(
means we recommend it.
)
David Bazan
Don’t let the bittersweet melodies or the soft-spoken nature of
Bazan’s music fool you: The modest and delicate tone of this Northwest
songwriter serves as a sugarcoating for his unflinching examinations of
human interactions, cultural norms, and personal identity. His economic
compositions leave the uncomfortable truths all the more naked and
exposed. Yeti Stage 5:25 pm
Beirut
In a couple of years, Zach Condon has gone from prodigal New Mexico
bedroom composer to leader of full-fledged globetrotting orchestral pop
band Beirut. The band are now Brooklyn based, but their panoramic
ballads long for far-flung places and people, recalling travels both
real and imagined. Their live show is bound to be magically
transportive. Main Stage 2:10 pm
The Breeders
Last year, Kim and Kelley Deal revived alt-rocking Pixies side
project the Breeders, gradually recording songs with Steve Albini and
others. The resulting album, Mountain Battles, doesn’t exactly
re-create the band at its peak moment, but rather finds the Deal
sisters and company a little older and calmer but still casually
adventurous and capable of moments of real indie-rock grandeur.
Wookie Stage 8:45 pm
Crudo
Mike Patton spent 10 years of his life as the singer for Faith No
More. He also sang in Mr. Bungle, Fantômas, the Dillinger Escape
Plan, and Peeping Tom. Dan the Automator is an innovative hiphop
producer who was part of the Dr. Octagon project with Kool Keith and
also part of Gorillaz. Together, they’re Crudo, and it’s anyone’s guess
what their new project will present this weekend, but it’s bound to be
fascinating. Wookie Stage 6 pm
Dead Confederate
For good reason, some critics have tagged Georgia’s Dead Confederate
as Southern rock, but there’s really more to them. Their guitar-driven,
dramatic songs are deeper and darker than psych-influenced Southern
rock, and their lyrics are just as eerie, too, which only adds to the
spooky, cinematic quality of the music. In the song “Goner,” singer
Hardy Morris growls, “I could be gone, you would never know” again and
again with the tinge of an angry Cobain. Wookie Stage 1:30
pm
Dengue Fever
L.A. sextet Dengue Fever formed in 2001 with the intent of covering
some old Cambodian rock songs and maybe doing a few shows. Seven years
later, they’re still going strong, with three albums to their name and
a growing following of listeners who’ve taken to their surf-laced,
reverb-soaked, Khmer-tongued songs. Main Stage 12:55 pm
Destroyer
Dan Bejar’s psych-tinged love affair with both Dylan and Bowie has
resulted in two genius Destroyer records in two years, and this show
will bask in his grand songwriting catalog. But the better show might
be tailing Bejar between this and his New Pornos set. Will he buy
merch?
Hide backstage? Sob about Destroyer’s inevitably smaller
crowd? Follow carefully and find out! Wookie Stage 4:45
pm
Kathleen Edwards
Kathleen Edwards’s set is the place to be if you miss Lilith Fair
and if you’re partial to pretty-voiced pretty ladies singing
country-flavored songs about love and longing. While her older material
is a little too Sheryl Crow at times, the new album, Asking for
Flowers, summons a little more feminine delicacy. Wookie
Stage 3:40 pm
Newton Faulkner
Newton Faulkner is an acoustic-guitar virtuoso and the man with the
most impressive dreads you’ll see all weekend. The dynamically voiced
singer/songwriter also recently released his debut album, Hand
Built by Robots, which hit number one on the UK charts. So if you
trust the Brits, this one-part adult-contemporary rising star, one-part
hippie is a don’t miss this weekend. Wookie Stage 12:30
pm
Fleet Foxes
Strange thing about Fleet Foxes: The five guys in it are young and
yet the music sounds so, so old—many-part vocal harmonies,
rolling rhythms, and lyrics steeped in the landscape and milieu of the
Old West. Their songs don’t sound written and recorded so much as
unearthed and restored. In the natural setting of the Gorge, they’re
going to sound simply beautiful. Main Stage noon
Grand Archives
What with all the talent in the band, you’d expect some trickiness,
some showing off, but there’s none of that here. Grand Archives’ songs
are big and confidently simple. “Sleepdriving” is a gorgeous pile of
drums and satisfying chords. “Miniature Birds” starts out with
whistling and a harmonica. Yeti Stage 6:30 pm
Grand Hallway
Only about half of Grand Hallway’s set is appropriate for the
outdoor, sunny nature of Sasquatch!—confident, piano-parlor pop
with bright beats will summon the blue sky, if it isn’t already
overhead. The other half of their material, though, is a delicate web
of subtle strings, soft vocals, and pretty piano that could easily get
lost in an environment full of distractions. Unless you’re standing
right up front, of course, and able to absorb it before it gets away.
