Julia Holter’s understated Blue Stage performance was either mesmerizing or boring depending on your capacity for sleepy, out-there pop music in the early afternoon heat (think less Beach House and more Laurie Anderson).
It speaks well of Pitchfork’s counterprogramming that the act playing Red Stage during Holter’s set was mosh-ready Pissed Jeans. If speaks ill of Union Park that the noise bled over so much onto Blue Stage stage.
The minimal orchestral arrangements and Holter’s silver voice were enough to captivate me. Most of all, the set was a welcome break from a band lineup that was Out To Get You.
Like, Swans.
Few people yell like legendary Swans frontman Michael Gira, and fewer do it in daylight for an audience.
Just as the afternoon was cooling down, the crowd was forced into a nervous sweat as wave after wave of (I wanna say evil) noise would crash and sustain.
I watched dozens of people decide that maybe they didn’t have to be that early for Solange while Swans refused to stop holding notes to their breaking point.
There was some “Something Wicked This Way Comes”-eerie fun to be had watching Gira conduct the band with wailing arms and heel kicks.
It was a day for loud music.
Earlier in the day …And You Will Know Us By The Trail Of Dead played a relentless set of strange hardcore.
Andy Scott later took to Blue Stage and stirred up a driving mixture of minimal dub. Yes, dat bass feels as good in your chest as it sounds in your ears.
Determined not to fall asleep, I got up close for Rustie, who was as far as I knew not-Belle and Sebastian. As the crowd took up screams of #RageForRustie and a 10-something kid in front of me asked if I’d help him crowdsurf “when it drops,” I got the suspicion I’d bitten off more than I could chew. Still, I’m the same kid who survived Lightning Bolt! Who’s Rustie to make me feel old?
Whether the chest-stubbled dancer grinding on my back or the too-big-to-lose beats, I had to get out early.
When I joined my beloved co-writer Francisco at Green Stage, we were greeting by the swaying sing-song of Belle and Sebastian sitting at the edge of the stage.
Then we left.
