Another Hopscotch has come and gone with the fourteenth festival in the books.
And good golly, was it a learning experience.
I saw some spectacular acts and I also, also bore witness to some less-than-spectacular acts.
Festivals are always a mixed bag, but that’s a given with the nature of the beast, right? Sound systems are finicky, weather is unpredictable, hell, people are unpredictable.
Hopscotch, in that respect is no different than her bigger and smaller contemporaries.
So, with the weekend over and a chance for all us happy hopscotch-ers to catch our breath, let’s get into the good, bad and the ugly of Hopscotch 2024.
Hopscotch 2024, Forever in Our Hearts:
City Plaza was first on my radar Thursday evening.
Without even using Google maps, I was able to find my way to one of Hopscotch’s two beating hearts simply by following the lingering stench of overpriced IPAs and blue raspberry vape juice.
Flanked by bank branded high rises, I entered into what I would soon come to know as a veritable modern hipster paradise.
It goes without saying: much like the Goonies, insufferable indie boys never say die…they just put insoles in their vans.
But hey, what else do you expect from an Indie festival?
While the day parties slowly died down and the gates to the plaza opened, I was busy navigating early evening Raleigh traffic and trying to find a park down town – consequently, missing the first act, Lonnie Walker.
However, it was Tim Heidecker and his Very Good Band who saved the day.
I knew a little about Heidecker coming into it, not only from his Millennial-god status as the other half of the “Tim and Eric Awesome Show, Great Job!” but also his relatively new foray into music thanks to the wonderful Spotify algorithm.
From what I understood of his music, it was a little twangy and a little folksy; your generic indie offering, right?
Well, I was proven massively wrong – he came out full throttle with boogieing, roots-rock both worshipping and bemoaning Neil Young, water beds, high school girlfriends and the newfound middle aged magic of shrooms in a groovy ode to insolence.
Long story short, if Jeffrey Lebowski was a disenfranchised millennial, he’d love what they’re doing.
Finally, Waxahatchee shutdown City Plaza with a two hour set playing through all of “Tigers Blood” with a few bits and bobs in between.
It was only while standing in the pit, talking to people, that I really began to see the big picture of Hopscotch on Night One.
Hopscotch isn’t just a place for lovers of indie and alternative to congregate, it’s a place that stands as a love letter to the New South, and Waxahatachee was the perfect project to send that message.
I’m a firm believer in the power of a pre-show playlist, and if your pre-show sucks I’m more inclined to think your set will too – and that little litmus test hasn’t failed me yet.
Sandwiched shoulder-to-shoulder with people old enough to be my parents and kids hardly old enough to tie their shoes, the magic hit me when we all sang along to Waylon Jennings and R.E.M. with the same fervor as her pre-set blended country classics, Southern college rock and classic pop.
It wasn’t just a melding of minds, it was a unifying of the weird-southern kid culture that brough us together.
And then she took the stage.
While I love her music, I’ve never had the chance to see her live — and let me say, our lady Katie doesn’t disappoint.
Three Plains covers, three MJ Lenderman cameos and one unreleased track encore added up to a truly stunning set.
While not bringing the blistering heat of the weekend’s later acts, Waxhatchee pulled together the perfect evening of front-porch easy listening for Southern kids who’ve seen their hometowns get razed for townhouses and Dollar Generals.
Friday, I got smart and started to get picky with who I saw and what I did – and it bit me in the ass.
The beauty of hopping the scotch, so to speak, is the “choose your own adventure” quality of the festivals, with day parties ending around five or so, two main stages with wildly different vibes and club shows in the evening, no two festival goers are sharing the same experience.
So, when in Rome, you do as the Romans – and I set out to make the most out of my second day.
Starting off easy, I moseyed to Moore Square.
Out of the entire weekend, this was my favorite overall lineup except for BadBadNotGood.
That’s not to say they’re necessarily bad, bad, not good…it’s just not my scene.
From the infectious psychedelic salsa of ¡Tumbao! to the effortlessly laidback So-Cal cool of Chicano Batman, I couldn’t have been happier to plop my ass in the grass and listen for a long afternoon.
But one act stood out leagues above the rest as I sat in the sadly sparse field as Peter One performed a sparse, but clean set.
I knew of the Ivorian singer-songwriter, but I had never really sat down and listened not only to his music, but what he had to say.
And goddamn did we fail him.
During the 80s and 90s, he was nothing short of a star in West Africa with an adoring, fervent following. Just for perspective, the man more or less played Nelson Mandela out of prison.
Then, he immigrated to the United States and all of that disappeared, leaving the musician in relative obscurity for nearly 30 years.
Now, he’s back with a new release and fresh audiences for his folksy and purist songs about love, loss and unity.
There were so many moments across the three days and nights that I could call “cool,” “electric” or “heavy,” but his set was nothing short of beautiful.
It was warm downtown, the sun was slowly starting to sink westward, and a cool breeze brushed across the gathered listeners on the grass and it just felt right – a little moment of peace carved out within a frenetic festival.
After sticking around for the breakneck, bombastic tone shift of Chicano Batman, City Plaza called my name.
Remember how I said I bit myself in the ass?
Let the ass-biting ensue.
Over in City Plaza, you had what looked like your standard, run of the mill Indie billing; Faye Webster, MJ Lenderman and the Wind, Feeble Little Horse and My Sister Maura.
So, I – like an idiot – decided to take or leave it and just catch what I could.