Yeti Stage noon
M.I.A.
Global agit-prop pop auteur Maya Arulpragasam couldn’t make her
scheduled appearance at Sasquatch! last year due to some
homeland-security static. Since then, though, she’s been busy as hell
across all kinds of borders, dropping stunning sophomore album
Kala and touring internationally. Expect “Paper Planes” (along
with the rest of her set) to sound fantastic floating through the air
at the Gorge. Main Stage 6:50 pm
Vince Mira with the roy kay trio
Vince Mira is the unbelievably cute and talented 16-year-old
Seattleite who can somehow sing just like Johnny Cash. Shy and earnest
between songs, he blows audiences away with his gorgeous, booming voice
and rockin’ sets of originals and Cash covers. As the opener at a
recent rockabilly show, he elicited screams and raucous applause from
the over-21 audience, who demanded an encore—they just didn’t
want this kid to stop. It was jaw dropping. Yeti Stage 4:20
pm
Modest Mouse
Ever since Modest Mouse won mainstream success with the release of
2004’s Good News for People Who Love Bad News and 2007’s We
Were Dead Before the Ship Even Sank, old-school fans have had to
adapt to the band’s only playing big shows. Which is fine, as Modest
Mouse no longer lean on sloppy but entertaining antics like playing
guitar solos with their teeth. Instead, their new material is more
orchestral and lush (rather than just drunk), well worthy of booming
from a massive sound system to a crowd of thousands. Main Stage 8:15 pm
Joshua Morrison
In 2004, Joshua Morrison joined the army and served in Iraq. He
recorded his first EP of songs upon returning home to Fort Lewis.
Morrison plays whisper-soft, emotionally heavy, folk-influenced
acoustic rock. His debut album, Home, is a quiet, peaceful
affair, sublimating whatever stress or pain Morrison has suffered into
calm, reflective ballads of love and homecoming. Yeti Stage 3:15 pm
The National
Brooklyn quintet the National’s dark, emotionally defeated songs
sound like they were written on bar coasters and cocktail napkins while
hiding, hungover, from the sun. Singer Matt Berninger sings with a
rich, unshowy baritone and the band dress his lyrics in subtly
seductive arrangements of piano, drums, and guitars, alternately spare
and swelling. Main Stage 4:20 pm
The New Pornographers
Wikipedia defines “arpeggio” as a “broken chord,” or a chord played
one note at a time. And it describes a “diminished triad” as an
unstable, dissonant chord. The first song on Electric Version,
the 2003 record by the New Pornographers, uses an arpeggiated
diminished triad for its principal melody. This helps explain why the
Pornographers are a power-pop band that’s actually interesting to
listen to. Main Stage 5:25 pm
Okkervil River
Will Sheff certainly knows how to weave a tale within the confines
of a song’s meter. His elaborate narratives are the centerpieces of
Okkervil River’s indie-folk compositions, with his ramshackle cast of
musicians punctuating the drama with sweeping crescendos. Live, these
Texans betray their twee personas through feverish and frenzied
performances. Wookie Stage 7:15 pm
Ozomatli
A multiculti band based in L.A., Ozomatli combine hiphop with just
about anything—’70s big funk, salsa, dub, etc. For those who like
their hiphop on a positive and global tip, this band was made just for
you. Main Stage 3:15 pm
R.E.M.
