A music festivus for the rest of us? The holidays came early for Austin music aficionados.

Fun Fun Fun Fest Review

written by Emily Strong

Ah, Fun Fun Fun Fest. What a charmed weekend. Between the delightful lineup, gorgeous weather, and pleasant grounds (Waterloo Park has much more shade than Zilker does), this has quickly become a favorite festival experience for many. As previously mentioned, the lineup was nearly impeccable, with most artists really stepping up and giving memorable, intimate performances despite the inherent distance of a festival stage. Local opening acts like Zykos, Brothers and Sisters, and Okkervil River wowed just as much as touring acts and headliners like Cadence Weapon, New Pornographers, and Neurosis. Below, however, are some artists who really stood out and left a lasting impression.

Final Fantasy -Most supergroups consist of several artists who all have their own successful careers but come together to pool their talent. Owen Pallett, on the other hand, is his own supergroup. Having played a significant role in several noteworthy bands such as the Hidden Cameras and Arcade Fire, he is best known for his solo project, Final Fantasy. Armed only with a violin, a piano, and a pedal board, he took the stage this weekend and wowed the huge crowd with looped layers of transcendent melodies and witty lyrics. The transition between songs was mostly seamless: the energy stayed up and the audience stayed absorbed. If there was any down time between songs, Pallett would toss off funny quips to keep everyone entertained. The highlight of his performance, though, had to be his cover of Destroyer's “An Actor's Revenge”, immediately after which Cadence Weapon and Destroyer frontman Dan Bejar himself walked on stage. Behar performed the song a second time with Pallett. Now that's a supergroup!

Of Montreal - Bringing all their usual bombast and theatrics, Of Montreal's colorful set involved costumes that could be seen even from the back of the crowd and the same manic music we've come to expect from them. Their set included songs from across a good portion of their catalogue, but the one song we could have done without was the absurdly long cover of “Purple Rain”. Still, Of Montreal doesn't know how to play an unremarkable set, and this weekend's performance was no exception.

Busdriver - He might have played on the festival's smallest stage, but Regan Farquhar definitely had the festival's biggest personality. Spitting out lyrics faster than most people's brains can process them and throwing his solid body around like it was the flimsiest cat toy, his performance seemed to defy the rules of the physical universe. The energy he threw out into the audience was palpable, and was thrown back to him with equal force. Dancing was feverish. Movement was frenetic. He's far less a Bus Driver than he is a Pied Piper.

Mothfight! - In the early afternoon, some strange and beautiful sounds drifted over from Stage 3—sounds that were something like the result of a ménage à trois between Arcade Fire, Animal Collective, and Octopus Project. People who were at other stages or getting food or just wandering around were looking in that direction and asking each other, “Who is that, playing over there?” A crowd started drifting over, trickling really, in twos and in fours, until by mid-set, Mothfight! had accumulated by far the biggest crowd of the three stages. Did they win some new fans that day? Most certainly. Did this performance solidify their place as one of Austin's most promising new up-and-coming acts? Absolutely.

MC Chris - If MC Chris has to be described in one word, that word would be “Hi-LAR-ious.” Warming up with a country song, of all things, he then launched into his set and immediately got the crowd involved by getting them to do “the rap arm.” As if that weren't enough audience participation, halfway through his first song he shouted, “I can't see you! Hold up your cell phones so I can see!” In a 21st Century version of the infamous concert cigarette lighter wave, hundreds of cell phones suddenly appeared in the dark, swaying back and forth to the beat. His whole set was like that: stuttering rhymes in a comically high-pitched voice while convincing the crowd to perform Simon Says-like mimicry of whatever he commanded. I don't know what you're on, MC Chris, but whatever it is, I want some of it.

Fun Fun Fun Fest Reviews

Written by Dina Guidubaldi

Saturday:

Witchcraft - Finally, an answer to the nagging question that’s been plaguing metalheads for years: What if Black Sabbath had been Swedish? Now we know: they’d be Witchcraft. The four-piece even got the clouds to part and American Eagle Outfitter-ed jocks to rock as they played songs from their latest album, The Alchemist, and took concertgoers back in time to the ’70s, when Pentagram and Sabbath had control over the Earth and all its creatures. That said, there were moments –particularly when lead singer Magnus Pelander made one of his goofy, happy faces or when drummer Fredrik Jansson got stuck in his Heidi smock, or maybe it was just the sweat glistening on bassist Ola Henriksson’s bare chest—that seemed almost more jam-band than metal. But then the clouds fused back together and Jansson counted off in Swedish and the world went dark and everything was as we’d always known it.

