I saw most of the bands except for Head of Femur, Pelican, and Magnolia Electric Company.

Of the bands I saw on Saturday, I thought Broken Social Scene played the best set...a fully energized band with Amy Millan of Stars contributing vocals for some songs. The Go! Team also put on a noteworthy set, but the frontwoman had difficulty getting the pious indie crowd to participate in a set clearly designed to entertain. Too bad. Tortoise were competent, DFA 1979 were ridiculous, Four Tet and Prefuse 73 put me to sleep, and AC Newman absolutely bombed. On the whole Saturday's set disappointed.

I saw all of the bands on Sunday and there were many strong performances. Thunderbirds are Now! made for a great opening set. Dungen were amiable and eclectic rockers, and Xiu Xiu were surprisingly enjoyable given their "difficult" material. Out Hud were fun but not brilliant. The Hold Steady...we are supposed to like them? If they had a different singer they might be good, but I can't stand his talk-sing bar band crap. Deerhoof did their usual cute contrived thing...they sound more than a little like Pavement if you get rid of the singer. The Wrens never disappoint and were fantastic as usual. Les Savy Fav were also great, a lot of good plain fun, though their set went too long. The Decemberists bore me and I left early....good songwriting, but I just can't get into their whole deal.

All in all, I think it was a great success. There were no ugly incidents, and apart from some long lines for food around dinner time it was a most enjoyable event.

More thoughts?

I stayed in town and went to see Richard Buckner. I definitely feel good about that.

the sound was so bad for just about every band.

i don't see how andrew bird's set could have been improved with a full band. that's like saying 'the shellac show was fine, but i wish they'd had more trombones.'

i thought andrew did insanely well.

deerhoof, one of my favorites, were a bit of a let-down on that particular day.

my favorite part of the weekend was the pulled pork sandwich i had from the wishbone booth near the end of the decemberists' set sunday night.

i also greatly enjoyed meeting and re-meeting various people from this forum.

I only went on Saturday. I was really looking forward to seeing AC Newman, but they sucked completely. I don't think they ever recovered from the first song where AC was a step out of tune with the rest of the band (and didn't even notice!). The sound was terrible for almost every band, although I thought Magnolia Electric Co sounded OK as did Tortoise. Everything I hear about Sunday makes me think I chose the wrong day...

jayryan wrote:i don't see how andrew bird's set could have been improved with a full band. that's like saying 'the shellac show was fine, but i wish they'd had more trombones.'

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my favorite part of the weekend was the pulled pork sandwich i had from the wishbone booth near the end of the decemberists' set sunday night.

Don't dis my junior high school instrument, Mr. Jay Ryan. I personally think Bob Weston would look quite foxy with a trombone.

Yes, that pulled pork sandwich was mighty yummy. So was the jumbo dog.

jayryan wrote:i don't see how andrew bird's set could have been improved with a full band. that's like saying 'the shellac show was fine, but i wish they'd had more trombones.'

I have been wanting Bob to add trumpet to the mix for some time now.

greg has you guys beat like 2 yrs ago.

Second on the Wrens being swell. Sunday was deee-lightful all around, 'cept for the earth radiating heat and trying to melt all the nice peoples.

I worked in the ticket booth for most of the day, which was a lot of fun. So many nice strangers. However! Heat + simple math = trouble for Itchy McGoo. I almost accidentally ripped off Nick92675. Sorry, Nick92675.

no, OF COURSE shellac needs more trumpet.

i said trombone.

maybe i should have said harp or something. the point is that andrew's music is made by himself with kevin "second cleanest drummer in chicago" o'donell playing the drummy bits. a full band would have been extraneous. un-needed.

i am arguing against no one here. sorry, i'm an idiot this week, more than usual.

i'm still too melty from being in the sun for the festival we're supposed to be talking about here.

i watched the decemberists from right behind the drummer, and he was REALLY funny. i am fine with the decemberists - take them or leave them - but really enjoyed having my head about four feet from his bass drum pedal. we were shouting "huzzah!" at him, and he, in turn, was shouting "huzzah!" at the crowd. kept turning around and laughing. you had to be there. he kept forgetting shit, like 'oh, in about eight seconds i need to be playing a tamborine, i better find one of them here somewhere'.