T.I., Santigold, The Flaming Lips at Rites of Spring, The Protomen and more
Reality bites
The Spin is going to blame a certain telecommunications monopoly for forcing us into a situation where we had to watch Blueskyreality, one of the worst bands we've ever seen. See, if said monopoly (rhymes with Dumb-Assed) hadn't interfered with our regularly scheduled viewing of Growing Up... on Animal Planet, we would have shown up at Rites of Spring Friday night just in time to see the artists we actually wanted to see instead of showing up two hours early.
Catching locals Southerners Without Shirts (not their real name, sadly) and Blueskyreality (their real name, sadly) made it more than a little painful that we weren't at home watching fuzzy animals do cute, fuzzy animal things. Watching douchey dudes do douchey dude things leaves a lot to be desired.
Southerners Without Shirts, who actually have the far worse name of "Run With Bulls," were only notable because their singer wasn't wearing a shirt while there were cops and TV cameras present. Anybody that watches cable knows that Southerners without shirts in the presence of videographers and law enforcement will automatically end up in custody and TV coverage—which, in hindsight, might have been the plan 'cuz music that weak sure ain't gonna get the job done. But they were a lot better than Blueskyreality by a lot.
As a rule, there are a few things that should never leave a frontman's mouth while introducing a song—like, say, "We've never played this before," or, "I hope this doesn't suck," or, most especially, "Third Eye Blind are, like, our favorite band ever." The first two we expect from entry-level New Face Night-type acts and we can write that off as an amateur mistake. But the last one represents a character flaw so egregious it's unforgivable. It's one thing to like Third Eye Blind a lot (we don't understand why you would do that, but whatever), it's another thing to tell us about it right out the gate and ruin any hope we had for seeing you play even one decent song.
Seriously—Third Eye Blind? Were Dishwalla and The Verve Pipe too edgy for you? How does Third Eye Blind become anyone's favorite band? Is that what happens when you're too cool for Richard Marx but not cool enough for Semisonic?
Fortunately, the bludgeoning mediocrity was followed by K’Naan, one of the most innovative artists on today's global music scene. The Somali-born rapper's blend of hip-hop, Afro-folk/funk and, well, guitar pop was a perfect fit for a beautiful, sun-drenched afternoon. At first we were a little disappointed that he skipped the darker, more horrific songs from his album, but a whole lot of hope, optimism and sing-alongs is never a bad thing. Also, seeing a bunch of pasty-ass Vandy kids freakin' out to "This Is Africa" made us think that humanity might not be totally fucked—despite how hard Blueskyreality are trying to prove otherwise.
After a beer run (sorry, Okkervil River), we staked out a spot and got ready for some Santigold. Talk about a smile you could feel from 150 feet away—it was like she was beaming feel-good directly into our brain. Her set was badass and a lot of fun, which doesn't happen often enough. Santi dropped some Wu-Tang just for the hell of it, gave us the hits ("L.E.S. Artistes" and "Shove It" both killed extra hard) and had the crowd grinding like pepper mills. Is she the perfect woman? Maybe. Do we want to have her babies? Probably. Oh, and the sexy S-1Ws that flanked Santi on either side: totally awesome.
Q-tip managed to make it through his set despite some incredibly awkward problems with the sound system—as in no sound at all, then sound again, then no sound at all. Eesh. By the time T.I.>B> came out, Alumni Lawn was so jammed with cotton and flip-flops, and everyone so worked up into a froth, that ol' boy could have just spit and slurred through a sloppy, meandering, pointless set full of unnecessary talk breaks and monotonous jams, and everyone would have eaten that shit right up.
Smart, hardworking motherfuckers
After an exhausting but utterly fulfilling Record Store Day spent shop-hopping and early drinking, we checked in at Vanderbilt to catch the tail end of Saturday night's Rites of Spring happenings. Once we'd determined that the spare press pass we hoped to finagle for our date was indeed confirmed, we crossed campus to catch N.E.R.D. just as they kicked off their set.
Pharrell Williams, clearly adored by the female segment of the audience, made a valiant effort to get folks crowd-surfing. It eventually worked, but he seemed particularly interested in getting as many fly honeys dancing onstage as possible, though a few dudes joined the party as well. (We're pretty certain we spotted Pico vs. Island Trees vocalist Bryan Carter vocalist cutting a rug onstage at one point.) N.E.R.D. put on a remarkably rambunctious show, and we were pretty stoked at how hard Pharrell advocated responsible partying while simultaneously getting completely "asshole foolly." At least we think that's what he said.
