Ranting About Music’s (Eternally Un)Official Bunbury Report: Sunday Superlatives

Posted on June 6, 2016 by bgibs122

That third festival day is rough.

Okay, in a lot of ways it isn’t, because you’re still there to see live music, and live music is very dope, but the Festival Magic (TM) is over. You’re over paying $6.25 for a Miller High Life. That awkward wristband tan-line isn’t going away. You know it’ll take nothing short of homicide or at least aggravated assault to be able to see a thing at the River Stage once a band’s started. You feel kind of like Jennifer Lawrence on the set of a new X-Men movie.

And yet you’re still there, loving it. Sunday might have been lower energy, but it had a lot of great bands, and the people-watching aspect kicked in. So instead of a straight recap or My Top 5 Hot Take Moments, here are some superlatives.

IMG_3237Hardest Rocking Stage: The River Stage.
Even though this is easily the stage I saw the least of, it housed the loudest and hardest rocking bands. Diarrhea Planet’s soundcheck alone on Saturday was rock and roll as fuck on its own, and the same went for Holy White Hounds’ yesterday, who rocked faces when I looped back around for their set, same for Cincy rockers Mad Anthony earlier in the day. Grizfolk were probably loud, too.

Stage Most Likely to Have Hosted a Future Motivational Speaker: The Sawyer Point Stage.
Between good-time-guys Red Wanting Blue and the wildly overeager X Ambassadors on Friday, Austin “Such a Nice Boy” Plaine on Saturday, and then Flint Eastwood all fired up yesterday, the Sawyer Point Stage attracted the weekend’s peppiest acts. Electropop singer-songwriter Flint Eastwood owned the shit out of her set, throwing impassioned speeches and thank yous between her impassioned (and pretty good!) songs. It’s gotta be a hard life playing the pre-4:00 slots, but her and Oddisee had to have picked up a lot of fans over the weekend. They earned it.

Weirdest Sign
For like, 70% of the weekend, I thought this one was going to go to the person in a rubber chicken mask that held a cardboard sign announcing “#JoinTheRevolution.” But then, I found out today that the Chicken Man’s “revolution” is just the name of a local foodie joint, and now I’m conflicted because 1. I’ll be honest, I was expecting something way weirder, but 2. Who doesn’t like rotisserie chicken?

Anyway, the Rotisserie Revolution lost already because on Sunday, I saw a man standing in place with a handmade “LIVENATION KILLED PRINCE” sign, and fuck it, there’s no beating that.

Biggest Bunbury Look For Him and Her: Whatever was on the shelf at H&M.
I’m not a festival veteran or anything, but over the last twoish years that I’ve attended Bunbury, the festival look seems to have gotten pretty homogenized since H&M straight up branded themselves as “Shit you’re supposed to wear while watching HAIM play at sunset, dummy.” If you got mugged, and your only description of the couple who jumped you was “A woman 16-25 in high-waisted shorts and a crop-top and a 16-25 year old male in pastel shorts and boatshoes with a fully unbuttoned floral print Hawaiian shirt,” then either cut your losses or expect the police to interrogate half the festival.

Second Biggest Bunbury Look For Her: Rompers. What’s it like to wear a romper? Genuinely curious on this; I have no frame of reference, clothing-wise.

Second Biggest Bunbury Look For Him: Out of season basketball jerseys. The most interesting of the bunch were two dudes in coordinating home/away Iverson jerseys, two separate Tune-Squad ones, and a guy in a UNC Jordan jersey (depending on how cruel you’re feeling, you can include the legion of Cavs jerseys here, too).

Band Most Likely To Appear on a Teen Drama Soundtrack Before Year’s End: Lany.
Los Angeles’ Lany seem lab-grown to reach teenage heartthrob status. Their lead singer is a Sensitive Surfer longhair who thanked us for being the largest audience they’ve had, their songs include lines about driving in the summer (with you, natch), and they prominently displayed a gear case that had “Love Sucks Sometimes” taped on it. They make pop rock that my girlfriend pointed out sounds like The 1975, and I totally agree: if The 1975 hadn’t gone camp on their last record, this is what they’d sound like.

Most Entertaining Way to Kill Time Camped Out Between Sets: Watching footage of Elle King get progressively more sunburned at the opposite side of the festival while waiting for Of Monsters and Men. We also tried to guess when she was singing “Exes & Oh’s”

Presidential Candidate Elected Based on Number of T-Shirts: Bernie Sanders.
Although I suppose wearing Trump memorabilia at the same venue that Ice Cube is playing is just asking for a fight.

