Meteor Showers and Makeouts: The Stranger Does Day In Day Out

The Northwest's onslaught of summer music festivals continued this past weekend as one of the newer fests on the block, Day In Day, returned for its third year at the Seattle Center. There were people making out during Leon Bridges, and, according to one angry I, Anonymous submission, talking a little too much during Explosions in the Sky. And the crowd got a special treat Sunday evening—at least three shooting stars streaked across the sky at the height of the Perseid meteor shower, making Bon Iver's set even more magical.

Here are even more highlights from the two days of glitter, music, and crying...

Saturday

Indigo De Souza

When Indigo De Souza takes the stage, it feels like you’re in the presence of a truly artistic soul. She performs like someone almost possessed by the music. If you follow her on Instagram, she’s very open about the difficulties of being a human and how she does (or does not) work through it, which is also very apparent in her music. She didn’t play her most popular (by Spotify streams) “Take Off Ur Pants” or one of the singles off her latest album that gets a lot of airplay on KEXP, “Younger & Dumber,” but she did give us “You Can Be Mean” and “Smog,” both of which are her most recently released music videos. She played the closer on her 2021 album, a song called “Kill Me,” and gave a small chuckle of appreciation when the all-ages section screamed the last line with her: “Tell them that I wasn’t having much fun.” When she finished her set with a song she describes as “about pain” one audience member shouted “That’s what they’re all about” and the person in front of me turned to their friend and said, “Ohmygosh, I’m like, crying.” I have to admit I was tearing up too. There’s something very powerful about the brutal vulnerability and tenderness that De Souza captures with her music and shares with the audience as if we’ve all just undergone a cathartic release. (SHANNON LUBETICH)

Enumclaw

I've read nothing but good things about Enumclaw (the band, not the city in which a man had a fatal one-night stand with a horse). The Tacoma quartet accrued buzz early in their career and possess a charismatic frontman in Aramis Johnson—who resembles the late Hot Chocolate singer, Errol Brown (a plus). And Enumclaw's 2022 debut album, Save the Baby, garnered positive write-ups in Pitchfork, KEXP, NME, and elsewhere. So, I've tried hard to hear what everyone's been raving about and... I've been underwhelmed. Maybe Enumclaw would really bring it live and justify the hype at DIDO. Unfortunately, no. Aramis—who also plays guitar—exudes a natural rugged tenderness and touching sincerity in his vocals and lyrics, which are emo™, minus the cringe. But at this point, Enumclaw's songs scan as flat-footed indie rock, never quite scaling the heroic melodic heights for which they seem to be striving. The potential for Afghan Whigs' bruised poignancy or Swervedriver's thrilling dynamics is apparent, but Enumclaw aren't at that lofty level yet. By next year, though, it wouldn't be surprising if these dudes have the last laugh. (DAVE SEGAL)

Yaeji

Wow, do the kids love Yaeji. The 30-year-old, Korean-American electronic musician walked onstage to rapturous applause and kept the teen-laden crowd riveted for her entire set. She sings in that helium-voxed way common to East Asian women pop vocalists, pushing the cute factor into the red—or, more accurately, the hot pink. However, these twee tones starkly contrast with the bulbous bass frequencies and ass-smacking beats that power most of her tracks. And she casually brought the funk along with creative vocal arrangements and two vibrant women dancers who augmented what was essentially Yaeji singing (and dancing, too) to backing tracks. Those tracks ranged from militant, Meat Beat Manifesto-esque dubstep to combative trip-hop to Deee-lite-like electro to anthemic house. Near the end of her last song, the happy-go-lucky funk bomb “Done (Let's Get It),” Yaeji was dancing vigorously enough so that the mic moved away from her mouth, and yet her singing continued, making one wonder if the whole show was pre-recorded. Not that anybody was complaining, but still—that seems... not cool. (DAVE SEGAL)

Leon Bridges

If I had to choose one word to describe Leon Bridges's performance, it would be “smooth.” His vocals are buttery, his backup singers flawless, and the transitions well-timed. It felt as if the whole audience was pinching themselves that this god of modern soul is playing to us in a field under the stars when he could easily be playing the large arena next door for 10 times as many people. During his set, there was a lot of sax, and a lot of smoochin’ (in the crowd, Leon Bridges did not make out with anyone onstage), and, though he didn’t remove his sunglasses, the performance managed to feel intimate.

