack-upage. We decided to avail ourselves of that little nugget, and bring the chariot in, pack it, and leave it there for a quick getaway at the end of Coldplay. A goood plan it was, too. Unfortunately, we lost Wintersleep and Vampire Weekend in the effort.
My bad.
The positive side of this is that I was well rested for the marathon that would be the main stage, beginning eith N.E.R.D. at 4:45. My plan was to push forward to an advantageous spot close to the stage and right along the central aisle (the one leading to the sound booth), and camp out there for six or seven hours.
The plan did me well. I brought food and munchies to sustain and share with whomever I managed to squeeze between, and liquids, although those were downs sparingly. No way I was going to lose a prime position becuase of a potty break.
And so, Noone Ever Really Dies came on, a half hour late.
Like MMJ, N.E.R.D. seems to have rabid following, and one dare not badmouth the massive epic-ness that they are. But I got to say, it didn’t bode well when the band couldn’t remember where they were performing tonight. Kudos, I suppose, for starting the set with only two of five. Major kick to the ‘nads for being so full of themselves.
Now, I’m not a hipster at the best of times, but I am able to keep an open mind. N.E.R.D. were fun enough for sure, but their sheer pretention and full-of-themselfedness was a little offputting.
Highlights include the song Everybody Nose (the intro for which, having to do with girls and bathrooms, everybody knew) and all the white chicks (well, one black gal) they were able to entice on stage.
As I said, they certainly have their following, and for them, I’m sure the set was da bomb and all that. But their elevated sense of self importance (we’re going to play long, fuck the fines) turned more than a few people off.
Besiides, I was waiting for Death Cab.
Death Cab for Cutie is the one band I was worried about in this venue. They are among my favourite, but I worried about their ability to maintain the enthusiasm, sandwiched as they were between N.E.R.D. and Jay-Z. But I was also looking forward to an epic version of I Will Possess Your Heart. The intro on the CD version is long, moody, and heavy on atmospherics.
Sadly, the live intro was very much shorter. And although they gave it the ‘ol college try, I think they fell short in overall performance.
It pains me to say this.
Not to say that I didn’t very much enjoy the set, because I did (the opener Bixby Canyon Bridge was particularly excellent). I just think that they didn’t meet the elevated levels of hype that surrounded them. And so after the elevated levels of energy brought on by N.E.R.D., we came down a notch or two.
Only to be pumped up to a frenzy by Jay-Z himself.
Now to be honest (once again) I’m not a rap fan. But I was not entirely turned off by N.E.R.D.’s performance not to continue to have an open mind about Jay. He didn’t disappoint.
This was spectacle on a grand scale, and not just on a musical scale. Followed on stage by a posse clad in black suits, and three piece brass ection, Jay and posse commanded the stage for another epic set. It was far more than merely entertaining; it provided for some truly ironic moments too. Like white gals happily singing along to 99 Problems.
Think on that one for a second – white gals, bitches, and all that.
The liight and video show was another standout, with effects I’ve nto seen before. I know, I must not get out much – I still think lasers are pretty neat. But the quick edits to various camera angles and scenes was even neater.
Truly worth the effort to come out. I understand why fans lobbied hard to have Jay be the closer for the evening.
(Best unfounded rumour – Jay Z pulling out of the festival because he was not the headline closer.)
What I don’t understand is the mass exodus that occurred after all of Jay-Z’s closing kudos. People left the fracking audience, perhaps to get a head start for home, perhaps to gain entrance (against all hope, as it turned out) into the Bacardi tent for DJ Shadow.
All that evacuated space was easily taken up by Coldplay fans moving in for the grand finale.
Start with the grand montage backdrop of CD art when Chris Martin et al. came on stage:
Like the new CD, the set opened with Life in Technicolor, an instrumental that could only be made better by the transformation into a full song with lyrics. It bode well for the evening.
Many tracks off the new CD were there, but also all of the old favourites that I’m only slightly embarassed to admit to loving: Clocks, Yellow, In My Place, Speed of Sound.
This short clip gives a sense of the mood during In My Place.
It’s hard to classify Coldplay as an energetic band, but I’ve never seen them live, so what do I know? I do know that Martin gave it his all, to the extent that he went flying on his ass at one point, as if busting a wicked move. I first thought it was part of his act, and up he got and continued as if nothing had happened.
The video screens behind the band were alive as well, and no less spectacular (if a little less pretentious) than Jay-Z. Between the music and the visual feast, I doubt anyone left disappointed.
A highlight came witht he band running down the central aisle – the very aisle I was standing next to – towards a small side stage behind me. Bringing the music to the cheap seats with and utterly beautiful acoustic version of The Scientist, my favourite song.
At this point, I had filled my flash card, and was franticly trying to find a shot or two to delete so that I could catch Chris on the backswing. I managed a good action shot with only a little bit of luck.
My only regret with the evening was that there were no encores. Oh well, satisfied nonetheless.