words by Andy Pareti
photos by Randy Cremean
And so begins the real Manchester rock and roll crusade. Friday boasted Bonnaroo’s biggest and fullest schedule of the weekend, including David Byrne, Public Enemy performing It Takes a Nation of Millions to Hold Us Back in its entirety, and an epic-length (but for them standard) Phish set.
Dirty Projectors:
When you have both David Byrne and Animal Collective rocking out backstage, you know you’re doing something right. The Dirty Projectors played a thoroughly tremendous set heavy in cuts from their soon-to-be-album-of-the-year candidate, Bitte Orca. The band gently pried things open with the soft flutter of “Two Doves”, but soon the Brooklyn natives stampeded through drum-tight versions of Bitte Orca standouts “Cannibal Resource”, “Temecula Sunrise”, and “Stillness in the Move”, the latter of which further exposed Amber Coffman for the perfect pop voice in hiding that she possesses. Dave Longstreth’s band did a miraculous job of replicating the brain-warping time signatures and acrobatic musicianship found on their studio recordings, especially with “Useful Chamber”, on which Coffman and vocalist Angel Deradoorian nailed perfectly their hocket-style vocal solo, sounding like a pair of Sirens straight out of Greek mythology. To close their set, Byrne joined them on stage to romp through the jovial “Knotty Pine”, which the two parties wrote for the charity album Dark Was the Night, released earlier this year. Byrne looked genuinely energized to be in the presence of these young geniuses, and the crowd followed suit, enraptured until the last note.
Animal Collective:
The presence of a band as experimental as Animal Collective in a festival as oddball and groove-heavy as Bonnaroo almost demands constant unpredictability. That is why it was strange and a bit disappointing that the band decided to play it straight for nearly all of their show. Grooving straight-laced (at least for them) through Merriweather Post Pavilion’s highlight “Summertime Clothes” and Panda Bear’s “Comfy in Nautica”, off his critically-acclaimed 2007 album Person Pitch, the band so tightly adhered to the source material it nearly lost its grip of the crowd, who undoubtedly wanted to see how the space-heads would stretch their avante-indie experiments to cosmic (bonarooic) proportions. Luckily, the Collective ended strong, drawing up primal call-and-response vocals and trance-jam elements that blossomed into “Daily Routine” and later “Fireworks”. The band saved its show in the last act, a belated reminder why they are an assembly of interstellar animals paving new musical ground. Bonnaroo’s one major fault with their set was scheduling it during the day, robbing AC’s sheet-covered instruments of the lava lamp gleam that emits from beneath them in all their low-lit performances. Instead, they looked like they were rummaging through garbage bags as they shot their pulsating atmosphere through the hot crowd.
Grizzly Bear:
In perhaps one of the two biggest pleasant surprises of the festival (see Saturday’s coverage for the other), Grizzly Bear put on a fantastic performance balanced between gloom and gleam. The band opened with the transcendent “Southern Point”, first track off their new album, Veckatimest. After never quite winning me over in the past with their brand of brooding post-rock, singer/songwriters Ed Droste and Daniel Rossen led the band through pitch-perfect reproductions of that album’s elaborate musical labyrinths, touching on all the key tracks – “Two Weeks” bounced the crowd on a cloud of harmonized pop, and “Ready, Able” took them through a vast temple of misty atmospheres and cold shimmer. Not a single song lacked the tight musical grip or the gravitational intrigue of the band’s studio work, all without a single lapse in intensity. They picked a perfect closer, too – “On a Neck, On a Spit”, the acoustic jazz ramble of Adult Swim fame. “My messenger in disguise/makes up for such short goodbyes”, they sang before digging into the frost-glazed melody that built gradually to a slow, warming burn. For the crowd, it was a short goodbye indeed.
Amadou & Mariam:
Like its jazz-themed tents that came in years prior, Bonnaroo’s “Africa Calling” theme that lined The Other Tent’s schedule was a huge success. Despite noteworthy sets by Béla Fleck & Toumani Diabete and Femi Kuti & the Positive Force, the tent’s knockout performance is credited instead to blind husband-and-wife duo Amadou & Mariam, who have broken out recently with their Welcome to Mali album and are buzzing more than a hive of bees as they continue their current international tour. Amadou Bagayoko and Mariam Doumbia were never more than a foot or two apart from each other and rarely had smiles leave their faces as their band went steadfast through a good majority of Welcome including worldbeat barnburners “Africa”, “Masiteladi” and “Batoman”. Bagayoko led the way with the scorching guitarplay of an afrobeat Buddy Guy, while Doumbia, cushioned by a pair of backup singer/dancers, gleefully sang her way through songs of African skies and eternal hope that switched between English and her native French tongue, bass and bongos thumping behind her.
Beastie Boys:
Backed by some sort of half-built batting cages that lit up like Christmas lights, the Beastie Boys trickled onto the What Stage’s first night set in reverse order of their popular “Three MC’s and a DJ” song. Mix Master Mike appeared first, scratching his way through Led Zeppelin’s “Misty Mountain Hop” before the rest of the band joined him for a typically colorful set that ranged from old-school hip-hop to hardcore punk to downright stoner jams. Heavy on synths, toms and wah-wah pedals, the band acid-tripped through “Gratitude” before taking things back to their NYC roots with “No Sleep Till Brooklyn” and their Paul’s Boutique funk blast, “Shake Your Rump”. In the first of Bonnaroo’s many surprise guest appearances, Nas joined the band on stage in arguably minimal capacity to debut a so-far-untitled new song before vanishing out of sight. Marred by sloppy and awkward punk bits from their pre-hip-hop days, the Beasties were otherwise mostly strong, particularly during their instrument-heavy songs (“Something’s Got To Give” incorporated Pete Frampton’s unofficially copyrighted talk box), but did not quite fill the shoes of past and future What Stage-bearers. The band blazed through an encore with “Intergalactic” and “Sabotage”, leaving its massive crowd satisfied but not likely blown away.
Phoenix:
Much like the band’s breakout new album, Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix, Phoenix’s performance at Bonnaroo was all about the songs with single potential. In that regard, they blew their load a bit early with “Lisztomania”, their opening song and also the opening track off that aforementioned album (as well as one of the catchiest). Phoenix was strong and steady, even turning the slightly-bloated “Love Like a Sunset” into a tie-dyed dance-a-thon – if they don’t yet have enough material to stuff a full set list with, well, their comparably shorter show on Friday was probably for the best. It was short, sweet, and direct, and they did manage to save “Lasso” until the second half, which refueled the dancefloor fire with its turbulent, Strokes-inspired chugging riffs and sledgehammer bass pounds. Like a band foaming at the mouth with opportunity, Phoenix banged out a solid set without taking many chances, but they aren’t far off from challenging MGMT and Girl Talk for the late night dance party slot at future Bonnaroos.
