Críticas

Fri 31 Jul – All Points West 2009 Music & Arts FestivalAll Points West
Aug 1-2, Liberty State Park, NJ

I thought I could escape the murky conditions that plague U.K. festivals by attending All Points West, but rain and mud made a transatlantic trip, turning the weekend into a damp experience. Skipping stormy Friday, I trekked from Manhattan to New Jersey and kicked off Saturday with Arctic Monkeys. Against the backdrop of the Statue of Liberty, Turner and Co. started their set with ‘Pretty Visitors,’ which has a guitar-crunching chorus tailor-made for live performances. They sprinted through ‘Brianstorm,’ then introduced ‘Potion Approaching,’ another new addition that sadly lacked ‘Visitors’ punch. ‘Fluorescent Adolescent’ got the crowd going and was followed by ‘Cornerstone,’ possibly my favorite track from Humbug. Other standouts were slinky ‘My Propeller’ and perennial favorite ‘I Bet You Look Good on the Dancefloor.’ Strangely, the song tempo sometimes lagged, so the sense of witty urgency that characterizes the Monkeys didn’t always translate.

A wander across the park brought me to Chairlift, closing with ‘Bruises,’ the single made famous on U.S. iPod ads. The rest of their set was unremarkable, stronger for its instrumentals than for Caroline Polacheck’s occasionally shrill vocals. Tokyo Police Club woke the post-Chairlift crowd with energetic performance, which my friends and I voted a pleasant surprise.

Tool was Saturday’s headliner, but I opted for Crystal Castles along with the rest of the attendees not wearing Tool t-shirts (apparently a prerequisite for their gigs). Alice Glass appeared waving a spotlight above her head to compliment the stark lights that synced with their chilly electro. Highlights included ‘Crimewave,’ cleverly echoed in stuttering samples throughout the set, and crowd favorite ‘Courtship Dating.’ Glass, despite her frenetic, equipment-climbing energy, was entirely drowned out by Ethan Kath’s compelling layers of fuzzy sound and shrill keyboard. In spite of this, the crowd was one of the most hyped of the weekend and the set made a great end to day one.


Sunday morning downpours churned the ground into an inexplicably foul-smelling sea of mud that worsened as the day went on. My long-suffering friends and I caught the end of Silversun Pickups, who were unexpectedly high-energy given their laid back album vibe. Underwhelmed, I left after ‘Lazy Eye’ and sloshed off to We Are Scientists, whose older tracks got the most crowd response. ‘Nobody Move, Nobody Get Hurt’ was by far the favorite, although I was disappointed that a late start abbreviated them to six tracks.

Mud rising steadily, I trekked to the main stage. With the rain over, the crowd sprawled on ponchos and raincoats to see Elbow, Echo and the Bunnymen, and headliner Coldplay. I arrived to find Guy Garvey introducing ‘Grounds for Divorce,’ a perfect song for large festival crowds. ‘Divorce’ combined with sweeping, violin-tinged closer ‘On a Day Like This’ put Elbow in competition for the technically strongest band of the weekend.

Brooding Echo and the Bunnymen seemed subdued in comparison. Opener ‘Lips Like Sugar’ was my favorite track, although the pair in front of me enthusiastically doing yoga (yes, seriously, not a euphemism, actually doing yoga) preferred a sparkling version of ‘Bring on the Dancing Horses.’ They closed with what Ian McCulloch called a ‘holy trinity’ including ‘The Killing Moon’ and wonderfully dark ‘The Cutter.’

The sun set before Coldplay, who opened with booming ‘Violet Hill,’ followed by the angular lasers of ‘Clocks’ against Manhattan’s skyline. Chris Martin proclaimed APW “the strangest smelling festival,” altering the lyrics of ‘Fix You’ to “When your feet get wet at a Coldplay show/ What could be worse?” They included a gorgeous take on ‘Lovers in Japan’ and a cluster of acoustic songs played in the crowd, including a decent but unremarkable cover of ‘Billie Jean’ ‘The Scientist’ was an ideal encore, with the crowd singing along as the festival concluded.

I skipped the middle of Coldplay to see MGMT. Ankles submerged in disconcertingly warm mud and surrounded by bandanas and paisley, I caught the second half of ‘Of Moons, Birds, and Monsters’ splendidly psychedelic guitars, the terrific crescendos of ‘Weekend Wars,’ and new track ‘It’s Working.’ ‘Kids’ was sharp and catchy, and ‘Electric Feel’ was enjoyable, although it suffered from nasal vocals. I rejoined my friends and we made our way out through the mix of bog and murky, oceanic puddles. As we crossed the central swamp my sandal was ripped apart by the sticky mud and became my final apparel casualty. I headed back to Manhattan soggy and shoeless but satisfied.

http://inarcady.blogspot.com

Fri 31 Jul – All Points West 2009 Music & Arts Festival

Ah! All Points West, second year in a row, and still haven't paid fo' tickets. The good life. The great life. Perfect.