World’s Most Popular Band That Didn’t Play Bunbury Based on Number of T-Shirts: Pearl Jam
Apparently, Pearl Jam are becoming Springsteen-esque in that their tour merch is the go-to for any show.

Stage That Came Closest to Maximum On-Stage Occupancy: Main stage
Most acts this weekend came in at a respectable 4 or 5 members, and then Of Monsters and Men brought half of Iceland with them for their 9 person ensemble. Not to be outdone, Florence + the Machine brought 12 people, and Florence Welch lamented not being able to bring a choir for “Shake It Out,” asking us to be her “hungover angels” instead. We obliged. It was wonderful.

Best Singing Voice Vs. Talking Disparity: Singing “Spectrum,” Florence Welch of Florence + the Machine has a voice Stereogum once called “a solar flare.” Talking to her audience between songs, she has the voice of a teacher gently reminding Ms. Welch’s kindergarten class of the importance of washing our hands before snack. I don’t get it, either.

Artist Most Considerate of the Audience: Grimes introduced “Scream” by explaining that Aristophanes wasn’t there to rap her verses in Mandarin, and asking if it was okay with us if she did them in Russian instead (sidenote: Grimes is the best). At other points, she advised us to put in earplugs if we wanted to because this next song was loud, apologized for hitting wrong buttons on her console because the sun was still out, thanked her back-up singers/dancers, and explained after “Ave Maria” that the dance break looks cooler in the dark.

IMG_3261I realize that might scan as apologetic, but in concert, it was much more like a mad scientist explaining that she’s about to create a lightning storm in her lab, or taking a second to make sure she’s properly going to turn causality on its head. I loved last year’s Art Angels, and seeing large parts of it live was wonderful; “Flesh Without Blood” made an appearance, everyone lost their shit to “Scream” (Grimes does those throat-shredding yells live, too), and in “Venus Fly” she had a bigger, meaner EDM jam than anything DeadMau5 did the night before. And not only was “Kill V. Maim” one of last year’s best songs, it’s apparently her favorite to play live. Grimes spent time between songs constantly at her synths and workstations making sure everything was right, and it made sense why: her music and live show are so intricate but fully formed that they seem teleported from some cyberpunk anime pop star’s alternate dimension. She even had one of the best crowds, too (Grimes is, again, the best). If you ever get a chance, see her live; it’s like getting shot into space.

Best Bunbury Sets Ranked by How Much I Danced
6. Leggy
5. Charles Bradley
4. The Killers
3. Big Grams
2. Florence + the Machine
1. Grimes

Ad I Was Sickest Of By the End of the Festival: Mikey’s Late Night Slice has pizza good enough and cheap enough that I had it twice ($5 a pop for a slice as big as my face was great for my hungry and broke ass–other sidenote: never move the week before a music festival), but they have the fucking creepiest looking mascot, and that jackass was on like, 4 different looping promos and I think there was even a costumed one running around, terrifying children.

Most Pleasantly Surprising Fashion Trend: Chokers are back in a big way. No one told me.

Most Unpleasantly Surprising Fashion Trend: Dear God, the number of obnoxious dudes I saw in Stars & Stripes shorts and/or American Flag brotanks. The same basic bros who wear them are the same dudes who’ll tell you about their idea for a startup, or about that time them and their man Austin got hammered at Applebees happy hour “ironically.” Might as well be a damn tuxedo t-shirt.

Most Adorable Act Witnessed: Florence Welch encouraged everyone to put someone on their shoulders as part of “Rabbit Heart (Raise It Up)” (get it, “raise it up”? ha ha ha), and right away, most people did. Just in front of us, I saw this endearingly shy pair of slight looking teenagers whose body language said so loudly that they wanted to try it, if only the other one said “Okay, so we’re doing this.” They would lean into position, but pull back because they were waiting on confirmation from the other one to go for it. I was actively rooting for them after, like, the third attempt. Warmed my heart.

