Monday, June 26, 2006
FRI: The rain pretty much held me away for a while. Kinda took a lot of steam out of the evening. I wandered around clubs early on looking for something to really hit me. Things were off schedule by the first band in several places, but I eventually figured that I could catch most of Music Hates You before We Versus The Shark even got started. And man, I'm glad I did. They killed the stagelights, turned on two giant worklights which beamed out into the audience, turning the band into silhouettes, and let out a huge roar. I think it scared the hell out of everyone there, but nobody left. It was awesome. The bassist jumped into the audience and broke his bass in the process. It really started AthFest for me and was probably my favorite show of the whole festival.
We Versus The Shark is incredible too. They always nail it perfectly at the 40 Watt, especially during AthFest. My only worry is that they're so good now that anything less than that is a letdown. And where the hell is album number 2? Oh well. They rocked it and everyone was moving and having a great time. They owned that place.
Afterwards, headed back over the 'donia to chat with MHY. Patrick told me this great story about a confrontation with WUOG staffers. Finished talking, caught the end of Contraband's set at the 40 Watt - they're probably one of the funnest shows around. Overhead Mike Mills comment, "I thought I'd seen it all..."
I wanted to see more, but the night was pretty much over on that side of town and I didn't hear about the afterparty at the Secret Squirrel till the next day.
SAT: Didn't wake up till 2. Didn't make it to the Fest till 4-ish. Saw Time Toy's set, which started off kind rough and plagued with electronic glitches, but hit some high points. Anyway, Bryan's a helluva nice guy and I like to see him dance. So it was fun. The heat was way too much at that point, so me, Legal Bitch, and the esteemed Mr. Sloan Simpson split to dinner at Transmet.
Came back for drinks right before Goat rocked the main stage. It was loud and raucous the whole way through. I maybe coulda used one or two more slow numbers and that great fiddler who's with 'em sometimes, but other than that, no complaints. The crowd dug it too.
After that, Liz Durrett played a short set as the sun went down. Aside from a small disturbance (read Legal Bitch's post for more), the set was fantastic. Just what was called for at that time of day after DC's rocking set and as everyone was praying for the heat to subside. Vic Chesnutt sat in on his favorite new toy: that noise-making machine thingy. It added a cool background sound to all the songs. Her voice is of course always impressive.
Headed back to the main stage after that to see Now It's Overhead. You know, when they announced them as the headliner, I thought it was a great choice. Andy's always been able to command a stage since back in the Drip days and they proved they could handle large audiences on the tour with R.E.M. However, they show was pretty lackluster. Don't know what it was. The new material seemed kinda boring and the first album material really stuck out as being the stuff the audience got into. Whatever the cause, I just wasn't feeling it.
That was okay, because just afterwards I got to see Casper & The Cookies in top form. Catchy and great, they really do improve every time I see 'em, despite the revolving line-up. Hopefully they'll bring down the house at Popfest. Way to go, Mrs. Fandango on the pea-snapping too!
From there, I hit up the Nutria show. They kicked major rear-end. It was REALLY loud in there, but that made the rock songs that much more rocking. The bonus was getting a copy of their double-album Metronome/Cheef many months early. It's great.
Of course, mere minutes later the highlight of the night hit the stage. Producto played with such force and confidence that the whole audience seemed bowled over. Ane, Frank, Creston, Philip: y'all brought the house down. Hearing Ane's voice overpower the whole band several times was pretty incredible. Definitely the best show of the night and perhaps matching Music Hates You's performance there the night before.
I thought I was done for the night at that point, but I decided the hike to Tasty World was worth a try. And it was. Dark Meat was in the middle of a very loud, very awesome performance upstairs to a packed house. That three-chord 60's rock progression thing is awesome. Really, all I could think of was that I was jealous: Who doesn't want their own horn section, percussion section, and female background vocalists at their disposal? How could it not be great? No let down there.
Again, thinking I was done, I headed downstairs to see what Heros Severum had in store for their last show. No let-down there either. Well, the sound in front of the stage left something to be desired (or maybe I was just deaf from the Dark Meat show), but standing next to the stage you could really hear how talented all those folks are. They invited practically the whole club on stage to band on chairs with wooden blocks (a trend for this Fest, weirdly enough), and chaos ensued. I went home to sleep it off. No Sunday for me.
Sorry to carry on. I thought I was kinda sick of a lot stuff around town lately, but a lot of these bands re-invigorated my love of this town and its music. Hopefully, y'all caught good stuff too. My apologies to the many acts (many of whom are friends) who I did not catch. I'm lazy.
The pix that aren't from Legal Bitch's Flickr site are courtesy of Spotted. Find many more of them here. If you upload any anywhere, drop us a line in the comments. Also, keep your eye on Southern Shelter for whatever Sloan has to offer all of us from these and many other great shows. Way to go, Athens - and many thanks to Jeff Montgomery, Troy Aubrey, Jared Bailey, Michelle Roche (for hooking a couple of TDJer's up with press passes - we are totally a legitimate media outlet), and all the volunteers who help make AthFest what it is.
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