Category: Festival Coverage

Previews, reviews and coverage from music festivals like Hopscotch and Moogfest

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Festival Coverage

Shakori Hills GrassRoots Festival of Music and Dance: October 10-13,2013

It’s that time again! Shakori Hills GrassRoots Festival is a music lovers’ paradise full of four days, four stages, and over 60 bands in beautiful Chatham County.

 

This family-friendly celebration of music, dance, art, and education is bringing to the stage a number of great artists including: Yonder Mountain String Band, Robert Randolph and the Family Band, Donna the Buffalo, International Blues Express with Sidi Toure and Cedric Watson, Preston Frank, Bombadil, The Old Ceremony, Holy Ghost Tent Revival, Mipso, Birds and Arrows, and much more!

 

A full performance schedule can be found here! Tickets and information can be found here!

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Festival Coverage

Post-Scotch: Mainstream Noise By David

If Merzbow plays a set in a forest, and no one is around to hear it, did the noise actually happen? If I could sum up my takeaway from Hopscotch 2k13 in one sentence, it would be with this simple thought: What other festival could bring a Merzbow or a Wolf Eyes to North Carolina and play him to packed crowds? A Pharmakon show well attended in Raleigh? The band Sleep being a major topic of conversation? To me, these all seem like nerdy music pipe dreams for kids who tweet too much. Yet this is the diversity and breadth of the people that Hopscotch brings together from all over the country. People from all walks of life come together at this festival because they love music, and it’s truly a remarkable thing to see. So with these warm fuzzies in mind, here are some memorable highlights from my experience this year!

First, yes. Yes it happened. I finally got to see Grouper live. The clouds parted over Raleigh and I saw the entire universe in a perfect light. Or something. My fanboy dial turned down slightly here though, the numinous atmosphere of Fletcher Opera Theatre and the subtle visuals complementing Liz Harris’ spare drone made for a hypnotizing performance that Thursday. I was in heaven. Completely on the opposite spectrum, but equally sonically pleasing was the ever-manic Marnie Stern, who I saw shred faces at Lincoln Theatre that same night. Her ridiculously energetic set guaranteed I’ll be humming “Year Of The Glad” for the rest of the fall.

Saturday, I caught The Beets, who are a garage band signed to Hardly Art that I had never heard of, and who ended up being one of my favorite sets of the festival. As you can see from the photo I snapped above, their set was dark and grungy and intimate in the best kind of way. I also saw Swearin, who I really enjoyed, and who are perhaps one of the most underrated indie pop bands (spoke too soon?) touring right now. My soul to be a Crutchfield.

Did things get weird? It’s Hopscotch, of course they did. I watched Thurston Moore play a blistering improv noise set with Merzbow for a packed crowd at Kings. I ended up onstage with Mykki Blanco and about 20 other people while she played “Wavvy.” I met the mysterious DJ Paypal. I saw Holly Herndon perform at CAM behind weird CGI visuals of Japanese Amazon boxes as they floated through panoramic photos of Asian families. Yes, read that last sentence twice. I saw Pissed Jeans’ frontman, semi-clothed, as he taunted the audience and stacked his band’s amps in a pyramid in the middle of Pour House’s stage. I absolutely saw Ryan Hemsworth drop a remix of a song from the Rugrats movie, and we all danced, because it was phenomenal.

I don’t want to be too sentimental or corny about it, but I really loved this year. I love how much I learn about music from this festival every year, and I love the fascinating people it allows me to meet. Pere Ubu and Earl Sweatshirt played 5 minutes from my apartment because of this festival. Viva La Hopscotch.

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Festival Coverage

Post-Scotch: Anastassia’s Highlights

Hopscotch is the best time of the year and this year was probably THE BEST time of any year ever. Every year the festival gets better, or should I say stranger…. but this is why I love it so much. It’s so unique every year but I think this year was by far my favorite. SO many random and weird things that happened all over downtown Raleigh and it would be impossible and long to list them all but here were my favorite moments.

This year at Hopscotch:

  •  I saw Swearin’ twice in one day! Their surprise Slims show was packed and dark and loud but their official Pour House show sounded great and I was finally able to unleashthe punk girl that was waiting for “Here to Hear”.

  •  The Breeders became my favorite band after I saw them play at City Plaza. I don’t know what was so impactful, the fact that these women are so badass and my mom’s age or that they sounded so good live. Probably both.

  •  I shed a few tears at Angel Olsen and was pretty much bewitched by her voice and then I sprinted over to DJ Paypal, danced for fifteen minutes and sprinted back to Grouper and was hypnotized into staying for her entire space-fuzz set.

  •  I also danced on stage at Mykki Blanco, saw two minutes of Merzbow and Thurston Moore’s noise collaboration,  attempted to mosh at Pissed Jeans (if you look close enough, the blonde mop of hair is mine in the picture above), and fell in love with Scout Nibblet’s voice.

Hopscotch is so eclectic that it provides experiences like no other festival.

