Back in the tent, Roky Erickson and his large band sounded like Joe Cocker meets Willie Nelson meets Fleetwood Mac. The guy also looked like an old legend, a little out of place in this hipster festival, but who cares… Playing his rock blues with his rocky mountains physic and raucous voice, he was probably the real thing, raw and pioneer of the genre,… but I had to run to the Carrie stage where it was Charles Bradley time.
Bradley made his entrance on stage after a Blues Brothers introduction, with trumpet, sax and Korg organ. He looked and shrieked like James Brown, sang and crooned like Otis Redding, and was doing all these arm gestures over his revivalist-style of the greatest moments of soul and R&B music. Surrounded by an all-white band, he was screaming his blackness with a rare authenticity, although I was expecting more dance moves, à la James Brown in the Blues Brothers… may be I have watched the movie too many times.
Running away from the stage, I rushed to see Joyce Manor on the Miranda stage, and passed in front of garage rocker Ty Segall, who was finishing his set and was curiously playing sitting down? Joyce Manor had a technical problem, a shortage or power and were doing some small talk with the crowd, ‘Anyone from Torrance?’ asked singer guitarist Barry Johnson before launching another set of their poppy songs delivered with a punk energy. The energy in the crowd was formidable and all the kids were shouting their choruses. It was a party, a riot, they were throwing Red Bull cans to the crowd and their drunken energy reminded me a bit about Titus Andronicus’… ‘Thank you for partying with us even though we were too drunk for putting condoms’ they joked at the end of their set after almost breaking their guitars.
Next, back on the Carrie stage, were The Breeders fronted by ex-Pixies Kim Deal. ‘We were told to play ‘Last Splash’, announced Deal leaving no mystery for their set, and starting to play the 20-year-old album… I, of course, recognized their famous ‘Cannonball’, starting with a weird tribal scream, a great bass line and a blowing whistle. The rest of the set was a series of bouncy tempos, fast and strange accelerations, punk violin and Kim Deal’s youthful vocals going velvety at times. They could be very noisy, or going acoustic, alternating between sleepy pop to aggression and ringing guitars. I guess their reunion set was really anticipated by fans and the Deal sisters, who really look alike, were all smile the whole time,… I liked their happy faces, but couldn’t completely get into their music.
On the Charlotte stage, Devandra Banhart was about to start, and I spotted a lot of young girls giving him a rock star welcoming. I used to listen to Devandra a lot back in the ‘Nino Rojo’ and ‘Cripple Crow’ days, at the time he had long hair, was going almost naked on stage, and looked like a wild hippie… what happened to him? He now has a clean haircut, a groomed beard and he sure looks good but his music has lost some of its intriguing magic,… I haven’t listened to his last albums, and if his set of gently bouncing music was agreeable (and a bit sleepy), it wasn’t the strange stuff sung with this quavering voice I remembered about. The girls were dancing at the sound of his shy and ethereal voice, he was constantly shaking his hands as if they were wet, and was waving in the air more often than playing his guitar. After a few songs I left to check out Deerhunter, when unfortunately, Banhart was waking up with more upbeat tunes.