R.E.M.’s Sasquatch! appearance looks to be the closest they’ll get
to Seattle on this tour, which makes the trek to see them at the Gorge
essential. Flying high off the release of their rock-heavy new album,
Accelerate, the veteran band were positively electrifying at
this year’s SXSW and their performance should prove to be one of the
weekend’s biggest highlights. Main Stage 10 pm
The Shaky Hands
Portland’s Shaky Hands are supposedly one of the Next Big Things out
of Stumptown. The band’s tattered indie rock is about as new as a
frayed cardigan but just as comforting, particularly if you’re afraid
of expanding your musical horizons too broadly this weekend. Yeti
Stage 1:05 pm
Throw Me the Statue
The other night, someone was sitting in his apartment wondering why
Throw Me the Statue’s first album, Moonbeams, isn’t a huge hit. Five minutes later, the second
track on the album, “Lolita,” was playing on the TV—on a Rhapsody.com commercial. So maybe the world
is taking notice. But really, Rhapsody, the better song on
Moonbeams is “Conquering Kids,” a not-very-distant cousin of
the Shins’ “New Slang.” Yeti Stage 2:10 pm
The Whigs
The Whigs take on overly familiar garage-rock territory but play
their songs with such enthusiasm and unmitigated verve that they not
only avoid coming off as a rehash but instead arrive as musical heroes,
here to save you from boring rock, with an ungodly number of miles
logged on their tour van. Wookie Stage 2:35 pm
65daysofstatic
Handpicked as tour openers by none other than the Cure’s Robert
Smith, 65daysofstatic’s songs are exercises in dynamism, fucking up
your expectations of instrumental postrock with industrial crunch and
math-rock signature changes. The Sheffield, UK, band create music for
architects, but instead of just being nerdy, it’s epic, loud, and, most
importantly, awesome. Main Stage 1 pm
“Awesome”
Back in 2004, seven guys who knew each other from doing theater and
sketch comedy decided to form a band. They play almost two dozen
instruments and write songs (sometimes playful, sometimes dreamy,
sometimes jubilant) about drowning men, dying bees, and a woman who
turns into a fish. If you’re lying on the grass in the summer, looking
up at the blue sky, and waiting for the drugs to kick in, this is
exactly the band you want to hear. Main Stage noon
The Blakes
The Blakes know a couple things about rock ‘n’ roll. They know how
to record it—their self-titled Light in the Attic LP is full of
simple songs with distinct vibes: dangerous (“Streets”), sexy (“Don’t
Bother Me”), and tender (“Lint Walk”) are favorites. They also know how
to sell it: The Blakes kill shows and play better drunk. Yeti
Stage 5:25 pm
Blue Scholars
The leaders of Seattle’s current moment in hiphop are Blue Scholars.
The duo’s rise has been steady and strong since 2004, when Charles
Mudede first wrote about them in this paper. Mr. Mudede repeatedly
makes this fact known at all of the dinner parties he attends on Queen
Anne and other luminous parts of town. Main Stage 2:05
pm
Sera Cahoone
Like Neko Case, Sera Cahoone has a voice that is perfectly suited to
the lonesome high-desert plains of Eastern Washington. Her lovely,
languid songs have a perpetually dusty glow and she’s got an ace
backing band that knows how to bring her material to life without
overwhelming it. Yeti Stage 6:30 pm
Cancer Rising
Seattle stalwarts Cancer Rising (DJ TilesOne and MCs Judas and
Gatsby) know their position is easy to take for granted—they even
have a song called “Underestimated.” Truth is, though, that if CR
stopped making their 206-centric hiphop tomorrow, Seattle would lose
its premier smart, credible, regular-guy rap group. Yeti Stage 3:15 pm
Cold War Kids
Cold War Kids’ 2006 full-length, Robbers & Cowards, is
a tear-sodden, MTV-friendly, nostalgic, blue-eyed soul record with a
little too much social conscience. The Long Beach boys sound a bit
patronizing when singing from, for example, the viewpoint of a
repentant death-row inmate, but the strong bass lines hold the wild
emotion in check. Main Stage 3:10 pm
The Cops
This is proletariat rock at its finest. The Cops channel the plight
of the everyman through bombastic guitar assaults and poetic
manifestos. The songs are smart enough to engage the mind, but raw and
rowdy enough to effectively frame the razor-sharp lyrical content.
