July 15, 2008
what i learned from hanging out with a bunch of losers over the weekend in the shadow of microsoft hq
Oops… I snuck a few
Green River ::: Photos by Josh
Yes, that’s right. We youngun’s have a lot of learning to do from the older-but-not-that-much-older generation. Many of our parents would have you think they’re a bunch of burnouts with no prospects, no fashion, and no class. I learned different. Or did I? We’ll get to that later.
Saturday
The weekend began just before noon in Redmond, at the termination of Microsoft’s private highway out of Seattle, where the expansive Marymoor Park carpets valley floor just northwest of Lake Sammamish and just northeast of the Microsoft campus. The park is an all purpose mega park with baseball fields, a bicycling velodrome, picnic areas (hosting a Star Wars group one of the days), and oodles of space for dogs to defecate. And of course a built out outdoor stage area. For parking we were ushered into a sometimes soccer field that had played host to the college ultimate frisbee regional tournament during the time I attended UW. (It seems typical that Ultimate would be relegated to the field normally reserved for cars.)
As we strolled in the completely cloudless sky to the entrance we found ourselves confronted with former Sub Pop band Girl Trouble under a tree playing for a crowd of about 30 about 50 yards up from the entrance. We hung out for a few minutes until hearing the Obits sounding surprisingly Nirvana-esque to start out, and decided to head in. After learning of the no camera policy loudly being lectured to patrons at the door, we walked it back to the car.
Girl Trouble
We returned to the venue for the final half of a very electric set that left me impressed and stoked for what this weekend had to bring. I guess they maybe be announced as a new Sub Pop signee any day now? If so I think they’ve got another winner. The Constantines who followed them on the main stage upped the energy even further and reminded me just how compelling, entertaining and relevant they still are after earning my award for the best performance of 2006 for their Sasquatch set in the hail.
The first of the big reunion bands to play were Eric’s Trip and unexpectedly they struck me as kind of cute and not hard at all. Yeah, not the word I was expecting for a reunited Sub Pop band, but there it is, I said it. Seaweed who followed were completely in the grunge camp though and finally brought to life what the Sub Pop sound is known for best. Their set had what many were doubtlessly coming to the festival hoping to find: palpable volume, headbangable riffage and an involved crowd. Pissed Jeans, also a fairly new member to the label with an album released in June of 2007, delivered what I thought was the set of the day, essentially powering through forty straight minutes in a fashion better suited for an unhinged midnight punk show for hungry underagers than a mid afternoon festival stage show in front of napping middle-aged parents.
Fleet Foxes who was arguably the biggest draw of the day for the younger crowd delivered a good if not great set on borrowed instruments, as their’s were still in New York, where apparently they’re still on tour. The moment of the day was brought to us by Josh Tillman, Fleet Foxes newest member on drums, who turned an awkward drum interruption into an opportunity for comedy, through an impromptu drum battle with a drummer on the other stage. Unfortunately the sound check on the adjacent stage did bleed over a couple of times during key parts of the Foxes set, slightly ruining the pristine harmonies that is the bands trademark.
The Fluid from Denver, the second reunited band to play, had ood energy, but the songs just all sounded the same to me. Mudhoney on the other hand brought it and played their greatest hits, starting with two new ones (”new” as in released this year) and ending with Superfuzz Bigmuff hit “Touch Me I’m Sick.” The Vaselines, credited with being Kurt Cobain’s favorite band, also reunited featuring members of Belle & Sebastian backing them, and were also another unusually cute band. Their in-between song banter was very endearing, but maybe their sound doesn’t have quite the edge it used to either.
Sunday
After learning our lesson from the previous day we did something we never did before and snuck in a camera to a show. I’ve never needed to before. It wasn’t hard. It was a thrill. I felt so illicit. Festival blankets are clutch. It felt like a watershed moment in me realizing either you work the system or the system works you. And rules are meant to be broken, especially at festivals. All the losers the day before had done it so why shouldn’t I?
We arrived a bit late to a surprisingly engaging Kinksi set (as far as those things go anyways). Foals whom I hadn’t been impressed with in just the recordings, were in fact very impressive live, and fit perfectly into the Sub Pop aesthetic as of late that has brought some renewed interest and success to the label. Along with Helio Sequence, No Age, Low, Constantines, Fleet Foxes and Wolf Parade (and maybe now the Obits?) they convincingly represented for the future of the label and proved that this whole exercise really was one big long bragging session on Sup Pop’s part. Red Red Meat, the early incarnation of Tim Rutili and Brian Massarella’s Califone, was also a worthy addition to the reunion lineup, setting a bit of an experimental folk tone to afternoon’s waiting sun.
No Age
Red Red Meat
Everyone pretty much knew the act of the night was going to be Green River, who owns the honor of having the Sub Pop label’s first non-compilation release with the Dry As a Bone EP in 1987. Upon receiving the recording of the record, Sub Pop was told the band was no longer a functioning entity. Now more than twenty years later members of Pearl Jam and Mudhoney reunited on stage for a set that the world had never had a proper chance to witness.
With all the former members in attendance it meant a three guitar attack, and in that I finally found the sense of nostalgia I was expecting from this festival. I could literally taste the heavy, dirty riffs that gave birth the grunge era. The point of inspiration was obvious and I could finally personally identify with the excitement of that time for that place and those people (I was 6 at the time). Mark Arm’s wild-eyed undulations recalled the frantic physical nature their shows must have been at the height of Sub Pop’s early era, easily stirring up the crowd at the foot of the stage into a pit. Were they the set of the festival? Maybe. Maybe. No matter what, it’d certainly be a shame if they never played again as Green River.
Stone Gossard - Green River
Green River
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