IMG_3283Artist Most Likely to Have Written an Album Specifically for Festivals: Florence+ the Machine. I don’t know that Welch and company wrote last year’s How Big How Blue How Beautiful to make sure they always had a font size over like, Fitz and the Tantrums, on festival posters, but as a conspiracy theory, it’s at least as credible as LiveNation killing Prince. That album’s larger than life cuts (“What Kind of Man,” the title track, “Mother,” and “Delilah”) are able to stand shoulder to shoulder with the best of their earlier work, all of which is incredibly live/festival friendly. The chorus to “Shake It Out” will always sound ebullient, but gets even more so when you’re belting it out pressed next to kids with flower crowns and drawstring bags. Welch sang as she ran around the stage, climbed parts of the rigging for “Rabbit Heart,” and leaped into the crowd, but she almost didn’t have to because we sang every word right with her.

It was also a blast to see because Florence + the Machine is my girlfriend’s favorite band ever, and seeing someone see their favorite band live is it’s own form of magic, and an excellent end to this year’s massive, muddy, Bunbury.

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Ranting About Music’s Still Soggy (And Still Un)Official Bunbury Report: Saturday 2016

Posted on June 5, 2016 by bgibs122

A buddy of mine has what he calls Lotto Ticket Days: days where enough random, inconvenient, and trifling bullshit happens that you might as well buy a lottery ticket because fuck it, how’s your day gonna get weirder at this point? Between storms, rain delays, and a kooky line-up even by Bunbury standards, yesterday was the festival’s Lotto Ticket Day. Let’s begin.

Foxing
So, I’m just never going to get to Bunbury’s Saturday shows on time. To show up late in 2014 was happenstance, to happen again last year was understandable, but if I’ve run late for 3 years in a row now for the same day, the problem is me. And I accept this character flaw. Some people can’t cross bridges, some people can’t get their life together before 2 PM on a Saturday. This year, it meant seeing Foxing’s last thirty seconds of playing, and what a cathartic half a minute it was.

IMG_3190Oddisee
Having gotten my 30 seconds of emo for the day, I made my way to the main stage to see Oddisee and his band Good Company, who–because of Bunbury’s weird availability scheduling–was the only act playing during his entire set. But it was time well-spent: Oddisee’s a conscious rapper with a live soul band sound, and with his every-man raps and affable presence, he played well off the crowd and made the main stage feel intimate. He reminded me of a slicker, smarter J.Cole. The cloud cover that started during his set crested with rain as he wrapped up an actually pretty funny piss-take “trap” version of one of his songs, but what’s a few rain drops ever hurt?

IMG_3192Conner Youngblood
“Wait, I think he’s actually playing now?”

The friends I was meeting for the day caught up with me during Conner Youngblood’s rain-delayed soundcheck, and I interrupted our conversation with the above as Youngblood’s intermittent effects-heavy electric guitar strums and synth loops became more constant but not louder electric guitar strums and synth loops. I usually roll my eyes when someone calls an artist “post-The Weeknd” because it strikes me as a try-hard description, but I could definitely see a younger, er, Youngblood jamming on “Wicked Games” or “The Party & the After Party;” he seems to favor The Weeknd’s brand of gauzy R&B. Which sounds good on record, but has trouble translating live: maybe the rain delay threw him off, but Youngblood seemed a little listless during a relatively lowkey set that convinced me he has a good SoundCloud page. A bit of an off set, but he powered through it, rain or shine.

IMG_3198The Neighbourhood
I’ve carped about this basically since the line-up was announced, but this year’s Bunbury gets plain damn weird with its roster. No where is this summed up better than sort of R&B, sort of pop, sort of rock one hit wonders The Neighbourhood getting a 5:00 to 6:00 set. Admittedly, it’s an uphill battle for a lot of bands to look cool in sunlight (see: Coldplay’s daytime Super Bowl performance), but a temperate group that leans on #aesthetic as hard as The Neighbourhood does really needs a nighttime set to even have a chance at looking convincing. Otherwise, their occasionally AutoTuned, mid-tempo balladry just looks corny.

But they were also responsible for my favorite “break character” moves of the day. The storm clouds from earlier came rolling back in after about 6 or 7 songs no one recognized. The rain came back during sort-of hit “Afraid,” and my friend remarked that, “This would be a good time for some sweater weather!” Shit you not, frontman Jesse Rutherford made a show of stopping “Afraid” midway through, and tried to hint around to his bandmates to start “Sweater Weather” without giving away that he wanted to play “Sweater Weather” in the rain. After a few “Hey, play the…you know” and “Start doing [drum pattern]”, he sang part of the chorus, and they got it. As they soldiered through “Sweater Weather,” the rain picked up into a near storm, then a full storm, causing them to say “Thanks!” and duck off as everyone headed for shelter. Was hearing “Sweater Weather” worth getting soaked through? Apparently, yes, but it was definitely cold by that point.