Bring your petitions and your dancing shoes for this one. Yeti
Stage 4:20 pm
The Cure
The South Park kids may think that Disintegration is the best album ever, but most of the Cure’s catalog is worthy of the
Top Ten category. Few other bands can fill a three-hour set with more
hits than you can believe, and still leave you ticking off all the ones
they left out. Thirty years in, the Cure are still mind-blowing.
Main Stage 10 pm
Death Cab for Cutie
With the recent release of their sixth studio album, Narrow Stairs, Death Cab for Cutie have become mad
scientists, experimenting with new song structures, new writing
processes, and darker themes. The last couple of albums have been full
of romantic, mellow rock gems, and they’ve sold millions of copies,
which has afforded them the luxury of branching out in new, jammier,
creepier directions. Like releasing eight-and-a-half-minute songs about
obsession, for example. Main Stage 8:15 pm
Michael Franti
and Spearhead
Michael Franti has had a long career—from the Beatnigs (the
mid-’80s) to the Disposable Heroes of Hiphoprisy (early ’90s) to
Spearhead (mid-’90s to today). Though many argue that the Disposable
Heroes of Hiphoprisy is Franti’s highest hiphop moment, only his
current band, Spearhead, have produced a legit hiphop classic: “People
in tha Middle.” Main Stage 6:50 pm
The Heavenly States
At some point in concert, the Heavenly States will pull out a
violin, and much of the crowd will groan with visions of Dave Matthews.
But don’t expect tapers to rush the stage or a tour manager to dump a
busload of shit into the Gorge. Rather, expect these Oakland treats to
deliver piano-informed rock of the literate, hooky, and
Stones-worshipping variety. Wookie Stage 2:35 pm
The Kooks
Young Brighton band the Kooks reference David Bowie in band name and
cast a sidelong glance at the Kinks with latest album title
Konk. Their music is just as enamored of and indebted to their
Brit-pop forebears. Their short, sweet love and breakup songs are
reliably poppy, polished, and cute, if perhaps a touch too familiar.
Wookie Stage 7:15 pm
The Maldives
Seattle’s Maldives seem ready-made for a Sasquatch! stage, assuming
the weather’s nice. Light a J, lie on a blanket, and let the band’s
healthy spread of Big Pink and Crazy Horse wash over as the
sky above your head turns from blue to orange. And if it rains? You’re
still in luck: Run to the front, get soaked, and shout along with Jason
Dodson when he plays a few MMJ-worthy country-rock epics. Yeti
Stage noon
Stephen Malkmus
and the Jicks
This year’s Real Emotional Trash finds Mr. Malkmus relying
on his Big Fuzz instead of mushroom-tinged lyrical genius to blow songs
out of pop and into psych. No
matter—everything else is
still there, and the addition of Sleater-Kinney’s Janet Weiss to the
Jicks has upped the live performance to maximum “holy shit!” level.
Wookie Stage 8:45 pm
Mates of State
If new album Re-Arrange Us is any indication, the paradise
of husband-wife band Mates of State has been shaken. The keys-and-drums
duo have replaced their usual giddiness and electric organ bombast with
quieter, minor-key arrangements and cries that things “won’t get
better.” So far, sounds like their pain is our gain: touching, mature,
revitalized. Keep the sad up! Wookie Stage 6 pm
The Morning Benders
They’re more vaudevillian than the Shins, but not as literary and
dramatic as the Decemberists. Their songs are more raucous and “summer
of love” inspired than they are ho-hum lovelorn ballads, but their
vintage nods aren’t as genuine as, say, a band like Fleet Foxes. Still,
if The O.C. were around, the Morning Benders would be on it.
