Filter’s Culture Collide Festival is taking over Los Angeles this weekend and bringing bands from over 30 countries to perform in historic venues such as The Echo, Echoplex, 826 LA, The Church, Taix, Co-op, Origami, and ReForm Academy. The four-day festival kicked off on Wednesday night with a launch party that featured an array of DJs, dance competitions, and a gallery of music-oriented photography titled Composition: Visual Notes on Music.
It has been ten years since Daft Punk released Discovery, an album that many highlight as being a key player in pushing electronic music into the mainstream. Now, the demand for electronic music is greater than ever. Electric Zoo, the premier electronic music festival now in its third year, invaded New York this past weekend looking to meet that demand. By addressing several issues from the record turnout last year and upping the length of the festival from two to three days, Electric Zoo seemed to be living up to the symbolic phrasing introduced by the iconic Daft Punk ten years prior, to be: Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger. At the end of the weekend, approximately 85,000 people passed through the concert gates to take part in one of the largest electronic music festivals to ever take place on the east coast.
The inaugural fully blown festival, staged at the resplendent Broughton Hall, attracted over 2,500 people from across the country last weekend. The soundtrack was provided by a stellar cast including The Human League, Badly Drawn Boy, New Young Pony Club, Ed Sheeran, Fenech Soler and Steve Mason, who all commanded the main stage to great effect.
If this year’s HARD Summer Festival theme had to be summed up in one word, it would have to be “naked.” On Saturday, the celebrated electronic music festival brought thousands of music lovers to Los Angeles’s Downtown Historic Park for the sold out music fest. Swarms of festival goers arrived in their rave-worthy best; dressed in the smallest amount of clothing they could get by in without earning them a police record.
British post-punkers Arctic Monkeys managed to play a partial set to a drenched yet committed crowd after the first of two huge storms shut down outside stages on Day 3 of Lollapalooza 2011. The band delivered their catchy hits including, “I Bet You Look Good on the Dancefloor,” and other recognizable tunes from their first two explosive albums in an energetic yet hurried set.
Later, Foo Fighters performed a torrential two-hour finale of old and new songs on another main stage in the rain – sounding and looking stellar as always (even drenched). Lead singer/guitarist, Dave Grohl, yet again steers the Foo Fighters into becoming the most seminal American rock band of this musical era with hit after hit song and consistently brilliant headlining live performances like this one. Hence, it was fitting Foo Fighters should close this historical 20th year of Lollapalooza. As they say, it will go down in history.
The 8th Annual Ink-N-Iron Tattoo and Kustom Culture Festival hit Long Beach, California, this past weekend, using the legendary Queen Mary as the backdrop along with a flock of men with facial tattoos, cabaret dancers and pole aerialists. This unique festival not only showcases the work of tattoo artists from around the world, but also live music, art shows, burlesque girls, pin stripping, vintage cars and motorcycles and even a pin-up girl contest.
It was Sunday afternoon and I set out to enjoy the last of the Northside Festival riches. Four days of music and art were drawing to a close and I was content with the events of the weekend. I fought my way through crowds, rubbed shoulders with indie music celebs, I saw more shows in four days than I have since SXSW and I’ve got a list of EP’s to download.
Eminem was slip-sliding away there for a minute. Self-admittedly his last CD was “eh,” his personal life was a bad soap opera and drugs where his number one activity. When he got sober, he grew up. I’ve heard Dr. Drew, of Celebrity Rehab fame, often say that you are stunted at the age that you start to heavily do drugs and you never really emotionally advance from that place until you are willing to quit. Well Dr. Drew, our little Marshall’s all grows up!
It was the opening day of the third annual Northside Festival in Brooklyn and at every step of the way I couldn’t help but make SXSW comparisons. First, there was free beer at the press badge pickup and I was off to a great start. The festival is very definitely music heavy but is also featuring film and ‘Ideas’ showcases.
I saw a few shorts by NYC filmmakers at indieScreen, a beautifully designed small theatre three blocks from my house that I didn’t even know existed, before heading over to The Music Hall of Williamsburg to catch Gordon Voidwell and Theophilus London at the Northside Festival Opening Party. I have to say that Gordon Voidwell stole the show. That voice! Their style! The girl on the keys!
Florence and the Machine may be a lot of things; mood makers for hipsters, sincerely passionate musicians, theatrical showman. But they never fail to engage the audience and enliven the soul. Florence (Welch) has a distinct vocal style that envelopes you like a wool blanket. While its inviting and warm, it also gets under your skin.
She admits that her best writing often happens when she is tired or drunk. Her ability to tap into that subconscious space and express it is powerful, moving and decidedly on point.
