Sasquatch 2011, the Northwest's mighty indie/electronic music festival, went off with a bang this last weekend in the Gorge. This year was a landmark tenth year for the festival, as well as the first year Squatch hosted 4 days of music. Your blogger was in attendance along with a riot of old homies, new allies, the Nutter & Cito, and some 30-50k awesome, glowing party people.
After checking around the interweb a bit, it seems there's neither an official estimate nor general consensus as to how many people actually attended. A lot of message boards are throwing around the 30-50k figure, claiming that the new banana shack significantly increased concert capacity, and that the hill was slammed with people much earlier than usual (which could have to do with the strength of the early day lineups). By far the most popular piece of speculation was what percentage of Sasquatchers were Canadians. The most conservative estimate I heard was 50%, the highest 70%. We'll never know, but to be sure, Canadians hit that festival in mind-blowing numbers -- and it makes sense when you factor in the exorbitant prices our northern neighbors pay to get loose on the juice (alc). So to all the Canadians I met: Win the Cup! and catch you at Shambalalalala-da-dah-dee-dah?
Before LCP gets to the actual music stuff, a few more quick thoughts on Sasquaa' logistics. Bathroom maintenance really elevated their game this year, LCP salutes you. Security at entrance also stepped up in a lame way, getting excessively vigilant with patdowns and bag checks. From what I saw of the pit security, they did a job well done. Last, I like the idea of the 4 day fest in theory, but the Friday lineup left a LOT to be desired: Death From Above hadn't played a show together in 5 years (and it showed); Foo Fighters lacked a lot of oomph (as LCP's newest music correspondent out of Eugene put it, "the new music they played is screamo style. They never would have become famous playing that..."); and Sasquatch cut some serious corners on Friday night's dance tent lineup by scheduling DJ Anali a 3.5 hour set (the longest of the festival).
Alright, now onto the main attraction, the sweet, sweet music.
Friday: Only saw Death From Above, The Foo Fighters, and DJ Anali. Of those, I would check out another DJ Anali show sometime. The super fast Bollywood beats were bizarre but delightfully tribal.
Saturday: The Ecology camp had a few false starts this day when attempting to leave camp. So we didn't get to check out Wolf Parade or Pink Martini as hoped. And though I missed Seattle Rock Orchestra due to the insanely early timeslot, I've got every intention of checking them out soon -- maybe even in their Seattle stomping grounds, if I'm lucky.
The rest of Saturday turned out ballerific, however: Matt & Kim put on what I thought was one of the best shows of the festival. They brought so much energy to the side stage and oozed confidence all set long. Plus, their penchant for covering catchy songs, like Biz Markie's Just a Friend, is pretty intoxicating. Finally, it was only fitting that they got to throw down Daylight as the sun was setting.
Glitch Mob followed in the Banana Shack (dance tent). It's hard to find the words for their set. Mind-blowing is a cop out, but it'll have to do. Videos give a more accurate representation of their unique electronic glitch hop style. This Seven Nation Army remix vid is stellar quality.
Next up, Sleigh Bells in the dance tent. The NYtimes has a chill little video about the band's meteoric rise to success in such a short time. Their set was short & heavy-hitting, a wicked combo of electronic and metal influences, with a sexy female leading voice.
Then Bassnectar dominated the late-night slot on the sidestage. His heavy dub-step wasn't really done proper justice by the Bigfoot stage's problematic PA system. I've been lucky enough to see Nectar 3x now, and this was by far the quietest show of his I've heard. Nevertheless, the dude unleashes face-melting dubstep everytime, all the time, no exceptions. Beats Fast, Bass Down Low!
Sunday, fun day:
Cold War Kids on the main stage started my day. I hadn't listened to much of their music, so I was stoked when they put on a dazzling performance. I guess that's what makes 'em rock-stars in the first place.
Flogging Molly on the main stage afterwards was good, not great, in my opinion. For me, it was worth checking out as a throwback to freshmen year of college though.
Gold Panda came next in the dance tent. Even though I wasn't a huge fan, the dance tent pulsed crowd energy in abundance. So it was a good time.
Post-GP, Flying Lotus threw down in the banana shack. I could immediately tell that Fly-lo was a G, tipped off by big aviators and a huge, unmistakably confident smirk. While it's hard to put your finger on what it is about his music, the effect is clear: Instant party. I only caught about half of this set because it overlapped with what would turn out to be one of the shows of the festival (at least for me)....
Yeasayer on the side stage! I had been highly anticipating this show, especially because I missed the Wilammette Valley music festival in early May, where Yeasayer headlined one night at U of O campus. Seeing them at the Gorge made up for that, and then some. Aside from the band's natural genius, a couple things about this show converged to make it, by far, my favorite of Sasquatch '11: A) The band messed around with the beats per minute, slowing the music down slightly and giving it an almost dub step-esque feel at times. B) The crowd was crazy engaged, belting out the lyrics of those catchy choruses (my favorite shower karaoke). And above all, C) It was a dance party, and I had an awesome dance partner that night -- truly, all things are better with dance partners, eh. Turns out there aren't too many good videos of Yeasayer from Sqautch, so this one will have to do -- in fairness, personally shooting a video would have taken away from the brilliance of the moment for me, so I get it.
After Yeasayer, Modest Mouse had a lot to live up to on the side stage, where they delivered a tour de force performance. To make things better, right before the show started, my epic dance partner/friend finagled us (along with 4-5 people standing near us) a way into the pit by befriending the yellow shirted chiller John, and then answering his trivia correctly. Back to the music, MM effortlessly transitioned between classics like Dramamine and Ocean Breathes Salty & their new stuff, which I didn't really know but massively enjoyed. Here's a short clip of World at Large.
Finally, Ratatat rounded out the night. Your blogger had been waiting literally for years to see Ratatat, so this show meant a lot to me. In fact, Ratatat dominated my playlists for the last 4 years, when I was in college and used the music as a performance enhancer for studying and writing. The show was super fresh, the sound clean and crisp. All in all, the perfect finish to the night's music.
Monday:
The LCP crew got into the venue during the Guided by Voices crew (who know they were still playing music?) and set up shop on the hill.
Macklemore and Ryan Lewis lit up the side stage next. The Seattle-centric, irish influenced duo really stoked the crowd's energy, delivering a great set.
Rodrigo y Gabriela (Roger and Gabi, ha), a pair of classically trained Mexican guitarists with a metal style, were pencilled into the next time slot on the main stage. As if their music weren't epic enough, during their set it started to rain and lightning struck in the distance a few times.
RyG were followed by a spot-on set from The Decembrists. At this point, your blogger was struggling to cope with the rain element (turns out baby alpaca is very far from a suitable rain shell) and a bit less focused on the music.
Finally, we copped a view of Skrillex (to quote a Sasquatch youtube video) "not only kill[ing]" but also "chang[ing] lives for the greater good of humanity" in the dance tent. :)
LCP dropped the ball after that, heading back to camp instead of seeing Major Lazer and Wilco (dammit!). Can't win 'em all, I suppose. Shows for another day. Till next time.....
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