Wookie Stage 12:30 pm
The Presidents of the United States of America
They’re the epitome of fun; the everlasting Presidents of the United
States of America sing songs about fruit and animals and ghosts and
things that don’t exist in reality, like girls named Lump, and they
deliver these undeniable gems with catchy pop-rock energy that, even
after 10 years, still manages to stir a crowd into a frenzy of gleaming
faces. Main Stage 5:25 pm
Rogue Wave
People expect The Stranger to piss on an indie-friendly Sub
Pop act once it goes big, so here goes: Rogue Wave, some of your new
songs blow. There. Cruel mistresses, we know. But it’s hard to
completely bag on Zach Rogue’s concern—even on Jack freakin’
Johnson’s label, Rogue Wave are still cooking up Flaming-Waits-SST
inspirations with enough sweetness to rope in the interlopers.
Wookie Stage 4:45 pm
Tegan and Sara
Tegan and Sara’s recent Bellingham performance showed a tight band
at the top of their game. The duo are known and loved for their
lyrically wrenching, hummable pop songs, and the twin sisters are also
truly charming people who connect with their audience, making every
show feel special. You will wish they were pocket-sized. Main
Stage 4:15 pm
J. Tillman
The newest addition to adult-contemporary folk harmonizers Fleet
Foxes, J. Tillman brings six and a quarter feet of bearded, sincere,
soft rock to Sasquatch! His solo material is the perfect music to enjoy
while eating something delicious, since its low intensity won’t
distract you from your food. Yeti Stage 2:10 pm
Truckasauras
Seattle techno thrashers Truckasauras bring some much-needed lowbrow
humor, live showmanship, and lo-fi nostalgia to the sometimes staid
realm of electronic music. Their beats and bleeps are strictly old
school (analog drum machines, 8-bit video game synths) and their
visuals are vintage cheese (’80s B movies, homoerotic pro wrestling).
What’s more, their melodies and grooves are as genuinely compelling as
their aesthetic is firmly tongue in cheek. Yeti Stage 1:05
pm.
What Made Milwaukee Famous
Enough with band names that raise too many questions. WMMF’s first
question is answered because it’s a Jerry Lee Lewis song title, but the
second question’s tougher—these guys sound nothing like Jerry
Lee. If anything, they tend toward fellow Austin homers Spoon, if that
band gave up on minimalism, bought some Korg synthesizers, and owned up
to a Keane fetish. So, you know, not much like Spoon at all, actually.
Wookie Stage 1:30 pm
White Rabbits
This band out of NYC combines hooky, U2-style rock with a fondness
for the Velvets and a whole lot of piano. Sure we’re not talking about
the Walkmen here? It’s hard to say—White Rabbits sound an awful
lot like the Walkmen, even when their sound teeters into the
island-inspired rhythms of British new wave. Wookie Stage 3:40 pm
Battles
Every festival has its jam bands, but while Battles’ virtuosic
musicianship and prolonged rhythmic jags may seem footbag friendly,
they are in fact aliens here to bum your stone with deceptively taut
compositions and bounded improvisations—their multidimensional
math rock and spiraling psycho-smurf prog will either bum your stone or
blow your dome, but either way you’ll be stunned. Wookie Stage 5:55 pm
Built to Spill
Because you can’t have an outdoor music festival without a jam band,
but Sasquatch! doesn’t aim to please the Trey Anastasio–loving
demographic either, we have Built to Spill. Live, BtS are one-part
self-deprecating indie-rock band with more discordant guitar work than
early Modest Mouse, and one-part dazed-out jammers who could spend a
whole evening stomping on pedals, trying to invent new noises.
Main Stage 3:30 pm
The Cave Singers
The Cave Singers are better suited to play at the bottom of the
Gorge, down by the river, next to a popping fire, where their organic
back-porch jam sessions—laced with washboard percussion and steel
guitar—could echo off Mother Nature’s carefully carved-out walls.
But that’s not very realistic. So while you stand and watch them, with
the porta-potties to the left and the beer garden to the right, you’ll
just have to close your eyes and imagine you’re somewhere else. Like
Alabama. Wookie Stage 4:40 pm
The Choir Practice
No, really—watching the Choir Practice is really like watching
a choir practice. Except, you know, good. Nearly a dozen young men and
women line up and sing bursting pop songs that surprisingly don’t come
off as drug-induced as the Polyphonic Spree (maybe because they’re not
wearing matching robes?). And you thought Fleet Foxes’ four- and
five-part harmonies were impressive.