DJ Jester - The title of cutest FunFunFun Fest performer has to go to San Antonio’s DJ Jester, aka The Filipino Fist, who went on before and then accompanied Grand Buffet. Who knows if it was Jester’s infectious grin or the tacky howling wolf blanket hanging beneath his turntables or the fact that everyone had already drank a park-full of beer by the time he went on, but the entire crowd was doubled over and cracking up by the time he mixed together Michael Jackson and Johnny Cash and threw “All My Exes Live in Texas” into Eddie Murphy’s “Party All the Time.” Relentlessly sweating, smiling, and spinning, Jester’s enthusiasm seeped into the audience (hence his name, I guess) and then spilled over like a can of Lone Star into Grand Buffet’s set.

Grand Buffet - Northeast Rust Belt towns rarely produce anything of value except for cheap beer, decent sandwiches, and weirdly loyal football fans, but Pittsburgh’s Grand Buffet might just change all that. The fantastic nerd-rap duo of Grape-a-Don and Lord Grunge (and backed by DJ Jester the whole set) was probably the best show I saw all day. They yelled shout-outs to Alex Jones and Spaghetti Warehouse, quipped about the commercialized state of the union, and warned us about Smart Water. Though they played several of their older hits—“Benjamin Franklin Music,” “Murderfuck,” and “Things That Go Hump in the Night”—they also rapped off their unreleased album in the (supposed) making. As they played I realized that they sang more about food than any other band I could think of, chattering about “cream cheese money,” pudding, shrimp cocktails, garlic bread and raisins (and afterwards I talked to Grape-a-Don, who had just rubbed cinnamon in his beard and who cautioned me to drink young coconuts for hangovers). Then it dawned on me: their name is after all, Grand Buffet. It was a day of revelations.

Sunday:

Don Caballero - I was still sober when I was watching Don Caballero, so I was preoccupied with the way they sounded like Discipline¬-era King Crimson and also with the way drummer Damon Che turned a fierce shade of red that contrasted nicely with his yellow polo shirt. When he said/sang “I’m gonna turn you into a bottle of bleach/and spill you onto the rug” no one did anything at all except nod, which was a little disconcerting and made me think of that infamous crowd of urban legend who watched a woman get raped and murdered in a courtyard, each thinking someone else was going to save her. Then the music got purposefully (I assume) discordant and the R2D2 spotlights went crazy and I was sure they weren’t going to get back on beat in time and I bit off a fingernail and felt like I was in Tron or on acid and then suddenly everything was back on track and I realized I wasn’t sober anymore.

Poison Idea - Apparently it’s sad that Poison Idea’s legendarily obese guitarist Pig Champion died just last year, but the band’s reincarnation manages to cover up the huge hole he left. This is mostly thanks to the stage presence of vocalist Jerry A., who looks like a fat, un-lame John Cusack, and also to the fact that for a sloppy-assed bunch of punks from Oregon, the band was amazingly organized and “professional,” if such a word applies. A. dedicated the show to Bill Hicks, “a man who told the truth” and Poison Idea went on to play a set so loud and moving that a horde of nine-year olds straight out of Children of the Corn entered the mosh pit and began beating up the adults. Though scared of the kids, who seemed to be genuinely hell-bent and slightly demonic, I stuck around and saw one of the best punk shows I’d seen in a long while.

Battles - By the time Battles took over stage one, the crowd was packed and buzzing with energy drinks and/or anticipation. The quartet—consisting of long time musicians from various other bands and backgrounds—played an almost choreographed set, with Ian Williams drinking beer and blowing bubbles, Tyondai Braxton doing weird things with his tongue, Dave Konopka looking unassuming and their half-human/half-robot drummer John Stanier banging away up front and center. Though not dissimilar, watching Battles live is ten thousand times more exciting than watching a roomful of middle school nerds do speed-calculus (is there even speed-calculus? In my heart of hearts I feel certain there is.), primarily because they’re masters of tension and build-up. When they finally played “Atlas,” the crowd got all frenzied and frantic, bouncing and clapping and actually trying to sing along to Braxton’s distorted and unfathomable lyrics. That’s when it became apparent that they weren’t really playing instruments or their big hit song or their laptop, they were playing us.