I’m very late on the Wavves phenomenon, knowing only one of their songs ‘King of the beach’ of course. They were playing just after Titus Andronicus on the same stage, and being front row, although a little bit too much on the right of the stage (which in fact had let me breathe easier during the antics of the crowd), I stayed right where I was. At 5:25 pm Wavves took the stage just when the hard sun was going down, just behind the stage so that it became a challenge to take pics, or even to look at the band. It was a blinding experience, which did not last during the full set fortunately. I would not say the music was a mind blinding experience, not even a mind blowing one, but it was good.
I always think it is a good way to get to know a band live even if you don’t know the music, because you see and hear a lot in a few minutes, you see human beings and it makes a big difference.
I did not realize but they had a technical problem with Stephen Pope’s bass which apparently was not playing through the amp, but being in the front I could hear it perfectly well. Nathan Williams kept saying there was a problem, and was repeating ‘Can we play this song now,… we play this song’ and I had no clue at the time what was going on. ‘I’m not gonna tell a joke, but there’s this fest and the bass doesn’t work’, said Williams, but finally it was on and they began their set with their surf-noisy-punk-rock songs that made the very large crowd act once again crazy. Yes, there were more crowd surfing, more dust sent above our heads, and more weed smell spread in the air.
The two acted like a sort of SNL sketch, some kind of character à la Wayne’s world, not taking themselves seriously for one minute, and having a lot of fun. ‘I’m too hot for my bass’ said Stephen Pope in the middle of his sound problems.
On the extreme left of the stage, he was constantly shaking his wavy long hair at each of his violent and unpredictable moves around his bass, whereas singer Nathan Williams, on the right, was very talkative and at ease, ‘I feel like Blink 182 or the Red Hot Chili Peppers!’
They played the song I knew, ‘King of the beach’ but also ‘Green eyes’, ‘Post acid’, ‘So bored’, ‘Wavves’ and others.
So what do I remember from their songs? They sounded sunny and kid-like at times, bouncing with a lot of joyous and harmonious woo-ooo on many of them, a sort of noisy punked Beach Boys song on acid, embracing the best of California, surf, sun and beach, and an endless summer.
They closed with ‘No hope kids’ that you can watch here if can see through the dust!