Sasquatch! Day 1

The Sasquatch! Music Festival was filled with craziness and good times.

Day 1: Friday May 26

We arrived at the Gorge campgrounds just after 3pm. It then took about 20mins for us to get through all the traffic and find a spot on the grassy fields to set up our tent. From the moment we arrived on the grounds, there were already many chants of "Let's Go Oilers!" ...someting we'd hear all throughout the weekend. It was nice to know some fellow Canadians also made the trek down to be a part of the festival.



As we entered the Gorge Amphitheatre grounds and got acquainted with the setup, we managed to catch a few songs from The Trucks on the Wookie side stage. They're a four piece all-girl band from Bellingham and had a unique sound.



Up next was And You Will Know Us By The Trail Of Dead on the main stage. During their set, the power went out for a few minutes. Instead of stopping, they decided to bring out a couple percussion instruments and keep going. They ended their set in usual fashion, trashing their equipment.



Funniest thing ever. These guys walked around and laid the smackdown on people holding inappropriate beverages. Watch out! You could be next.



We had a blast going around and gathering people from Canada. We rocked out with people from Vancouver, Calgary, Edmonton, Saskatchewan, Winnipeg, and Toronto.




TV On The Radio was alright. I liked some guitar riffs, but wasn't a fan of the vocals. Kind of the same thing when I saw them open for Franz last year. HIM was horrible. Bauhaus wasn't much better.

Nine Inch Nails played a passionate and intense set to close out the night. Their performance lasted 1hr 30mins and included a cover of Queen's Get Down Make Love. Trent's performance of Hurt was overwhelming and left me standing completely still.



Setlist:

Somewhat Damaged
You Know What You Are
Sin
Terrible Lie
March Of The Pigs
Something I Can Never Have
Closer
Gave Up
Help Me I'm In Hell
Non Entity
Only
Wish
La Mer
Into The Void
Big Come Down
Suck
Get Down Make Love
Hurt
Hand That Feeds
Head Like A Hole



After the set, we headed back to camp and hung around for awhile. The weather was nice on this evening and we ended up BBQing sausages at 2am before passing out.

Kids Will Be Skeletons

Mogwai played the Commodore last night. The special guests that were scheduled to open turned out to be no one. Either that, or they were invisible and silent. Maybe it was some sort of invisible mime?

The quintet from Glasgow, Scotland came on with matching green track jackets and opened with Yes! I Am A Long Way From Home. Their mostly instrumental sound was very tight and the lighting was hypnotic at times. The performance was quite mellow and the crowd was pretty relaxed, though there was this one girl beside us that was dancing like a gypsy the entire time. Not sure what that was about.

They were surprisingly not as loud as I expected it.....except for the last few minutes of the encore. The show ended with about 5 minutes of feedback and phasers along with a trippy light display.

Set lasted 1hr 25mins.

Setlist:

Yes! I Am A Long Way From Home
Friend Of The Night
Travel Is Dangerous
Killing All The Flies
Helicon 2
Acid Food
I Know You Are But What Am I?
Ithica 27o9
Ratts Of The Capital
Hunted By A Freak
Helicon 1
Glasgow Mega Snake

You Don't Know Jesus
We're No Here

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The schedule for the Sasquatch Festival this weekend has been updated with a few changes. Stephen Malkmus and the Jicks have been added on Saturday and Damien Jurado has been moved to Sunday. Arctic Monkeys have been moved to the main stage on Sunday, thus setting back the later performances by 30 minutes. This actually works out nicely as the overlapping performance times have been reduced. Looks like I'll now be able to catch some of We Are Scientists and Clap Your Hands.

Should be a fun weekend.

volcanoes melt me down

The clouds are so heavy
And the water is starting to seep in
I can feel it under my skin.

Content Was Always My Favorite Color

The Strokes played last night at the Plaza Of Nations.

The Most Serene Republic opened the show. They're getting some pretty good exposure on this tour, playing at larger venues around the country. I must say their sound differs quite a bit from the headliners. I previously saw these guys open for both Metric and Broken Social Scene and am pleased with the evolvement of their performance. I think Proposition '61 sounds awesome live, especially with the extended outro.

The Strokes came on stage and started with a strong performance of Ize Of The World. They played a rockin' and upbeat set that included tracks from their three releases. Julian was sporting his usual t-shirt and leather jacket ensemble. There wasn't much banter between songs, except for the common "You guys are the best crowd" line.

It was neat watching Albert and Nick trade lead guitar parts between different songs. What I'd wish to see from them is to add something new to their songs for live shows since they sound pretty much note for note from the album.

During the 1hr 25min set, they played a sweet version of b-side Hawaii and also covered Lou Reed's Walk On The Wild Side. Ask Me Anything was done with Julian on vocals and Nick on piano. Highlights for me included Juicebox, Hard To Explain, Barely Legal, and Reptilia to close off the main set.

I'm glad they actually played more than an hour this time, plus had an encore. They opened the encore with New York City Cops. During I Can't Win, Albert's guitar was cranked really loud. My ears are still hurting from that. They finished the show with Heart In A Cage, followed by Take It Or Leave It.