We (me, Mom, Lily, my mom's friend John o'Toole, and my friend Francesca) were really only there to see two (and 1/2) bands: Arctic Monkeys, Gogol Bordello , and My Bloody Valentine. Can't say I'm much of a Tool fan. . .Okay, does anybody know any Tool songs? Anybody? They were headlining?. . .

But man, did we get lucky.

Four out of the five of us had 'Production' wrist bands. Lily was the only one with a 'real' ticket. So when we (Me, Chess, Lily) wheedled our way to a great spot in the Arctic Monkeys crowd before the show started, we were happy. But it was only. . .TEMPORARY!!! Yeah, some annoying girl in front of us pulled her friends up ("oh, it's only one, and she's tiny") and then, when the show started, a guy started moshing (he was so high. . .) and we got shoved, and I mean shoved. Luckily, Francesca and I got shoved to the side railing
and. . .magic happened.

In front of the stage there was this little area where a bunch of media (?) people were. Or they were just stiffs. I called over a Security guard and pointed to my wristband and then to the area. He nodded and pulled me and Chess out of the crowd and we got to go right up front. There was no one in front of us. No one was pushing us and we were right up there. Needless to say, I almost shed a tear.

And it was well worth. I am no doubt incredibly biased on the subject of 'Arctic Monkeys'. I love them. They sounded great, and I really liked the new songs, especially Crying Lightning and Potion Approaching. And whatever was in the middle of Fluorescent Adolescent sounded great. I can die happy now.

Gogol Bordello was fun. I'm not a huge fan (Lily is), but my friend and I got bored on the VIP stands so we went into the crowd, and started dancing and jumping and waltzing. 'Twas a joy.

Gotta be honest, My Bloody Valentine wasn't made for the outdoors. A club, probably. But you couldn't really hear anything until you were far away.

Highlights:

-Alex Turner

-Haha, free tickets again.

-Matt Helders, drummer from Arctic Monkeys, smiled at me. It might have had something to do with me waving embarassingly frantically at him.

-Alex Turner

-I. . .sang along to a Gogol Bordello song? Just a chorus and "shto-tay!". . .

-Chess and I started a waltz line

-Yeah, old Arctic Monkeys! View From The Afternoon is a crowd pleaser.

-Alex Turner

-Turns out we weren't supposed to be in that 'special area'. Luckily we found out after we left it.

-Twix Man! He said my smile made his day and then he posed for a picture and gave us more free candy. . .

-Alex Turner


Lowlights:

-Tool fans

-Accidentally insulted a ticket scalper. I guess I'm a really loud talker.

-There was a helluva lot of mud. We came out of the crowds covered in mud. My converse started out black and came out brown. It was also a reason Chess and I stood out in the 'special area'.

-Tool fans

-Too bad we couldn't hear My Bloody Valentine.

-Parched. . .had trouble. . .singing along. . .

-Lost my cellphone. My bets are that either the ticket scalper or Twix man found it.
~"What'chu mean no one wanz a muddy cellphone? You'll
understand Tool fanz you're olda."
~"Hey Honey! I found your cellphone and it's so cute just like you!
Alright Sweety."

-Tool fans

Fr., 31. Jul. – All Points West 2009 Music & Arts Festival

Edit this setlist | More Arctic Monkeys setlists

Fr., 31. Jul. – All Points West 2009 Music & Arts Festival

Edit this setlist | More Tool setlists

Just when you thought it couldn't possibly get any muddier, it did. After a rainy Friday and sunny Saturday, the rain returned for the final day of the All Points West festival. This time, the doors were held until after 4:00pm (4 hours later than scheduled), which unfortunately lead to the cancellation of the early bands. The bright side (literally) was that once the rain went away it never came back. And any frustration due to weather was long gone by the time Coldplay hit the stage later that night to close out the epic three-day festival.



The Silversun Pickups were fortunate enough to be the first to rock the main stage on Sunday at 5:00pm.


No use trying to fight the mud, just embrace it like these guys.


Elbow's lead singer Guy Garvey kinda reminds me of his fellow Englishman Ricky Gervais.


