Langerado 2007
The complaints I hear from friends when trying to coax them into going to music festivals are three fold. Their initial polite decline is usually weather related; either they have trouble associating daytime with fun, or the constant threat of rain causes too much stress for them to enjoy themselves. When I persist, their complaints are inevitably directed to the potential high cost of such excursions (i.e. up to $160 admission plus travel and camping fees, $6 beers and $8 falafel wraps, dry cleaning the utter filth from your clothes at the end of the weekend, et cetera). After I explain to them that the combined admission cost of seeing all the great bands present at said festival separately is a fraction of the actual admission price (and in the case of Langerado, it’s in our back yard!), they usually mutter something derogatory about hippies and refuse to talk to me until after the festival is over.
Well friends, point taken. Being sunburned sucks, I’m stuck eating ramen until my next paycheck and I’m permanently scarred from an encounter I had with a mysterious dancing man in an alligator costume. BUT, I stand by choice! If one plans accordingly the festival experience can be worth every penny, and if you give it a chance, the falafel isn’t all that bad....
Thanks to Santiago Felipe of Camera Obscura Photography for photographing the event and braving the swarm of smelly old hippies!
Also new this year was an expanded schedule including full festivities on Friday and 9 extra bands, making the total number of performers an impressive 47. Of course that includes the likes of Widespread Panic, The Trey Anistasio Band, Mofro and The Disco Biscuits, but hey, if you wanted to see every band on the bill you’d miss half the best stuff, right? Embrace the presence of the jam bands and your good taste; it saves you from some difficult decisions. For example Friday afternoon, while most of the festival was shedding a heartfelt tear to the irritatingly Christian Rock-esque sounds of New Monsoon, I had the pleasure of shaking my ass to the syncopated grooves of the female James Brown, Sharon Jones and the Dap Kings. Miss Jones laid down super funky vocals in the vein of Lyn Collins and Marva Whitney. Emcee and bandleader Binky Griptite and his Dap Kings supplied gut-buster funk with nonchalance and ease. This music is extraordinarily well arranged and complex, but you don’t notice such things until you’re done dancing. After making all the hipsters move like they were at their aunt’s wedding, Sharon was gracious enough to pop over and say hello. She even gave some seedy looking beardies a kiss on their hairy cheeks; I hope she doesn’t catch hepatitis.
Friday’s other star performer was indie rock legend Stephen Malkmus’ group, the Jicks. It took a visibly irritated (and mustached) Stephen a song or two to get loose, but after they were in the zone they cranked out a set of almost all new material, apparently for an album due out in the spring. These songs continued the path lain by their 2005 release, Face The Truth. That is, moody and angular rock songs with tons of quirky changes. What I love most about seeing the Jicks live are those moments in the middle of songs where Steve gets a chance to reinterpret them with his unique fisted plucking guitar style. He tore at the strings and hunched over in such a sloppy and vulnerable way, for sometimes up to 10 minutes he’d jam a song while the Jicks held down the rhythm. After the hour long set I shot him the thumbs up and he smiled and waved back, which was enough to send me home satisfied that Langerado day one was definitely worth the cash.
