Music Tastes Good: Day 2

Music Tastes Good Day 2.

Brainstory opened up the festival on Day 2. Their jazz improve had me thinking about one of the opening bands last year, Bootleg Orchestra. It was a chill way to start off the festival.

Brainstory

The Bearcoon duo put on an energetic mid-day set. I couldn't help but think about travelling nomads who make money here and there by putting on sidewalk music sets.

What I noticed: the guitarist knows how to kick. The percussionist knows how to wear a black hat.

Bearcoon

Tied for best set of Day 2: Y La Bamba sound at times reminded me of an old Mickey Hart (Grateful Dead drummer) album, Planet Drum. Sure, Y La Bamba didn't have a line-up of drums, but just how they used their vocals seemed to carry similarities. And then, of course, this band is from Portland and I have a love affair with Portland based bands.

Y La Bamba

Side topic: The Long Beach Stage had a rotating stage. When I first looked at the schedule, I couldn't help but think, "Wait, how's that schedule going to work?" On Saturday, when I first noticed the rotating stage, I was like, "Of course. Duh" There were some amusing moments due to the rotating stage. For Y La Bamba the stage started to rotate a few minutes too early. The lead singer pleaded, "We still have one more song." The stage rotated back in place to let them finish up their set. Jay Som who came on stage after Y La Bamba said, "I'm a little dizzy from the rotating." And as the stage rotated Los Lobos off, they kept on playing in a style that just had me thinking of Disneyland's old Country Bear Jamboree show.

Comment of the day came from Guadalajara's Los Master Plus, "It's about to get a little hotter today, because we're playing some cumbia today!"

Los Master Plus

Dengue Fever lead singer gave us some Asian infused music theory scale vocals. And backing up those vocals were some jazz style sounds. So interesting, so intriguing.

Side topic: as the shade extended across the Long Beach Stage, the crowd grew.

Dengue Fever

!!! put on one great show. The lead singer throughout the set blew kisses into the audience, jumped into the crowd, and put on some John Travolta moves. I'm pretty sure this drove the crowd to dance like no other crowd of the festival.

!!!

Tied for best set of day 2: Peaches put on a theatrical influenced set. Initially, Peaches and her two dancers came out dressed in full body bird-like costumes. As mentioned, in my Day 1 review, the weather was perfect, but how close were they to fainting in those costumes? Well, it didn't take long for Peaches to strip down to her underwear and make a costume change.

Comment of the set: Jesus walked on the water. I'm going to walk across the crowd. (And she did, as fans helped her walk a good 20 meters or so from the stage.)

Lyric of the set: Dick in The Air.

Moment of the set (well, other than walking on the outreached hands): during Dick in The Air, a massive condom floated across the audience. Like massive, like 20 meters across the audience. She walked through the condom and then "came" into the audience.

Peaches

For me, an amusing moment happened during the Los Lobos set. I caught the first part of their set and then took off to catch a few songs of Rhye. Then I rushed back to catch the last part of Los Lobos. I stood towards the back of the crowd. A woman looked at me and I had this feeling she was thinking, "Hey photographer, you're probably not getting the most exciting photos of Los Lobos." I say this, because she said to me as she looked at my camera, "They're so laid back. I love it." Then not a second later, Los Lobos said, "You're definitely the most laid back audience we've had."

Los Lobos

When I was in the photo pit for TUNE-YARDS, a photographer next to me started screaming. We locked eyes and she said, "I'm such a big fan of hers." I say there's some blues-synth fusion genre going on there. Those rapid fire vocals, I'm sure, reverberating across the ocean.

TUNE-YARDS

Sleater-Kenney ended the night with some country/punk fusion sounds. There were some staccato rapid beats coming from that band. It was a great way to end the night. I know this is awful to say, but I took off a little bit before their set ended. As I walked down the road that was parallel to the festival, a skater was sitting on the grass with his camera phone filming the set via the large video monitors that could be seen above the fence that separated the festival from the street. As I walked pass him, I thought, "Now there's a true fan of Sleater-Kenney."

Sleater-Kinney