Running to the Charlotte stage I caught a little bit of !!!, but I didn’t care much for their thin disco party and the frontman who was running everywhere. He was acting too much like fitness guru Richard Simmons, so I decided it was time for Beach House which had drained a huge crowd around the Carrie stage
Beach House was just a blurry vision, at first, I couldn’t see anything but Victoria LeGrand’s magnificent voice was a dark monster. I couldn’t see her face, but she sounded as if she was a million years old. I am sure people could hear her at the opposite end of the fest. There was something so consoling about the duo’s dark synth pop that would probably makes you hold your loved one very tightly anywhere, while wondering when you are gonna die. It was a shame that people couldn’t stop moving, every time I thought I had found a good spot I had to move, and this spoiled everything. I was moving away from the stage when they had installed this starry night with chills all over the spine, and now I badly want to see them again, there is too much mystery left.
I passed by the Charlotte stage where Washed Out was wrapping up but I wasn’t very captivated, so I rushed back to the Carrie stage to see MGMT. I expected more dancing stuff. Instead it was this weird psychedelic trippy Pink Floyd-inspired music (the visuals were great), which were new songs off their forthcoming album. Something sounded strangely like the 70s, the first song was sleepy and they woke up with the following one. But when they played their singalong anthems ‘Kids’, ‘Time to Pretend’ and ‘Electric Feel’, a forest of light-up phones went up, people jumped and pushed and some stupid European people behind me forced me to retreat in the back. MGMT were not bad at all but I didn’t like them enough to endure that much warm beer on my shirt. One thing is sure they had attracted a huge crowd, and Solange, who was playing on the Charlotte stage at the same time, was even surprised there were some people left to watch her perform. ‘I can’t believe that so many people showed up while MGMT is playing’ she said in the middle of her set of R&B, dance and funk. It’s difficult to not think about Beyonce once you know they are siblings, and even though Solange’s style is lighter and rawer than her sister’s (she even have an afro!), her dance moves are good and totally in the Knowles’ vein. She said her mom was there, and as a true professional she disappeared and came back for an encore as if she was the headliner of the night… and she actually wasn’t, Holy Ghost! was playing next on the same stage.
But I passed on them and I finally got to see a bit of Syrian singer Omar Souleyman, just after Solange, and only regretted to not have left Solange earlier! I actually tried to catch him before her set, but he took the stage with a long delay for unknown reasons. His throbbing electronic beats mixed with traditional howls and rhythms were totally infectious and people, who were booing his lateness a few minutes earlier, were taken by the music, blowing up the Samantha’s tent. Alas, I had to leave again to find a spot for the performance of Irish shoegazers My Bloody Valentine. They were probably the loudest of the whole FYF fest, although I have read that the Melvins (which I have missed) were not bad either.