What makes a festival feel like a festival? Some, like Capitol Hill Block Party and Bumbershoot, are defined by clear temporal and geographic boundaries—they happen in one place for x number of days. Others, like Decibel Festival or Escalator Festival (which was this past weekend), sprawl further, into various venues across the city, but represent a particular musical style or scene (electronic music for Decibel, psych for Escalator). Then there was last week’s inaugural edition of Heineken Fest (we’ve been asked to call it the “Heineken City Arts Festival,” but I’m just going to abbreviate it here).
Sponsored by the beer company and the monthly magazine, and with booking from Steven Severin of Neumos, Heineken Fest spanned four days, roping in acts both local and international, and offering enough simultaneous programming that your experience of the fest would almost certainly be colored by an acute sense of what you didn’t manage to see—that is, if you were aware of the festival at all. At Neumos on Friday, waiting for the Vaselines to go on, a friend who had been looking forward to the show asked, at the mention of the fest, “What festival? Is there a festival?” The next day, one of the club’s employees asked, “So what is City Arts, anyway?” (Nobody asked what Heineken was.) Maybe this is how the first year of a fest is supposed to go, and just getting people to ask those questions is a degree of success.
Individual shows certainly went well. Bookending the fest were marquee appearances from Scottish indie popsters Belle & Sebastian and OutKast MC Big Boi (either of which might have toured through town with or without the festival). Both acts pulled a dozen or so ladies onstage to dance—Belle & Sebastian for “There’s Too Much Love” and “The Boy with the Arab Strap,” their selected girls uniformly mousy and cute in cardigans and glasses and skirts, dancing in demure shuffles; Big Boi for “I Like the Way You Move” and “Tangerine,” the girls considerably looser in both their dance moves and sartorial choices. (Belle & Sebastian, notably, never demanded that the crowd “make some more noise.”)
Both shows were outstanding. Big Boi’s performance was a rapid-fire medley of his verses and the choruses of OutKast classics (a damn impressive catalog, backed by music videos stretching back to when he was a baby-faced teenager) buffering songs from his new solo album, a highlight of which was the pimp-ride-of-the-Valkyries opera-rap bombast of “General Patton.” Belle & Sebastian’s show was relatively quiet and polite, typified by spotless musicianship, but broken up with waggish banter, dancing in the aisles, and bandleader Stuart Murdoch at one point waving the flag of Washington State (of calamity, hey?) across the stage. Even the new songs were, for the most part, totally swoonworthy.
On one hand, Heineken Fest was ambitious and diverse (wish I hadn’t missed the Soliloquy or Hiphop Church events); on the other, it seemed scattered, less like a curated festival with a coherent identity than a branding campaign with as much stuff thrown against the wall as possible. We’ll see what, if anything, sticks. 
What makes a festival is cyclone fences, over priced food and drinks and corporate sponsors insisting their name be used in the title.
The Miller High Life-Dickies-The End-Heineken-Deschutes Brewery-Red Bull-AT&T-Vitamin Water Social Club-Finland Vodka-Southern Comfort-Jack Daniels-Cafe Vita-SEIU-Stanley Food and Beverage Gear Capitol Hill Block Party has a great ring to it.
Just for the record, neither Big Boi or Belle and Sebastian were planning on coming to out fine city. Over half of those bands, wouldn’t have made it to Seattle as more and more bands are skipping Seattle as not enough folks come to the shows. I’m not bitching about it, just stating a fact and making sure the info. is listed correct.
Interesting the take that some people didn’t know it was a fest, but there were sure a lot of people that talked to me and we overheard people talking about what a great new festival it is. I guess we have something to strive for next year.
Part of it was the newness, part was that much of it took place on weekdays, which made dropping in on the early events more of a challenge. But really, i think that might just be the nature of the in-city festivals I’ve experienced.
MFNW feels slightly more cohesive, partially because there are more venues in close proximity, but I still get the sense that many people in Portland still didn’t really know much about it. CMJ is a bit more immersive, but still only SXSW really feels like a citywide takeover.
All in all, HCAF felt pretty successful, well booked, and heavily attended. Hope they bring it back again, maybe with more local sponsors, clustered venues, and a schedule more amenable to people with weekday work schedules.
I enjoyed the festival, but didn’t do much venue hopping due to the relative overlapping of each night’s acts. I did manage to go from the She and Him show at the Fifth Avenue Theater up to Neumos on Saturday night in time to catch the Foals. Had the DJ Spooky show at the Triple Door not been at capacity the night would have rivaled any race about town to see varied acts that I experienced at CMJ.
I’d like to see more smaller venues and smaller acts involved. Maybe build up over a week from local and regional acts to the national acts.
I was impressed by the lineup. I don’t think Cat Power nor the Alloy Orchestra would have come here had it not been for the City Arts Festival. Chan Marshall certainly was honored, even if equally unsettled and nervous, to be asked to be involved. I didn’t even know the Alloy Orchestra was still around.
More opportunity to club hop would add to the experience.
josh and ptrig right on the money. i’ll reitterate their finest points.
few “in-city” festivals if any feel very cohesive save for SXSW. HCAF will feel more cohesive ala MFNW (which still doesn’t feel super cohesive) with time.
not enough opportunity to club hop, somewhat b/c of proximity of venues + set times. the only night i was able to do this was friday between the triple door and showbox.
lineup was very good for a first year festival as noted. more small venues would be appreciated, although it is kinda fun to go to benaroya and 5th ave, they didn’t totally know how to manage things (mostly benaroya).
all in all, good work. it’ll get better in time and i welcome it back next year.