Back to the FYF fest on Sunday, I started my day with Fear of Men, an English quartet lead by two girls whose ethereal and graceful vocals were producing a dreamy ambiance over buoyant pop songs. May be it was the green and blue pastel guitars contrasting with the matching black outfits of the girls, but I saw them as elegant and sweet with a touch of goth. Frontgirl Jessica Weiss was balancing her guitar a lot during her singing and their music was evaporating in the heat of early afternoon.
Meanwhile, on the Miranda stage, Mac DeMarco’s surfing garage rock had already started some light crowd surfing, and he sounded a bit like Kurt Vile meets Jack Johnson, triggering a punkish pool party early afternoon. During a song celebrating smoking (‘Ode to Viceroy’), he was jokingly singing ’cause oh honey I’ll smoke you ’til I’m dying’, with an hangover vocals and some upbeat island-ish guitars. It was a light-hearted set, with a lot of talk about Red Bull and beers, attended by a very large crowd.
Before the end of his set, I ran to the Charlotte stage to see the Orwells and these kids were totally worth it. Frontman Mario Cuomo was wearing a bright red Bulls t-shirt (they are from Chicago, but this could have been a total allusion at one of the sponsors of the festival, Red Bull), and absolutely no pants! We saw his underwear a few times as he was energetically walking back and forth on the stage, agitating his long blonde mane, having a few nervous breakdowns, taking the most provocative pauses, literally licking his mic, lifting the bottom of his jersey shirt, and revealing more than most people wanted to see. He looked like the mirror image of Iggy Pop, no pants versus no shirt… and announced a new song ‘In my bed’, which sounded appropriate considering his outfit. Their pop-punk anthems worked marvelously on the crowd which was surfing its heart out. I think he threw his jockstrap in the crowd at the end of his set, but I was already gone.
I only saw Guards’ two last songs, on the far away Carrie stage. Richie Follin was freeing two giant white balloons, and was so polite and humble while saying, ‘Thank you so much for paying attention, it’s a big honor’… They were playing their anthems with their matching long brown hair and extended guitar-keyboard jams that was flying off like these giant balloons.
Back on the Miranda stage, Chelsea Wolfe looked like a bat haggard in the sun, she was effectively wearing long batwing sleeves that she was flipping like a night owl. I had seen her before and I didn’t know she could have been awake before 5 pm! Every time I see her I can’t see her face between her hair and her veils, but for once I could see her. Her dark industrial metal distortion and moody lyrics always build a strange atmosphere but goths under the sun? It doesn’t work very well and they should have scheduled her after dark!
I had to run to the Carrie stage again where Kurt Vile was started his set of languid-bluesy-druggy song and I have to say I have a love-hate-bore relationship with Vile: I really like some of his songs but others can be a total drag. He was bent over his guitar most of the time, playing long extended psychedelic jams as if he was trying to get lost in them. With his disillusioned and uninvolved tone, he can totally put you asleep, especially because there is not much to see during his show, not even his face hidden by his long mane, but he suddenly can wake you up while playing hooky songs like ‘Jesus Fever’. Farmer Dave Sher joined him on stage with his steel guitar and the music even took some effortless Neil Young-esque accents, before going back to some druggy muddy-ness.
No Age played a riotous and rowdy set on the Charlotte stage as expected. The Los Angeles guitar-drums duo consisting of Dean Spunt and Randy Randall are the Black Keys of punk – except that the drummer is the main singer – and they play around all the time. They did a few new songs off their new release ‘An Object’, started a mosh pit right away and I got ejected from my stool a few times. It was the hot mid-day set with tons of distortion, propelling rhythms and droning guitars. The guy next to me went nuts and I had to leave before getting his elbow in the face.
Leaving No Age wasn’t too bad because Yo La Tengo played one of the most beautiful set of the festival on the Carrie stage. It was sadness and beauty connected to each other at sunset, with songs so varied, so different nobody could have been bored for a second. From fragile pop to pure and quiet lullaby-like melodies, Ira Kaplan was switching place between guitar and keyboard, while Georgia Hubley left her drum set to take the spot behind the mic during a song ‘about Hollywood stars’. Their set was at times so quiet and delicate that people shush some girls who were talking loudly. When was the last time you have heard people shush at an outdoor concert? Even their krautrock numbers were delicate, it was beauty produced by ordinary-looking people (talking about Hollywood stars) and Ira knelt down to make his guitar cry like a hurting animal during his wife’s pounding sparse drumming. It was pure sadness then a triumph when the number became a ferocious rock song.
