Saturday Hillside 2008

Spiral Beach and the magic and friends did a workshop that got the day going right. Then some real Tibetan monks did this interesting music and dance in costume. There was a cool local youth band called Mandala that did a few reggae tunes with a bunch of guitar/bass and a brass section. Back at the mainstage Old Man Ludecke who really isn't that old played us a bunch of banjo tunes including my fave of his "Proof of Love". After him i ran over and caught the final song by Jenny Omnichord, who invited her pal the leadsinger of her band, The Burning Hell. Anyways these 2 did a kids song about where your pets go when they die that was pretty great actually. Elliott Brood were the first band of the day to totally knock my socks off though. The 3 of them played their banjos, ukes and harmonicas to perfection and I got up and danced at the front with the crowd. Next were the Burning Hell who again were excellent though they played nearly the exact same songs that they'd played when they were at the university a few months ago for a free lunchhour concert. Still Grave Situation Part 2 and It happens in Florida and Bretton Woods were all highlights. The Akron/Family were supposed to play but I went to their stage and found nothing as they'd been held up at the border but I stuck around to get a good spot for Plants and Animals. To kill time a guy from the Bass Lions did a tune with just a guitar and a friend and then Andrew Whiteman (of BSS and Apostle of Hustle fame) did 2 tunes with a guitar and a buddy on drums. These were National Anthem of Nowhere and My Sword Hand's Anger, the latter of which is one of the few AoH songs that I actually enjoy. Next up were Plants and Animals who I'd seen play the festival last year, and again at a free show at the school, and they tore it off this time. Highlights were Lola Who? and the obvious closer (that I called) Bye Bye Bye. After napping through Sarah Slean I was slightly refreshed and I went back over to the dancier tent for Thunderheist who I'd heard a lot of word-of-mouth hype about this weekend but never before. It was a black female singer who sang/rapped dance songs while Graham her DJ dropped some pretty good backbeats. The energy in the tent was way up and that made it enjoyable. After Thunderheist I grabbed a friend and a few songs from Jason Collett (wanted to hear I'll Bring the Sun, but had to settle for Fire). Then we went and danced-out to Spiral beach who were really good - especially the song Voodoo that I really really enjoy. After the set they got called back for an encore though, and there was big confusion as to whether or not they could/would/were allowed to come back. They assembled on stage then played 3 chords and waved goodbye saying they didn't know any other songs. It was awkward. Back to the mainstage for the beginning of the Sadies who are supposed to be great but were just rambling folky stuff which was decent (and had a cello) and I did hear one song i recognized before taking off again for the Born Ruffians. Some guitar sound troubles hampered the start of the set, and then I was thrown off as they were doing very different versions of their album songs that I could hardly sing along to (not like the last show I saw of them that i loved) but I think I adjusted to this and enjoyed the second half of their show more, though the 2 new songs were good they were not necessary in a live setting. Foxes mate for life was rather enjoyable and Hummingbird closed the set which was excellent - who doesn't love yelling "Fly away little hummingbird!"? I caught the last song of Joseph Arthur who was surprisingly solid and stuck around for the first couple tracks but Justin Rutledge - though he was much more laid back and country live than the few songs (including Greenwich Time) by him that I like, so I quickly peaced outta there. At the dance tent we rocked out to Montreal buzz band "We Are Wolves" who had some more danceable beats but weren't much of anything special. They did successfully pull out an encore though.
At the main stage some reformed band of 20 years ago "the bourbon tabernacle choir" were exceeding their already extended timeslot much to the chagrin of everyone under the age of 45. Finally they quit and then there was a rather long delay between sets. Islands took the stage 15 minutes before official quiet hours were to come into effect. They played some old, some new (the arm, kids don t know shit, don t call me whitney bobby etc) and were actually sounding really impressive (with their 2 violinists) but then they were told to shut it down (after about 35 mins for a headlining set..) so they started up one more song and turned it into a 10 minute one. Then they said they had 2 more left, "our best 2", but management said absolutely not, and they pleaded and tried to get one more but there was no budging and Nick (formerly Nick Diamonds) the lead singer made some discouraging remarks about Hillside and we walked off into the night with a bittersweet ending to a great music filled day.