Yeti Stage noon
Matt Costa
Sasquatch! may be the only U.S. festival that Jack Johnson isn’t
appearing at, but fans of Johnson’s laid-back surf pop can take solace
in the fact that his protégé Matt Costa is on the bill.
Costa’s likable SoCal pop rock has made him the latest favorite of the
hacky-sack nation and heir apparent to the campfire-rock throne.
Main Stage 1:05 pm
Delta Spirit
Delta Spirit’s 2007 full-length is called Ode to Sunshine.
That’s sure to please the weather gods this weekend, right? Also
capable of bringing out the bright side is the band’s sunny,
piano-laced pop that’s delivered with the hint of a free-flowing,
groovy vibe and huge, harmonious choruses that sound like Ben Folds
gone garage rock in the ’60s. Wookie Stage 12:20 pm
Dyme Def
That Fearce Villain, S.E.V., and Brainstorm are truly “3 Bad
Brothaaas” is requisite: They couldn’t pull off attention-grabbing “I’m
the shit” hiphop if they weren’t. To see them onstage bouncing around
and completing each other’s rhymes is to know they are not delusional.
Dyme Def are the shit. Main Stage 11:30 am
The Flaming Lips
You’ve heard about the Flaming Lips’ live shows, right? Last time
they were in Seattle, Wayne Coyne got into a huge transparent bubble
and rolled out on top of the crowd. Later, he got out a trumpet and
played “Taps” and announced that they were going to continue playing
“Taps” at every show until American troops came home from Iraq. After
that they played “The Yeah, Yeah, Yeah Song” as a shouted sing-along. A
Flaming Lips show hits you on so many levels. Main Stage 9
pm
Flight of the
Conchords
New Zealand expats and Sub Pop signees Flight of the Conchords are
that rarest of musical comedy act—a duo as genuinely hilarious as
they are musically talented. Their genre spoofs—of Bowie glam,
Pet Shop Boys new wave, French yé-yé—are lovingly
accurate and their lyrical goofs are sly and satisfying. Main
Stage 6:05 pm
Ghostland Observatory
Is KEXP responsible for the popularity of this band? If so, may I
have the honor of casting a voodoo curse on their heads until the end
of time? Ghostland must be capitalizing off those braids, bellbottoms,
and that cape, because it certainly isn’t that electro-light bullshit
that’s packing in the crowds. Paging Ayn Rand—we need a market
correction. Wookie Stage 8:30 pm
The Hives
They may no longer be the flavor of the moment, but the Hives still
bristle with an exuberant energy that’s downright contagious and
utterly undeniable. They may have doubters, but what’s more punk than
blowing the minds (and moving the bodies) of anyone silly enough to
think your band’s time has passed?Main Stage 2:10 pm
Kay Kay and His Weathered Underground
It’s hard to write about this technicolored, spacey rock orchestra
playing an outdoor festival in the middle of a giant gorge without
condoning some kind of drug use. Thankfully, Kay Kay are entertaining
enough without any mind-altering enhancement—gleaming horns, a
plethora of strings and percussion, a choir of voices… Just close
your eyes and let the music get you high. (But if you need to do
something, ditch the pot and go for the mushrooms.)Yeti Stage 5:25 pm
Kinski
Kinski were doing the huge, avant-garde, wall of noise instrumental
stuff before doing huge, wall of noise instrumental stuff was cool in
Seattle. Some songs are built up with dynamic, ultimately explosive
layers; some songs are more direct, coming off as psychedelic stoner
rock with incoherent vocals. Either way their set goes, you’re gonna
get knocked on your ass. Yeti Stage 6:30 pm
Jamie Lidell
One-time IDM maestro Jamie Lidell transformed himself from laptop
geek to R&B freak with his breakthrough Multiply, and his
new album, Jim, delivers more of the same classically inspired
but modernly twisted soul. Live, Lidell is a consummate entertainer,
whether performing as a one-man band or as the debonair host of a live
ensemble. Last time he played an area festival, the speakers literally
burst into flame from the heat. Wookie Stage 7 pm
