The best thing about Capitol Hill Block Party is also the worst thing about Capitol Hill Block Party: You get to party in the city streets. Which also means navigating the bottlenecks at the impossibly crowded intersection of 10th Avenue and Pike Street (hello, corner of Quinn's). Still, this year's lineupâtoo much to all be recounted hereâmade fighting the crowds more worthwhile than ever before.
All-girl L.A. punk band Mika Miko were a seriously fun, seriously dancey blast. They have sax like X-Ray Spex, telephone mics like Japanther, and a Paper Rad shirt like everybody. Everything was perfectâexcept for Toughest Guy in the Pit. See, while everyone else was moshing and dancing and spazzing out, but generally being good to each other, Toughest Guy in the Pit (wearing a black "wife beater" to show off his guns, natch) was swigging pec juice from a flask and throwing elbows and fists at the other kids. So, hats off to you, Toughest Guy in the Pit, you are tougher than everybody else.
Girl Talk! Damn! After Gregg Gillis's warm-up and only a couple minutes of music, a group of kids filed onto the stage from the side/backstage area and started whooping it up, which is when things got nuts. When there's a crowd a couple thousand deep, and there's enough room for a couple dozen people onstage, a funny thing happensâeverybody wants to be one of those couple dozen people. Or at least enough people do that security had its hands more than full pulling down kids trying to jump and scramble from the crowd barrier to the stage. Next to me, a girl kept trying to bribe a security guard to let her onstageâ$10, $20, $50?âgoing so far as to wave the money in front of his face. He did not let her onstage, and, frankly, he didn't look at all like the bribable type. What was Girl Talk actually doing? Oh, you know, the usual stuff. Mixing a lot of stuff from both Night Ripper and Feed the Animals on his trusty beat-the-fuck-up-looking laptop, notably looping things a time or two longer than they play out on record, so that, for instance, you got to hear Biggie Smalls's rap, "Time to get paid/Blow up like the World Trade" twice instead of once. The only new moments/samples I caught before the crush of the crowd finally pushed me back into the beer garden were Lil Wayne's "A Milli" and Hot Stylz's "Lookin Boy," both of which sounded just fine.
Les Savy Fav's Tim Harrington is, if you haven't heard, a bit of a performer, and, like a Gallagher concert or SeaWorld, the best place to watch him do his thing is in the first six rowsâwhere you will get wet. What's awesome about Les Savy Fav is that they not only have the goofy frontman, but they also have several albums' worth of fucking fantastic disco-touched post-punk ragers. "The Sweat Descends," no matter where you're standing, just slays, even when Harrington's vocals get lost in the antics.
Vampire Weekend are undoubtedly a bigger name than either Les Savy Fav or Girl Talk, but kind of a letdown (or a cool-off, depending on how you look at it) after those acts. Haters wanna hate, but if you write this band off because of their aesthetic affectations or cultural references or class, you're missing out on a damn fine pop record. There's not a song on Vampire Weekend that doesn't contain some great piano melody or nervous little groove or terribly catchy chorus. There were at least a couple really great moments in their set, like Ezra Koenig and Rostam Batmanglij's strained harmonizing on the bridge of "Cape Cod Kwassa Kwassa." Also, they played a brand-new song, which they debuted for Seattle because KEXP was the first radio station to play them. That said, it seemed too damn small up there on that stage in front of so many people. Some bands' best moments are shouts, but Vampire Weekend's are more often than not sighs, moments where things falter and faint, and they just don't play as well in this setting. Too bad, because I don't imagine Vampire Weekend will be playing any smaller gigs anytime soon.
The Hold Steady's Craig Finn might be the world's biggest spaz, happiest man, and most positive dude of all time. He did a kind of chubby running man. He shouted to the crowd off-mic. He kept making that face and throwing his hands out to the side like he was giving the crowd a gift and saying, "ta da!" I suppose he was giving the crowd a gift, as the Hold Steady are pretty much the perfect summer festival band. The last time I saw someone looking that gleefully dorky onstage, it was Atom and His Package. So, well done, Mr. Finn. The band played much of their latest album, Stay Positive. Highlights: "Constructive Summer," "Sequestered in Memphis," the title track, and "Slapped Actress." They also played "Chips Ahoy!" "Stuck Between Stations," "Party Pit," and "Massive Nights" off Boys and Girls in America, as well as "Your Little Hoodrat Friend" and "Stevie Nix" off of Separation Sunday. Everything sounded just right, if never quite loud enough in the busier corners of the beer garden, where there were still a few scattered "whoa-ohs" singing along. You couldn't ask for a better closing night headliner; nevertheless, some people stuck around for DeVotchKa. 
