Going to a fest, need band suggestions

It was a great time! I got there a bit late, though, due to the after effects of the previous night's debauchery.

Saw Amanda Blank on your suggestion, Garageland - she was great. She came out in a green spandex outfit with blotches of red makeup all around her eyes. She really had the crowd going. She rapped pretty well, and I thought it was funny when she kept saying "where all my bitches at?" to the girls in crowd. She had really good stage presence. I was able to get third row center in the audience within 20 minutes after arriving there. The crowd was pretty evenly spread out, with most people choosing to have more room to dance instead of being closer to the stage.

I saw the very end of Phenomenal Handclap Band and then all of Sinden right before her. Sinden was pretty good too. He made techno work in broad daylight, no easy feat.

After Amanda Blank, I started wandering around the festival grounds for a bit. This is how I discovered what was the surprise highlight of the entire fest for me. It was over on the stage called The Woods, which was a much smaller performance area than the rest - not entirely unlike the Sonic Stage at Roo in terms of size. Anyway, I caught the last minute or two of one of the burlesque shows, and then Bob Log III came out. I had never even heard of him before the festival, let alone listened to his music, but as soon as he came on stage, I knew it was going to be a hell of a show right away. He was in a partially zipped leather jacket and studded leather pants, wearing a fighter pilot's helmet with a telephone attached to it. He did sort of an alternative, blues-y, rock and roll. There were only about 40-50 people in the audience, but he tore nuts up as if it were 40-50 thousand. I really hope he comes to the Northeast and/or Bonnaroo. He was his own one-man band - singing, playing guitar and drums, all at once. Think Jack White on speed meets Tom Waits. Seriously, check this guy out:


(fast forward to about 6:00 in this next video for some crazy crowd-rafting)


After Bob Log, I saw about half an hour of Architecture in Helsinki. I like their music, but their live show was a bit flat. Still not bad, but nothing terribly memorable either. Then came Datarock. They all had on matching jumpsuits, which for me, brought to mind images of Devo. I've known about them for years, but I've never really given them much of a listen. They were quite good, I thought.

Next, I saw the end of The Aston Shuffle and the first half of The Presets. The crowd was going mental during The Presets! Unfortunately, I had to leave fairly early into their set, because they were up against Lyrics Born, who I'd really been looking forward to. And with good reason - he was great. He was very on key the whole time. I was unsure of how he would be, because hip-hop can be very hit-or-miss live, but I'm happy to say that Lyrics Born fell into the hit category. His backing band even went into a Billie Jean tease at one point to pay tribute to 2009's biggest celebrity death.

I then went to go check out the guys from LCD Soundsystem. I really love their music, but I thought they were kind of off during their show. It just seemed like they were very uncharismatic and unenthusiastic about the whole thing. I didn't stay for the whole set, but in the 30 minutes I was there, they didn't address the crowd even once.

I wandered around for a bit more - saw part of Fake Blood, and then part of Major Lazer Soundsystem. They were like 4 parts alternative hip-hop, 2 parts funk, 1 part dancehall, and 1 part techno. Very cool stuff, I highly reccomend them. To finish off the night, I split my time between 2ManyDJs and Krafty Kuts. 2ManyDJs were very good, even though I was in the way back and couldn't see that much. Krafty Kuts - hadn't heard of him this time a week ago, but the person I was with wanted to go see him, so I obliged. They were sort of a hip-hop/funk fusion, but in a very different way than Major Lazer Soundsytem.

All in all, it was a great time, and a terrific way to kick off the decade.