Sasquatch! | 05.24-05.26 | The Gorge
By Team JamBase May 26, 2008 • 7:20 pm PDT
Words by: Jonathan Zwickel & Court Scott | Images by: Sean Pecknold
Sasquatch! Music Festival :: 05.24 – 05.26 :: The Gorge, Washington
Sasquatch! 2008 – The Gorge, WashingtonSomething to be learned from headliners R.E.M. and The Cure: ’80s alternative has become the classic rock of Generation X. Aside from obvious sonic differences, the headliners were virtually interchangeable, flaunting their influential status and an encyclopedic catalog of hits. To really impress a festival crowd, you gotta pull out the heavy artillery. The Flaming Lips showed up on Saturday evening with an army of jumpsuited technicians to erect their massive “UFO Show” production on the main stage for Sunday night’s big finale.
Two writers, three stages, 72 bands – your reporters (with itchy texting fingers) hiked hill and dale in effort to cover every corner of the festival. We navigated schizoid weather and a sunburned crowd of skinny-jeans-clad hipsters, toned college bros shelling out $11 for tallboys of PBR, and boomers and their teenage kids. No Bigfoot sightings but plenty of action to report, much of it on the smaller Wookie and Yeti stages. Here’s what we found.
 |
The band returned later in the afternoon to fill a 4 p.m. gap left by The National, who were delayed by a border crossing gone awry and/or a broken- down bus. In front of twice as many people, the Foxes seemed a bit timid, nervous, almost as though after nailing a pristine opening set they started celebrating and were surprised to get called up for a repeat performance. And there was Pecknold the weathervane, holding the front rows rapt all by himself, the rest of the band holding back: “Oliver James, washed in the rain…”
Court to Zwickel: Morrissey on vox?
 |
The Whigs are a garage band without a garage, playing air guitar with real guitars. They’re serious about the rock spiked with a whiff of southern soul. The Athens, GA trio wrapped up appropriately with a cover of “Get Off Of My Cloud.”
Court to Zwickel: Is it the wind or is Franti off-key?
 |
Zwickel to Court: Juanny Cash?
Mira is a bit of a novelty, but the lure lies in the fact that this is a 15-year-old kid that sounds remarkably like Johnny Cash. His intonation and phrasing are actually unsettling in their similarity to the original “Man In Black” but it doesn’t cheapen Mira’s efforts. He was supported by the rockabilly Roy Kay Trio and the set featured both Cash covers, naturally, and some original numbers. He had by far the largest crowd at the Yeti Stage all day Saturday and though he’s been referred to as “Juanny Cash,” his delivery of Cash’s lyrics en Espanol is a new take on the familiar.
The New Pornographers’ main stage gig suggested that they’re the Broken Social Scene of Western Canada. The Vancouver collective is a supergroup led by A.C. Newman on guitar and vocals and, along with a solid rhythm section, features Dan Bejar of Destroyer and Neko Case switching off on vocal duties. There’s no denying their perfectly tuned pop songs, but their best were with Case or Bejar on the mic. Case in particular looked and sounded beautiful; Bejar added a dangerous, lounge lizard skeeze that complimented Newman’s pop choirboy style.
 |
Crudo held off the imminent rain, freaking freely with theatrical flair for a rowdy crowd. Fronted by DJ-producer Dan the Automator and Mike Patton, the band was dressed in bloody butcher aprons and rubber gloves. Automator’s melody-heavy samples led live drums, bass, guitar and synth. Patton flaunted his signature nasal pitch, sharing vocal duties with Automator, Tajai of Hieroglyphics and a bad-ass, 22- year-old beatboxer named Butterscotch. The set was essentially Patton and Automator fucking around onstage and letting the others do most of the heavy lifting, and Butterscotch more than pulled her weight.
Playing their second show ever, Crudo is already a tight ensemble, mildly experimental in the prototypical Patton style: beat-heavy, vocal heavy, metal samples tempered by ABBA samples and the occasional Bee Gees reference. It’s loud, engaging and none-too-serious. Yes, they are messing with the crowd, but that’s always the fun with Patton and Crudo delivered a great set.
 |
Zwickel to Court: It’s really, really, OK.
The Breeders mostly weren’t worth sticking around for. “Cannonball” is “Cannonball,” though, and not surprisingly that was the highlight of an otherwise disappointing set. That and a cover of “Happiness Is a Warm Gun,” a guaranteed crowd pleaser that felt just a little like pandering.
M.I.A. delivered the highlight of the day when she pulled a couple hundred fist-pumping kids onto the main stage to chant along with “Boys.” Her late afternoon set was all neon, fluorescent and DayGlo, her cherry-red wig a bobbing beacon. Hers is a full visual package: Rather than just track her face, the Jumbotrons exploded with pixilated video and a cut-n-paste digital collage.
Ozomatli has one goal and that is to get the audience off. This band is built for a good time. You’ve got a DJ and bassist laying down the substratum, layered tight Latin horns, hip-hop flow and hook-heavy choruses. It’s proof that you can’t go wrong with high-energy and major chords. Ozo played a number of older tunes, “Como Ves” among others, but also a bunch of new stuff from their last album, Don’t Mess with the Dragon. The audience, from the top of the hill to the sardines in the pit, did indeed get off.
 |
Zwickel to Court: It is what it is, which is cool, I guess.
R.E.M.’s rain-soaked set was better than Court allowed. The band was charged, energetic, and wire-tight. Like The Cure would go on to do Sunday, they went for a lot of the hits in favor of new cuts from their fourteenth album, Accelerate. The new stuff all sounds kinda similar, which is okay because it’s good. It was hard to get passed the legacy of the band, and it seemed even Michael Stipe knew it: “We are R.E.M.,” he said to close the set, “and this is what we do.”
Sez Court: The Cure’s Disintegration figured significantly in my middle school years, and hearing so many Cure songs at once was whiplash nostalgia. Their mopey-ass goth schtick never resonated that deeply with me, but Robert Smith‘s wounded vocals certainly did. That feeling was still there. The band looked the same, right down to Smith’s eyeliner. Rather than giving him that so-precious forlorn look like back in the day, now the makeup just elicits concern.
Unlike their steeped, dense sound of yore, the Sasquatch! set was all aggressive, straight-ahead rock. A lot of rock: two and a half hours, in fact, with very little banter. Somehow the music was void of the personality that makes The Cure, well, The Cure, coming out almost as paint-by-numbers alt-rock. They busted out a number of their hits early on with “Fascination Street” and “Pictures of You” split by new tune “A Perfect Boy.” By the time “Boys Don’t Cry” ended, the set was as good as done for me. This show felt like a show. It was tight and well rehearsed, but it probably doesn’t change much from night to night and the monotony was apparent in the music.
 |
JamBase | The Gorge
Go See Live Music!