A note to the people at the Plaza Of Nations: if you have signs posted saying "Exit", actually allow people to exit there. It's kinda horrific and also a safety concern when a few thousand people are only allowed to exit through one spot.

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Picked up my camera today.....Yay! it's working again.

holding hands, feeding ducks

There was a bird that was stuck inside the gym today. It must have flown in through one of the entrance doors. The ceiling in the main workout area is over 40 ft. high so the bird was flying all over the place. Thankfully, it got out safely.

It's looking pretty nice outside. I think I'm gonna open up my own lemonade stand. Hmmmm......where would I get all those lemons?

When Ice Met Cream

The camera repair guy called today and told me it's gonna cost about $200 to rebuild the optical unit for the lens of the camera.....son of a bee sting! Looks like I'll be eating off food stamps for the next week. If they're serving hashbrowns, I'm so there.

The schedule for the Sasquatch! Music Festival has been released.





Thankfully, it's only 3 stages. The worst was during the Warped Tour one year when they had 6 stages and no one knew what the heck was going on.....myself included. I like that Ben Harper gets 2hrs to close on Saturday and NIN and Beck get some decent time to close as well the other nights. On Saturday, I'll be catching most of Architecture, then hauling ass over to catch Sufjan. Those two are the bands I've yet to see and want to see the most. Unfortunately, it now looks like The Brunettes aren't playing at the festival anymore.

Looking at the schedule, I'd be pretty satisfied if I just stayed at the main stage. Might be able to catch a couple songs from Damien Jurado, Constantines and Sam Roberts. The one major conflict in the schedule for me is Death Cab - Clap Your Hands on Sunday. I'll probably catch the opening of Clap Your Hands, then rush over to see Death Cab. Too bad their set ends around 9:30pm, as hearing them play Transatlanticism, while watching the sunset in the backdrop of the mountains and the Columbia River would be intense. It gets to me just thinking about it.

Where Do We Go From Here

Jeff Martin played at the Commodore last night.

A local band band called Sonic City opened. The guitarist, Danny Sveinson, is only 12yrs old. He's also some kind of child prodigy, having already done numerous performances including jamming with guitar legend Les Paul. Danny's ability to whip out fast solos and run scales are impressive. It was entertaining to watch him bust out the behind-the-neck guitar solo. It reminded me of Michael J Fox in Back To The Future. I can only see big things happening for this kid.

Jeff Martin came on stage to a nice applause from the audience. The crowd was older on this night and filled with many longtime Tea Party fans. Jeff's new four piece backing band includes good friend Ritesh Das and former Page & Plant drummer Michael Lee. During the heavy songs with the pounding drums and guitars, it was hard to hear Ritesh on his percussions.

Jeff played many songs off the new solo album and also covered some Tea Party songs. These included Walking Wounded, an awesome version of The Messenger, and the first verse of Save Me before going into a sweet performance of Winter Solstice. Throughout the night, he used around 8 different guitars, including a 12 string acoustic and a heavy double decker 12 and 6 string electric. He comes about halfway to Johnny Rzeznik's guitar count, which includes 15+ guitars for his shows.....all of them with crazy tunings.

Jeff mentioned some origins of a few of the new songs being played. Angel Dust was written for his new child. Butterfly deals with his wife and her pregnancy. The Kingdom was written for former bandmates Stuart Chatwood and Jeff Burrows, and also for Jeff Martin himself and the fans. The former Tea Party frontman seemed very content, and mentioned a few times how this is a new beginning for him and that he's definitely enjoying life more. He also now resides in Ireland with his family and stated that the new album was influenced by his new surroundings, including a more worldly sound.

For the encore, Michael Lee came out first and did a nice 5min drum solo. Ritesh then joined back in on percussions for a duet. Afterwards, Jeff and rest of the band came back on to close out the 1hr 45min set with Turn The Lamp Down Low, tagged with Voodoo Child and Whole Lotta Love.

the fallen

the only way to feel again is let l__e in

Had a good workout yesterday. My schedule's been way off the last few weeks with all the shows. I have a feeling I'm the only one at my gym that listens to The Shins and Sufjan Stevens while hitting the weights. That house ghetto rap stuff they blast just doesn't do it for me I guess.

Road Trip #3 for the spring-summer season has been booked. Goo Goo Dolls and the Counting Crows at White River Amphitheatre. Should be a lot of fun. Can't wait to hit up all the Seattle record stores on the way there.

Heart and Desire

Listening to...




So Dashboard Confessional is playing here in July. What kills me is that City And Colour is opening all their Canadian dates except the Vancouver one. I must say though that watching Dallas Green play at the Plaza Of Nations would suck since the venue isn't very good, and everyone would be talking and drowning out his incredible music and voice. I was quite content with the show he played at Mesa Luna in March. It's one of my favourite shows of the year so far. I think the perfect venue for him would be the Van East Cultural Centre. It's so intimate, holding under 300 people, and everyone stays seated and quiet for the most part.

I was watching an old rerun of that American Gladiators show today. Any game show with an event called the Human Cannonball is okay in my books.