Reykjavík Grapevine - 18.05.2007, Blaðsíða 17

The Reykjavík Grapevine and Bad Taste in collaboration with Thule and Reykjavík FM present:
Take me down to
Reykjavík City { the concert series }
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lyrics grated.
At 6:15, Saturday’s schedule offered per-
formances from the following bands: Kings
of Leon, the Decemberists, !!!, and Andrew
Bird. I got involved in a number of lengthy
discussions about which show a journalist
should cover—all four bands essentially being
the future of critically-acclaimed rock. The
conclusion was absolute. No doubt about it, I
had to go cover the Decemberists show. Why?
Because the Decemberists had an amazing
gimmick: they were hosting a wedding dur-
ing their concert. Wow. A wedding. At a rock
festival. Now that was a story, I was told.
I like the Decemberists. Hell, they were a
key reason I came to the festival, even if their
recent album didn’t exactly wow me. But at
exactly 6:15 Saturday, I completely lost it over
their constant neat little press stories. Bios are
cool. And maybe I can take the occasional
documentary, theirs gets pretty regular play
on the Sundance network, but when you take
that and combine it with the press off of their
nifty little green screen fan-submitted video
stint and then their guitar off with Stephen
Colbert, and then a wedding on stage, you
get this annoying geeky amalgam.
So I bagged the Decemberists concert
and the easy story, though I assume the wed-
ding went through. About halfway through
their concert a bunch of journalists walked
by my post at Kings of Leon writing in their
notebooks and smiling that Oh-aren’t-they-
clever-and-cute smile.
It was the best decision I could have made.
Kings of Leon got up looking like the cool-
est kids from high school, not mine by the
way but that high school in Dazed and Con-
fused, and completely revived a heat-stroked
audience. I’m not going to say that people
danced quite the way they did at the Hot
Chip show, this was a bit more reserved, but
people moved and moved well. It was bliss.
The key reason, beyond the sheer beauty of
the band, was their powerhouse rhythm sec-
tion which seems to have locked in through
their extensive touring schedule. But there
was also a quality to their show that the other
highlight, the Black Keys, would have: they
were polite, but they got to their business.
They didn’t talk about how neat it was to be
in the desert or name their albums—there was
no damn jibba jabba. They made good music,
they obviously felt the music and enjoyed the
stage, and then they thanked everyone and
left.
Arcade Fire later played the same stage,
with a doomed opening from Neon Bible in
which their use of so many voices and in-
struments all played vigorously but without,
honestly, notes – just a couple monotonous
chords – and which made anyone not in the
Arcade Fire cult question their prestige. As
the set went on, though, they moved to their
standards and stopped being so damned
schticky and they nailed a couple tunes.
The Red Hot Chili Peppers followed Ar-
cade Fire, and would dedicate a song to the
Canadians during their set. I didn’t see many
people looking forward to the Chili Peppers;
they haven’t gotten much airplay on the local
radio, especially compared to Sunday’s head-
liner, Rage Against the Machine. When they
took the stage with a blazing instrumental
freak out, featuring Jon Frusciante going bal-
listic on guitar, I think quite a few thousand
casual observers realized that maybe the Red
Hot Chili Peppers could put out something
great. But as soon as they broke into their set
and as soon as Kiedis started singing, honestly,
the energy got sapped. There’s only so much
you can do when you’re freaking out to the
lyrics “Turn Off Your Television.”
Sunday
“I’m here for Rage and nothing else. I don’t
give a fuck about anything else,” an earnest
young man with a shaved head told me as
he wandered through the alternative energy
demonstrations at The Energy Factory in the
centre of the festival grounds.
Yes, on day three of the festival, Rage
Against the Machine were having their re-
union show and suddenly the number of
people with shaved heads, goatees, and large,
saggy pecs increased about 1000%. It was
obvious that Rage had gotten quite a few
kids through their workouts—workouts that
stopped with the band’s break-up seven years
ago.
I did my best to enjoy the day before what
I guessed would be a testosterone meltdown
at the end of the day. A bluegrass hybrid
called The Avett Brothers put together an
early surprise: three young guys who have
been touring constantly since 1999. They have
evolved a sound that blends Bright Eyes and
Neutral Milk Hotel, that wonder combination
that every alt country indie band is dying for,
but that I’ve never heard captured quite so
well.
Hours later, Rodrigo Y Gabriela, a couple
from Mexico City who launched their career,
curiously enough in Dublin, Ireland, opened
for Damien Rice and presented the best per-
formance of the festival. Rodrigo y Gabriela
have developed a manic following based on
their unique take on the uses of nylon string
acoustic guitars—namely, they’ve developed
a style that blends heavy metal percussion,
classical technique and thrash metal melodies.
This all sounds novel enough, but when you
combine it with enthusiastic devils horns, and
the honest-to-God ability to work a crowd,
you get the live performance that brought
down Coachella with a satisfying chant of
Me-xi-co.
As the day wound down, The Roots kept
the crowd mellow with a decent set which
provided no surprises. Willie Nelson, celebrat-
ing his 74th birthday, got a dazed response.
For all the pop and rock of the festival, Nelson
was the only performer offering lyrics that
could stand up well on their own. What is
more, as most of the audience had never
heard his lyrics—I met an enthusiastic young
women who was there only because she knew
about Nelson’s bio-diesel buses—the intel-
ligence and wit of the Nelson show caught
the crowd by surprise.
Air, Damien Rice and Manu Chao all
performed decently, but none of them did
anything to indicate they had much new on
the horizon. Then I realized that I was close
to the front of the Rage Against the Machine
concert about 10 minutes before start time.
After three days of mellow, polite buzz,
it looked like things were going to go sour.
Scrambling to get to the back of the crowd,
I narrowly missed a large bouncer-type who
was spreading out his arms to stretch his pecs
and who then clapped his hands together and
groaned out “Let’s do this.”
When Rage came on, I was a quarter
mile away, looking over a sea of people who
seemed to like two things: beef and Rage
Against the Machine.
The crowd bristled as Zack De La Rocha
walked up to the mic and offered the under-
stated intro: “Hello. We’re Rage Against the
Machine from Los Angeles, California.” And,
almost nonchalantly, they jumped into Testify,
followed by Bulls on Parade and People of
the Sun and a set list that reminded you how
great the band had been seven years ago.
As for the violence I was expecting, noth-
ing happened. The mass of muscle all shifted
when De La Rocha took the mic. Arms went
down to front pockets then raised, almost
universally holding cell phones. From my view-
point, I could see thousands of tiny blue cell
phone screens; Rage Against the Machine per-
forming a flawless set in front of what looked
like an enormous human switchboard.
No doubt about it, I had
to go cover the Decem-
berists show. Why? Be-
cause the Decemberists
had an amazing gim-
mick: they were hosting
a wedding during their
concert. Wow. A wed-
ding. At a rock festival.
“I’m here for Rage and
nothing else. I don’t give
a fuck about anything
else”