Oklahoma's finest commenced their tremendously involved set-up shortly after 10 p.m., while our vote for Bitchinest Frontman of the New Millennium, Wayne Coyne, kept folks entertained with fistfuls of confetti and grand, foreshadowing gestures. Though a steady drizzle commenced just before the start of their set, it never became torrential, and Coyne ensured us that we'd all take the party elsewhere were technical difficulties to arise. He led off with the now-legendary inflated air globe, a plastic sphere in which he traverses the welcoming heads and hands of eager audience members. With all their equipment in fluorescent orange and yellow, the Lips used confetti cannons, countless balloons, a gong programmed to light up with each strike and an enormous video screen to collectively shatter the minds of their spectators (who, on the whole, weren't too douchey) in a manner that, well, basically only The Flaming Lips can.
They were joined at one point by Stardeath and White Dwarfs—fronted by Coyne's nephew—for a reprise of "Borderline," which the junior Coyne and his crew had played earlier in the day; it was as droney and awesome as any Madonna cover could possibly ever be. Steven Drozd was of course a badass on a variety of instruments, though he would only address the crowd in a strange, childlike falsetto, saying things like "Fuck yes" and "Thanks," while a gaggle of Teletubbies danced at either side of the stage. Adorable side note: One of said Tubbies (clad as Dipsy) was eventually granted access to the mic in order to propose to his girlfriend. (Lala, perhaps?) She said yes.
The Lips stuck mostly to later material (some Soft Bulletin, mostly Yoshimi and At War With the Mystics), but they saved the essential "She Don't Use Jelly" for near the end of the set, and Coyne launched into only a small political diatribe before "The W.A.N.D." It was mostly celebratory due to the fact that a "responsible, smart, hardworking motherfucker like Obama" is getting stuff done. The Lips finished just after midnight, and they left us feeling the unavoidable effects of the post-Lips hangover: intoxicated with positivity and light, addled from sensory overload and not exactly certain where we parked. Sweet. No complaints from us.
Protoroo
As with the first round of the Road to Bonnaroo 8 off 8th series, which The Features reportedly won by the narrowest of margins, this Monday's second installment was a virtual toss-up at night's end, as people wandered around the floor of Mercy Lounge. "Who'd you vote for?" people kept asking, with half-worried looks on their faces.
Most everyone we asked named one of the last three bands to play: AutoVaughn, How I Became the Bomb or The Protomen. The increasing shit-facedness of all involved might have influenced the voting, but that's just a theory, and a shit-faced theory at that. The fact that The Protomen destroyed a guitar and then took turns autographing its splintered remains for a group of giddy fans after the show ought to tell you that they closed things out in style. And we've never even played, uh, Mega Man Man 2.5 or whatever. Here's what we can remember of the rest of the night.
How I Became the Bomb did what they do, and it was good. A freshly repaired keytar enabled a "Secret Identity" finale, to which the crowd responded in kind. Things were getting pretty fuzzy by this point, though, and our heads were still ringing from AutoVaughn's set, which seemed like it would measure somewhere between the jackhammer and the airplane taking off on one of those "this is how fucked your hearing is going to be" charts.
Pico vs. Island Trees kicked out the lascivious jams, and we're pretty sure their songs were about wanting to get naked with naked girls and lie down without clothes like hot, hot monkeys. We couldn't tell what And the Relatives were singing about a lot of the time, though there was a kitchen sink in there, and probably everything else, too, 'cause that's what people usually mean when they mention a kitchen sink. Anyway, they rocked.
KS Rhoads was way slide-bluesier than we remembered, but we are awfully forgetful. (We should mention here that the place was packed, it felt like a Saturday night, and we couldn't tell if that was Erin McCarley onstage with Rhoads.) We missed a good chunk of Reno Bo's set, but what we could hear from the smoking section sounded patently inoffensive and a little bit rootsy, though we kinda hate the word "rootsy."
And finally, the first band. The bass player for Mike’s Pawn Shop was wearing some sort of headset with antennae sticking out of it. (We hope he knows about the switch to digital that's happening in June.) The band was, uh, energetic, to say the least, and as someone near us put it, "If this was The Road to the Warped Tour, I'd vote for them."
Early the next morning, the verdict was up on the Mercy Lounge website: The Protomen "by a landslide."
This week, we'll go on a beer run during your band's set. Email thespin@nashvillescene.com.
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