In his collab song with Khruangbin, “Texas Sun,” the way he sang the line “Baby, you’re gorgeous” felt like he was whispering it directly into your ear. The slate of performers on stage that day had been pretty diverse, but when he asked the crowd, “Where are all my brown-skinned girls tonight?” before playing “Brown Skin Girl,” the lackluster response reminded us how far Seattle’s music scene has to go to be truly inclusive. Though there was no surprise appearance by local electronic duo ODESZA during “Across the Room,” he did comment that the song was “born here,” bringing it home for the crowd. (SHANNON LUBETICH)

Sunday

Yaya Bey

Yaya Bey kicked off the first set of the warm Sunday afternoon with her medley of smooth jazz, R&B, and light reggae touch. On the last day of her tour after making her way through Europe, Bey relished in the Seattle sunshine. “I’m glad it’s actually hot here, I was just in San Francisco and it was cold,” she said after her first song. “No one told me, I thought California was supposed to be hot.”

Going through songs from her Remember Your North Star album and subsequent EPs, Bey's set dripped slick like sweat evaporating off the pavement. Shimmying around in a black slide and fierce red satin boots, the set was the ideal energy to kick off the day with smooth dancing and good vibes in high supply. (KURT SUCHMAN)

Ethel Cain

During the hottest part of a hot Sunday afternoon, Ethel Cain, a trio from Tallahassee, cooled off a sun-drunk Seattle crowd with several shades of gloom from their latest album, Preacher's Daughter. The indie rock record features descents into doom metal and ascents into drowsy pop as singer Hayden Silas Anhedönia relays the saga of Ethel Cain (the character in all her songs), who wrestles with her small-town Southern Baptist past and its attendant daddy stuff. 

True to form, Anhedönia, whose voice sounds like Wye Oak's Jenn Wasner spiked with an occasional Florence Welch proto-yodel, turned the lawn outside Fisher Pavilion into a dark chapel. Her front-row fan "choir," as she lovingly called them, consisted of a crush of fair-weather goths who screamed their heads off during the sweet and swoony dream-pop banger "American Teenager." They also went nuts after each lonesome harmonica blast on "Thoroughfare."

After the band ran through five songs from the newer record, they capped off their set with their 2021 hit, "Crush," and called it a day. The crowd and the band seemed restless for more. Sounds like we all may get the chance, soon. In-between songs, Anhedönia smiled and reminisced about the last time she packed a venue in Seattle, and then gushed about the town: "Growing up I was always very annoying in telling everyone that Seattle is my dream city." Come back whenever you'd like, Hayden, but play St. Mark's Cathedral next. 😈 (RICH SMITH)

Willow

If you somehow don’t know yet, Willow is here to rock. The daughter of Will and Jada Pinkett Smith has proven herself a talent that is miles away from what her parents are known for.

Brandishing a classic rock flying-V guitar, Smith flew through her back catalog of Tik Tok-certified hits—the singalong chorus of “Meet Me at Our Spot” and the sea of clapping hands to “…ur a stranger” cemented her status as a rockstar for a new generation. Most of the songs during the golden hour set came from her 2022 album COPINGMECHANISMS, but the pop-punk, emo, and slight nu-metal sounds of her music made for an electric shock of energy that replenished and revitalized the sun-baked crowd. (KURT SUCHMAN)

Bon Iver

Anyone who lost their fucking minds after hearing "Skinny Love" in college probably went home happy after Justin Vernon & Co. closed out the Day In Day Out festival Sunday night. After a brisk run through about half of 2019's i,i—a fragmented jewel of a record whose glitches and digital hijinks somehow take on more organic textures when played onstage with a full band—they played the best songs on all their other albums, including "Blood Bank," "33 'GOD,'" "Calgary," "Skinny Love," "Holocene," and "The Wolves (Act I and II)," which benefitted from two drummers going absolutely nuts on their kits during the back half of the song. 

That said, would it have killed them to play "exile" with an AI Taylor Swift on the screen behind them??? I don't think so. I think that was a reasonable expectation for me to have going in, actually. Moreover, I was kind of holding out for an a capella version of "Heavenly Father," but, alas, they played the more digitized version. 

Sillinesses aside, neither Vernon, nor the band, nor the crowd, for that matter, really hit their stride until "Blood Bank," which came about halfway into the set, but that was partly due to people repeatedly passing out in the crowd. Vernon stopped the show once to request a medic for a downed soldier, and he registered another complaint about slow responses from emergency staff between songs. (To the staff's credit, toward the end of the show I saw someone handing out cans of that "Liquid Death" seltzer that popped up overnight one day and exploded everywhere for reasons I don't understand.)

But anyway, once he played that 2009 heartsong—really the first regular-ass one of the set—the real serious head-nodding began. Boyfriends started tapping out beats on lower backs. Girlfriends started swaying. Even the festival kids talking loudly behind me clammed up. And when Vernon finally whipped out the acoustic to sing "Skinny Love," the congregation finally began to scream-sing with one voice. (RICH SMITH)