Then I caught the tail end of MJ Lenderman’s set.
I had read the reviews and heard the praise, hell, I saw him with Waxahatchee and completely enjoyed it – but I completely and totally wrote this kid off as another sad indie boy with a guitar.
Instead, I was hit face first with Neil Young and Elliott Smith’s bastard child and I have never been more musically mad at myself in my life.
Lenderman isn’t just good, he’s 90s good. He’s got that timeless, cassette tape quality that promises staying power.
Now, I love Chicano Batman; they’re fun and fresh, but they’re settled into their act – Lenderman felt new.
MJ Lenderman felt like something to be excited about.
That being said, I am not excited about my fellow twenty-something music fans; the insufferable indie-boy fashion must end.
I’m not going to spend long on my soapbox, but I am appalled at some of the fashion choices I saw in what was by far the youngest pit – penny loafers with white socks, gnarled man feet in beat up Birkenstocks and worst of all, JNCO jeans.
We listen to good music, We have to be better than the JNCO – some trends die for a reason.
As I sat saddled with that horrifying realization Faye Webster closed down the second day of the festival.
And while I don’t get it, I respected it; out of all the acts, she was one of the only ones I caught on the main stage who brought a fully designed staging with her: a massive t-shirt projection screen hung across a hanger, LED screen washing machines and Minions.
It was a nice window into the relatively liminal space artists like Webster find themselves in – just big enough to start closing down mainstages but still small enough to garner a mostly young, unknown crowd.
Then Saturday night, was alright.
We have a good relationship with one another, I trust you, so I’m going to let you in on a little secret: I was over the whole festival by the time Friday rolled around.
As fun and interesting as it all was, it was utterly exhausting – to those of you who go all day and night from the day parties to the clubs, you have my respect.
By the time the headliners came on, I was dead on my feet.
So, I was selfish Saturday (sorry, WKNC) and only saw two and a half acts.
Taking a leisurely evening I found myself in Moore Square just before five to see Durand Jones free of the Indications.
There is something special about the unburdened frontman – free to showboat and gloat across the stage to their heart’s desire.
Durand Jones too his liberation and ran with it like a ball of sunshine across the stage.
With the sounds of throwback soul applied to modern realities, Jones wailed across the stage with a freedom and joy that seemed missing from the perfectly-dour alternative bands that heralded the festival all weekend.
About five hours later, St. Vincent carried that tradition on with a cutting, whip-smart incredibly fun set of her own across the way in City Plaza.
Obviously, she was the big name draw to the festival, and the crowd reflected that, but as an audience member first and a writer second: I could not have been more excited to see her in this kind of setting.
For those of you who didn’t go, City Plaza is pretty small.
When accounting for sound booths, bars and other pop-ups, the space between the stage and the crowd is minimal.
And I, for one, can’t believe how fortunate I was to see an act of her caliber in (at least by festival metrics) an intimate setting.
That being said, I was let down by that set.
I don’t know if it was a confluence of poor crowd etiquette or the notoriously unreliable nature of festival sound systems, but I feel like the set wasn’t up to par with what an artist like St. Vincent should do.
It’s important to note that she and her band were utterly phenomenal, incomparable even.
At this point in her career, it’s awe-inspiring to see the characterization of her performances and how the image of St. Vincent has grown far beyond the confines of Annie Clark, waffling from badass rock goddess when singing to nonchalant cool girl next door when speaking.
I first found St. Vincent in middle school, at a point in time when I was learning so much about what music I liked and what music meant to me.
I had found a love for David Bowie and The White Stripes and all of these other off the walls, artsy, weird artists – and she fit right into the mix.
Her sound is lush and fuzzy, but just off-kilter enough to keep you on your toes. In terms of production alone, her projects always vary and always improve upon the other.
City Plaza killed the delicacy of that sound.
Her soft, feminine vocals battled with the fuzz of her guitar.
The concrete plaza and the high rises surrounding the stage swallowed the round, bolstering bassline.
And then the crowd was no better to boot.
From catcalling her guitar tech to rabid rail guarding, the people who gathered for her seemed to lose the communal spirit that’s supposed to shepherd the festival setting, but also this festival in particular.
Not to gripe, but that night I was called a bitch to my face for the first time in a pit.
In the end what should been a dazzling spectacle to send the festival on a high note was instead a rough, washed-out chaos.
But, there’s no business like show business, and I would do it all again in a heartbeat.
I learned so much through this festival; I experienced so much that I will forever be grateful for covering it.
I saw legendary acts on the same stage as young men and women who are building their own legends before our eyes.
Hopscotch is magical in how the festival is not just a collision of older bands and newcomers, but a conversation between generations.
You can see the musical throughline across the stages and throughout the clubs, a give-and-take of ideas shared openly and freely together.
Looking back through past lineups as research, the amount of repeat offenders amazed me.
St. Vincent has easily done four, Snail Mail three or so, and the list goes on.
But what amazed me is that for people who routinely show up every year, they’re watching these bands grow up.
Alternatively with The Jesus Lizard, The dB’s and Guided by Voices, we’re seeing older, foundational acts to the indie scene get their flowers.
For all my quibbles and complaints, it was a truly moving love letter to not just independent-alternative music, but to local music.
That’s really what colors my greatest regret, which was not hitting nearly enough of the club shows.
Other than that, I wouldn’t change a damn thing for the world about my weekend – good or bad.