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Festival Coverage

Post-Scotch: Venue Variation by DJ Salinger

Reflecting back on my overall experience at this year’s Hopscotch Music Festival, one thing that particularly stuck out to me was the wide variety of venues and differences between them all. From my personal experience, I would have to say that the venue that provided the most captivating experiences was the Memorial Auditorium due to its wide open ceilings that allowed the sound to echo off into the back of the room. While Memorial provided many great shows from artists like Local Natives, High Highs, and Sylvan Esso, a venue that was the complete opposite could do the same thing a few blocks away. That venue was definitely the Berkeley Cafe; while it did not have the massive chandeliers and tall ceilings, it did provide an intimate setting that allowed acts like Co. and WOOL to rock the crowd out.
Another factor that varied greatly between the venues was the crowds. Of course most of the time it depended on the time and who was playing, but I could almost guarantee that Lincoln was going to be full of those sweaty crowds, while Tir Na Nog was going to be fairly laid back. I feel as though it is these differences that make Hopscotch such a unique and enjoyable festival that will never cease to surprise me year after year.

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Festival Coverage

More Hopscotch Highlights: Saturday

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Festival Coverage

More Hopscotch Highlights: Friday

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More Hopscotch Highlights: Thursday

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Post-Scotch: The Everymen Rocked my Saturday

Hopscotch creates the optimal environment for music discovery. Many music festivals have multiple stages but few host fourteen venues for anyone with a wrist band to drift in and out of. This drifting brings about a method of discovering music that fits well with the Internet music age. We live in a world where the customer really is always right because their entire experience has been personalized for the individual. In this case, it is a personalized concert for three nights straight.

I had few artists that I absolutely had to see: Earl Sweatshirt, A-Trak, and Future Islands. Saturday was the most open out of all the nights. Other than Saints Apollo, Adult. and Big Black Delta, I had no shows planned out. Out of of all the new bands I saw perform, no show was more entertaining than The Everymen’s performance at The Pour House. I almost walked out before it even started, too. I went in ten minutes before the start of The Everyman but ran into DJ Sarahnade from Post Rock Block. right outside. She had seen this band earlier and was coming back for more.

“Piano’s over the head kind of stuff” she explain to me.

I was sold.

It turned out to be the best rock show I’ve seen in a long time. The energy and stage presence The Everymen had was outstanding, and the crowd showed it right back. Everyone for at least the first few rows was going hard to a the male and female fronted band. The lead singer/guitar player made for great mid-song commentary.

At one point, a duel was put forth between the sax and piano player. This ended with the keyboardist picking up his piano, laying one end into the crowd and just going nuts on it. This New Jersey band will forever be cemented in my memory bank.

My personalized concert ended up being spot on thanks to the amazing people who put the effort into making Hopscotch a success.

You can find their Bandcamp here – bandcamp

-Muta

 (Not pictured above: The awesome and crazy keyboard player)

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Festival Coverage

Hopscotch: Saturday Night Highlight Photos

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Festival Coverage

Post-Scotch: DJ DiGiorno’s Review

Kurt Vile at the VIP Party

Hopscotch Music Festival has always been one of my favorite music festivals. It is one of the most diverse festivals ever. This year was no exception. The festival included everyone from blues legends from the 50’s (Ironing Board Sam) to one of the most iconic MCs (Big Daddy Kane) to the founders of both The Velvet Underground (John Cale) and Sonic Youth (Thurston Moore) to one of the greatest noise musicians from Japan (Merzbow) and everything in between. One of the greatest things about this festival is that while there were certain acts I knew beforehand, many of the acts I only learned about because of the festival.  I discovered a lot of my new favorite acts by looking them up beforehand and listened to them or even just by being dragged to their set during the festival.  Hopscotch Music Festival is definitely one of my most favorite weekends of the year filled with unforgettable experiences.

Thursday Highlights
-Thursday night I received my first unforgettable introduction to Body Games. They are an incredible new group from Chapel Hill whose brilliant indie electro-pop complete with a great lights show and Lion King projections had they whole crowd grooving along.  They even covered Michael Jackson’s “Will You Be There” from Free Willy which oddly enough fit perfectly as everyone nostalgically danced along.
-New local stars Sylvan Esso blew everyone out of the water.  Their beat-driven breed of infectious electro-pop had everyone dancing and Memorial Auditorium shaking.
-Kurt Vile and The Violators played last to close out the night at Lincoln perfectly with their warm wash of guitar driven rock as everyone lost themselves in his music.

Friday Highlights
-Thurston Moore, although not on the official Hopscotch bill, played a day show at Kings with drummer John Moloney.  It was incredible to see such an iconic legend in a setting such as this.
-Future Islands have become local music gods so it is obvious that would be one of my highlights.  Future Islands performed new-wave synth-pop to perfection as Sam’s antics kept the crowd entertained.  They played many favorites from over the years as well as some songs from their upcoming effort that they announced.
-Speedy Ortiz was one of the bands I was looking forward to see the most of this festival and they did not disappoint.  Their hour long set was rock solid made full use of the stage and filled every corner of the room with their guitar driven noise-pop.

Saturday Highlights
-As a fan of the Pixies and more recently of The Breeders, it was a dream come true to see them perform live at Hopscotch.  The entire band was having a great time as they joked back and forth between songs off of The Last Splash.  Their energy fueled that crowd as everyone sang and danced along.  They even got to play a few more songs after the last song on their album that they were playing in full.  Their performance was utter perfection and you could see the excitement of them playing together again.
-City Plaza not only knocked “seeing The Breeders,” off my bucket list, but “seeing Spiritualized” as well.  They played a perfect mix of songs that spanned most of their career complete with projections and lights.  The whole show and atmosphere was just an incredible experience as dusk began to settle.