My personal music marathon started out with the Seattle-based upstarts, Beat Connection, who were fresh off the red-eye from the Left Coast. Their set started off with a bit of a bumpy start — with the laptop not cooperating just a couple songs in. While the band waited for the Mac to kick back in, they explained that they were super excited to be at CMJ, because it was their first time ever at the festival (as performers or attendees). Awww!
Knowing that the crowds would be pretty insane for FF day 2, I tried to get there relatively early to catch Purity Ring. Apparently I didn’t calculate on being their early enough — because most of my “earliness” was chewed up waiting for people to leave since the venue was at capacity. But the music gods were on my side, and I managed to get in before Purity Ring got up on stage.
Shrouded in near darkness, singer Megan James and bandmate Corin Roddick took the stage. I hesitate calling Roddick the “percussionist” only because the musical instrument that he plays is a contraption that can only be described as equal parts electronic drum machine, hand bells, Lite-Brite, and Pipeworks.
Frontwoman James is a petite little creature with an innocent face, long brown curly hair, and an apparently affinity for slightly gothy gear (demonstrated by her flowy knee-length dress and pendulum-style metal necklace thingy swinging from her neck). But while she may be small, she has a very strong stage presence.
I’ll admit, the sound was absolutely terrible so close to the stage, but from what I could hear, it sounded pretty darn good. Exhibit A and B below:
After some confusing stage shenanigans, Danny Brown and posse gave what felt like a crazy short set — which involved a Tiger-style sweatshirt (see below).
Then the last act of the evening took the stage — everyone’s favorite tattooed spritely punk, “your boy” Wavves, and his merry band of musical bandits. As expected, the crowd situation got a little crazy, so I cowered in a corner to the the left-side of the stage, staying clear of all the bouncer pushback and impromptu crowd surfing. (Getting hit in the head — like I did at my last Wavves concert — was not something I was aching to repeat.)
The fast and furious set was definitely fun. Afterwards, when Nathan came out from “backstage” (aka – from behind the makeshift stage area), eager young ladies and lads huddled around him as he gladly posed for pictures with his fans.