Post-rock pioneers Mogwai created a dark yet beautiful soundtrack to go along with the setting sun.



Did I mention it was muddy?


I missed MGMT to see Coldplay, so um, here's a picture of the ferry instead.

It's a damn shame Organized Konfusion isn't a household name. It's rare to find one, let alone two superior emcees in any group these days, but Pharoahe Monch and Prince Po are unquestionably two of the all-time greats. The bigger question is usually who is the better emcee of the two, but I won't get into that because, despite the pouring rain, this was the performance I was looking forward to the most at All Points West. No disrespect to The Pharcyde, Q-Tip or Jay-Z, but I've seen all of them multiple times in the past ten years. This was the first show Monch and Po have performed together in the past twelve years, and now backed by theX-Ecutioners DJ Boogie Blind, die-hard fans nodded their heads in appreciation as they came out to 9Xs Out of 10:








Monch and Po traded verses throughout the show like they'd be touring non-stop for years, even quieting rumors about any "supposed" beef among the two, even mentioning love for O.C., who first appeared on their classic, Fudge Pudge. I was hoping they were building up a surprise guest appearance and once they did perform "Fudge Pudge," O.C. indeed was introduced and spit his verse while the crowd, myself included, was going nuts in the rain.

But he didn't stop there folks. O.C. proceeded to drop his all-time classic Time's Up, and I officially lost my mind. I got so caught up in the moment, I completely forgot to take pics and the rain was not conducive to phone twittering at all.

After a few more joints, I had to take cover in one of the tents and enjoy the rest of the show from a distance as they continued to keep heads noddin' with more classics like Bring It On, Stress and Monch's solo classic,Simon Says. Definitely my most memorable moment from the fest so far.

I didn't think I was going to make thru the entire first day of the All Points West festival, with pouring rain and thunder storms turning an otherwise stellar lineup into a few hours of seeking cover. The rain came down so hard, at times it was impossible to twitter from my phone and a lot of my pics had the effects of a foggy lens or water drops.

However, I persevered through the storm, determined to catch one of the biggest acts in hip-hip, [artist]Jay-Z. Before I go any further, I must give the All Points West organizers serious props for keeping the artist schedules on point throught the storm. Now, before Jay-Z's set, I noticed his trailers near the press area. I was considering testing their security and crashing Hova's premises, but I settled for this picture instead:

I personally think i could have taken this dude but I guess we'll never know.

Of course, we had to wait a bit longer for Hova than all the other acts, but that was expected:


Hov, you're out of time. Quit apologizing to Beyonce and get yo butt on stage son:


And once he finally stepped on stage, he proved why he is one of hip-hop's class acts. As a matter of fact, it was only right that he kicked off his set to No Sleep Til Brooklyn, considering he was their replacement:


The stage was so high up, I couldn't get any shots of the homey DJ Neil Armstrong or the band from the pit, but y'all probably just wanted to see Hova anyway:


I was a little disappointed he didn't perform more tracks from Reasonable Doubt, but the masses weren't knowin' about him then, so instead, he went with selections from his most recent albums, like Blue Magic, Roc Boys (And The Winner Is) and his latest, D.O.A.

Overall, it was a solid show. I'm a bit skeptical how the Blueprint 3 will sound, but we'll save that for another discussion. Last night was all about Jay-Z and the music that has made him one of the most successful artists for the past fifteen years.

Getting to All Points West was not easy. First, you need to get to Battery Park (if you're coming from Manhattan), then you take a scenic ferry ride past the Statue of Liberty. When you get to the dock, you think you're there but not yet! You have to walk a mile to the entrance, not to mention the yardage on the festival grounds alone just to get to the main stage. It's a fun journey but only recommended for serious music lovers.



The ongoing thunderstorms were definitely a factor. For some it was a downer, yet many free-minded spirits made the best of it. Fleet Foxes' '70s rock-era harmonizing combined with the rain and the NYC skyline was magical (the lead singer Robin Pecknold commented on how awesome the rain was). But when the light drizzle turned to a downpour, that's when it got annoying.



It was dry for Ra Ra Riot, but then the (real) thunder started to steal the festival's thunder.



I took shelter in the free massage tent.


Here's a different kind of "media circus" - dozens of music editors staying dry by packing into a small tent.


I missed the photo pit for Vampire Weekend (they allow photographers in there for the first three songs only) but got this shot from the crowd during their hit "A-Punk," which fitting has the lyrics "Look outside at the raincoats coming, say oh!"


Even when the clouds blocked the skyline, The Pharcyde reminded us that were still in NY (were hip-hop began).