It's almost one week after-the-fact, and I am still on a high from the Sasquatch Music Festival. Here are the acts we saw on Saturday and Sunday. And here's Monday's lineup:
Temper Trap: We didn't make it to the venue to catch the first act of the day (Mayer Hawthorne), unfortunately. More unfortunately - I feel a bit mean for saying this - we made it in time for Temper Trap, who were terribly mediocre. But it started to rain and so I curled up underneath my rain jacket and fell asleep. I mean, Temper Trap wasn't awful enough to keep me from sleeping. But they sure weren't good enough to keep me awake.
Drive-By Truckers: It alternated between rain and sunshine into the next act as well. And as I got pretty damn sunburned on Saturday, I was more than happy to continue to hide my face from the sun. But Drive-By Truckers were great. I mean, they're Southern-Rock-Alt-Country. So it's hard not to be big and loud and great -- great music, great storytelling, most notably in the "true story" of "18 Wheels of Love."
Dr. Dog: Dr. Dog put on a solid show. They've long been band that's perennially stuck as an opening act. Their most recent album, Shame, Shame, is their best by far, I'd wager, even though I think I'd rather see Dr. Dog live than buy their albums.
The Mountain Goats: I remember a conversation with a friend a year or so ago, where he made the same argument about John Darnielle and The Mountain Goats moving away from their original "lo-fi" sound that folks made about Bob Dylan when he went electric. Shock. Anger. A refusal to buy new albums. But not me. I absolutely love The Mountain Goats, and the performance I saw on Monday demonstrated that the power of Darnielle reaches far beyond the cassette tape recordings; and even when plugged in and performing for thousands, he is a powerful singer and songwriter. Wait, that's a cliche: "powerful singer and songwriter." Because the power that Darnielle wields in his music is so far from cliche. There is something so earnestly painful and raw, that it's hard not to alternately weep and exalt. The Mountain Goats played my favorite songs, including "The Best Ever Death Metal Band Out of Denton." (Really, how often do you get to sing "Hail, Satan!" with thousands of people? Um, well, for me the answer is "not that often.") Throughout the weekend, I was pleased to see "kids" knowing all the lyrics to the songs. But there was something a bit different about the sing-along with this band, because I feel when we know and sing the lyrics to The Mountain Goats, we all tap into this pool of pain and rebellion and revenge and recovery, and we feel released. Seeing The Mountain Goats was by far the highlight of my weekend.
Band of Horses: Wow. Just wow. We saw a lot of bands on the main stage at Sasquatch. Some of them just seemed to small in terms of sound and presence to be there. But Band of Horses had a big big sound, one that I almost wished I could experience in a smaller venue -- not because they weren't the right fit for the main stage. To the contrary, because I wanted to have the music move through me and not through the Gorge. The first chance I get, I plan to see this band again.
New Pornographers: I'm not sure why New Pornographers weren't on the main stage (the same could be said for Public Enemy, I think), if for no other reason than the Bigfoot Stage seemed to have a lot of sound issues. But hey, the smaller venue meant that, once again, a Canadian band had a largely Canadian audience. And golly, that makes for a nice experience. Even nicer? The whole gang was there, including Dan Bejar who I guess comes on stage to sing a song, then leaves to go backstage for a smoke... or something. With all the stars/egos in New Pornographers, it seemed to take some time for them to get in their groove as a band, but once they did, they put on a killer show (with killer whale balloon tossed around the audience), the perfect end to a killer weekend.