Hopscotch Music Festival - Saturday Day Parties (9/9/17)

Saturday was my first chance to catch day parties, most of which would be part of Big Ed's Bloody Brunch at the Pour House.  However, I started with a quick stop at Kings for the OCSC/Merge Records day party, and Skylar Gudasz.  Skylar's excellent debut, Oleander, has been a calming soundtrack to what has been a tumultuous last year for me--politically and personally.  This early afternoon (although I only caught a few tunes at the end), she played what sounded like mostly new stuff.  Just as good, as I'm sure her next release will be.

Skylar Gudasz...

Next, it was over to Pour House for the rest of the afternoon (although I missed some great shows at the Merge gig... gotta get around to seeing Bat Fangs!).  Wailin' Storms provided, shall we say, a slightly different experience than Gudasz.  Once I recovered from the whiplash, I enjoyed their  metallic brand of punk.  Despite the early hour, it still worked.  Woke me up, that's for sure.

Wailin' Storms...

The great thing about the Pour House day party the last couple of years is that there are non-stop shows, alternating between upstairs and downstairs.  So it was a quick jaunt to the second floor to see Albert Adams, a drum-bass duo of Jordan Adams and Thomas (Albert) McNeely, the latter of whom has been lighting fires with the sticks as Jenny Besetzt's drummer lately.  Hyper-energetic, complex rhythms crashed non-stop in the bright daylight.  I'll say though, urging for people to get up and move was maybe a little too early... most of yer audience was still getting over their Hopscotch Friday hangovers!

Albert Adams...

Then back downstairs, my faves from down Columbia way, ET Anderson, showed off their new line-up.  As good as the Thursday day show.  If you haven't yet, go see this band!  Plus, the new line-up has definitely upped their hair game. :)

ET Anderson...

Back up the steps, for another (this time guitar-bass) duo:  Reese McHenry and the Fox.  Another scorching drummer, and in McHenry, one of the strongest, most soulful rock voices in the Triangle today.  Heard she had an incredible set singing with Spider Bags at Slim's the day before.

Reese McHenry and the Fox...

Next up (downstairs) was Acid Chaperone.  I missed their nighttime set at the Lincoln on Thursday, but yet another good thing about Hopscotch is:  miss one show, catch their later show.  Been a while since seeing them... maybe Halloween almost a year ago.  Noticed the keyboards a lot more this time (prob 'cuz they were right in front of me, and I wasn't wearing a wolf mask).  Great great set.

Acid Chaperone...

I can't really write more about Zack Mexico than I've written already on this blog.  Always fun, always good songs, crowd loves them more and more each time.  Hopefully they're about to earn a few thousand new European fans as they tour the Continent with Future Islands in October.

The surf's always up at a Zack Mexico show..

Tommy and Brett hang twenty...

Next (last) up, Saturday night.  Oh, and quite a few videos I haven't even looked at yet!

The Great Cover Up 2012 - Night 3 (Kings, 12/15/12)

I couldn't make the first 2 nights of this year's Great Cover Up at Kings.  That's too bad, because I apparently missed Iggy (Cosky) doing Iggy (Pop), Janice Joplin, and E. L. muthafuggin' O!  Damn!  That must've been great.  Video, anyone?

But Night 3 was pretty impressive as it was.  Luckily, I didn't show up 10 minutes later, or I would have totally missed Joy Division.  Sam Logan, Nathan Price (Lilac Shadows, etc...), and Reed Benjamin (Jenny Besetzt) had us momentarily transported back to the Factory in 1979 Manchester.  I caught fairly authentic versions of Transmission and Love Will Tear Us Apart.  Sam did his best detached Ian Curtis onstage...

Jumping up a few years, Thom Yorke & Co. took the stage as Radiohead played... well, I don't listen much to Radiohead (although I'm told I'm supposed to), so I don't really know what they played.   Actually, Ari Picker (Lost in the Trees) and Alex Maiolo (Fan Modine) made me think "maybe I AM supposed to listen to Radiohead!"  

Then the roof blew off the joint.  It was an old-fashioned rhythm and blues revue, featuring the Queen of Soul herself, Aretha Franklin!!  Well, Reese McHenry (ex-of she and the Dirty Little Heaters).  Reese did a pretty good approximation, which is saying a lot.  She also had a BIG band of 10 backing her up!  Killer keyboards (that guy was wailing), backup singers, horns, the works.  R.E.S..P.E.C.T., You Make Me Feel..., Think, etc.  Reese was the best moment of a great show I saw a few months back when she got up and sang the opening number for Spider Bags.  I had never seen Dirty Little Heaters, but I wondered what I would hear again from her and when.  This was exactly the type of thing I was hoping for.  

Then the Yeah Yeah Yeahs took the stage, featuring two members of Cellar Seas and Zeke Krautwurst from T0W3RS.  Chelley Godwin WAS Karen O!  I mean, you tell me...

Though she only sings backup with Seas, she owned the stage here. This was also one tight band, if only for a one-off gig, and she and the guitar player made for a helluva dynamic pair.  It was stripped down and spare, but loud and garage-y in that sweetly dangerous way the Yeah Yeah Yeahs are.  I don't really remember the set list... I think they did Maps? 

Speaking of garage, the Sonics followed.  I'd heard of them.  But Ian told me they invented garage.  And he was probably way influenced by them.  You know....  back in Manchester...  in the '70s..  when he was alive.  Anyway, this band was made up of The Infamous Sugar and members of Savage Knights and Black Zinfandel.  "Suge" preached over the keyboards and the crowd, while the rest of the band had that '60s proto-grunge thing going full force. 

Closing the night, Swedish death metal progenitors At the Gates performed most of one of their albums (Slaughter of the Soul?  Sorry, not a metal guy). This incarnation of ATG was composed of members of locals Morose Vitality, and they were pretty tight and intense.

A perfect closer to a diverse evening's music.  What I can't figure out is just how Kings gets all these famous (sometimes dead) acts to play such a small room.