The Little Ones
Aw! The Little Ones! Even the name conjures thoughts of
cheek-pinchingly cute things. Kittens, puppies, chubby little
babies—all small and sweet just like the Little Ones’ catchy pop
songs with plinking piano and bright melodies. They have such
sing-alongable harmonies and there isn’t an ounce of brashness in their
catalog. Basically, listening to the Little Ones is equivalent to
spending three minutes at icanhascheezburger.com. Wookie
Stage 3:35 pm
The Mars Volta
The Mars Volta already sounded insane enough before they got a
hard-on for the occult. This year’s Bedlam in Goliath saw the
ensemble lose their shit thanks to a cursed Ouija board. I guess it
spelled out “space rock” before damning their souls, because that twist
to the band’s prog-jazz-thrash formula makes their eight-minute epics
even more compelling. Just hope the band don’t ask virgins to take the
stage. Main Stage 7:15 pm
The Moondoggies
Hardly Art signees the Moondoggies might be the perfect festival
band. There is no better setting for their Fogerty and bong-tinged
Rhodes anthems than soft grass, a big hole in the ground with a sparkly
river at the bottom, and a joint from some dude who will rhapsodize at
length about seeing the Wilde Flowers in ’67. Dreamy. Yeti Stage 2:10 pm
Pela
Without engaging in multiple listens, Brooklyn’s Pela are remarkably
inoffensive and somewhat unmemorable. Their “American rock and roll”
has been compared to big names like the Pixies and Springsteen, and
while a little of both acts are definitely present in their strong
songwriting, sadly, Pela’s songs lack the electric passion that made
both bands so timeless. But word on the street says the live show is
where they prove themselves. Wookie Stage 2:30 pm
Rodrigo y Gabriela
And now for something completely different: an acoustic metal duo
from Mexico. Rodrigo y Gabriela may seem like a bizarre choice at
first, but their mind-blowing musicianship and innovation is likely to
make them one of the most buzzed about acts of the weekend.Main Stage 4:40 pm
Say Hi
Say Hi used to be called Say Hi to Your Mom, they used to live in
Brooklyn, and they used to craft charming electronically inclined pop
songs about vampires. Now with a shortened moniker, a new home in the
Northwest, and songs no longer revolving around fictional creatures of
the night, the band still hold close their most important trait: the
ability to deliver memorable and light pop songs. Yeti Stage 3:15 pm
Siberian
Siberian’s blessing is also their curse—the band have so
perfectly honed their sweeping indie-rock skills that if you close your
eyes while watching them play live, you might mistake the romantic
crooning and sparkling guitars for their debut full-length, With
Me. However, the boys are as funny as they are handsome—so
the goofy banter makes it worth standing around for. Yeti Stage 4:20 pm
Thao with the Get Down Stay Down
Thao Nguyen’s fainting singing voice and wounded lyrics may bring to
mind early Cat Power, but her arrangements with the Get Down Stay
Down—ranging from bright, tropical guitar lope to marching horns
and walking bass to rusty folk—are more varied and adventurous,
though still uniformly gorgeous. Wookie Stage 1:25 pm
Whalebones
Old punks don’t die; they just inherit their parents’ record
collections. This Seattle quintet sloughed off their teenage angst
years ago, dissolving their various basement-dwelling bands and
unearthing a newfound appreciation of classic rock. But don’t mistake
the revivalism as some sort of ironic gesture: Every note and every
howl rings with passionate honesty. Yeti Stage 1:05
pm
Yeasayer
Brooklyn buzz band Yeasayer layer old-
fashioned millennial
dread and gospel vocal harmonies over jacked tribal polyrhythms,
lurching bass, dusty church organs, and damaged new-age synths. The
result is a kind of psycho-spiritual ritual rock full of bad vibes,
bleak spaces, enveloping drones, and desperately hopeful choral
crescendos. Main Stage 12:10 pm