Rain Sucks
After The Neighbourhood officially won the Tame Impala Memorial Rainbury Award around 5:45, the next two hours was like the camping part of the last Harry Potter book: a buncha slow shit while everyone waited on the plot (or in this case, the festival) to kick back in. We waited out the storm in the tunnel under the Purple People Bridge, ate, and then we parked it in front of the Sawyer Point stage for Big Grams to start at 7:00. People behind us were swatting around a beach ball (I guess they were Death Eaters, if we’re taking this Potter comparison further), and just as BG was about to start, it starts storming again, but with the fun, fun addition of lightning. At that point, the Bunbury staff started telling people head for cover again. I don’t remember how long the delay was, but it was long enough that we went back to the tunnel, and I remembered that everyone, and I mean everyone hates that fucking camping part of Harry Potter.

IMG_3214Big Grams
I haven’t heard any of BigGrams (a duo made of indie poppers Phantograms and Big Boi). I’d kept an eye on the project, but I didn’t pay attention after their EP came and went with a shrug.

But they ended up being exactly what I needed live. I still haven’t heard any of their recorded stuff, but live, they’re responsible for some massive, cooler-than-you bangers that it’s easy to lose your shit to. Sarah Barthel’s hooks and vocals were great, Big Boi is one of the coolest people on the planet at any given moment, and the two worked great together with Big Grams songs, plus Phantogram and Outkast song or two apiece. The rain and mud soaked crowd lapped it up, and my friend and I had a blast. Some yahoo in front of us said “These two are feeling it” and it’s like no shit, bro, why wouldn’t we? Why aren’t you?

IMG_3224Ice Cube
Bunbury’s scheduling again meant that after some day acts had the festival to themselves, later names had to compete with each other. For my part, this meant being torn between seeing Ice Cube, and up and coming rockers Diarrhea Planet, who were playing opposing night times. I ran into a few kids I went to school with while sitting at DP’s facemelting sound check, and one of them made the (late night festival, but logically sound) argument that Cube was the better pick because his solo tickets went for like $200, and DP would probably let you into their next show in the area for a 24 pack of cheap beer.

So, it was off to O’Shea Jackson’s set we went. At this point, Ice Cube’s able to tour off of being motherfucking Ice Cube, and he delivered in damn near every way. “Natural Born Killaz,” “Gangsta Rap Made Me Do It,” “You Can Do It,” and “Check Yo’ Self” all appeared, as did N.W.A. standbys “Straight Outta Compton,” “Gangsta, Gangsta,” and “Fuck Tha Police” with his son O’Shea Jackson Jr.; there was barely anything that went un-performed. He didn’t have any elaborate setup, only a screen that played music videos in background, and he didn’t need one: Ice Cube’s just a cool enough (ha) and funny enough guy that he can show up, crack shit out, and call it a blast. He even did a side vs. side chant where I got to say “fuck you!” to the people in the V.I.P, what’s not to like? Between him and Big Grams, this wet, confusing, muddy day almost made sense again.

Dead-Mow-Five
After big sets from an alternative rock act, an indie-pop meets southern hip-hop duo, a jam band, beer-swilling garage punks, and a rap veteran, day 2 of Bunbury ended with an EDM show. I don’t get it, either.

If I’m being honest “I don’t get it” is also gonna apply to DeadMau5, a choice so bizarre that I thought the late announcement that he was headlining was trolling. Y’all know me: EDM doesn’t get covered a lot on here. It’s not that I’m adverse to it, it’s just not by and large my scene, DeadMau5 especially. His tempo and beat seemed monotonous and without texture, there wasn’t anything to latch onto, and there was only so much of seeing him at the console with the mouse head sitting next to him that I could find engaging. I’ve always heard that EDM is one of those “for the drugs” things, and after seeing DeadMau5, I could kinda see it: if you’re not fucked up, there’s a limited appeal. For a genre called “electronic dance music,” I had an easier time dancing to Big Grams or Cube than this. I don’t know, maybe I need to see Calvin Harris or whoever, instead.

But for now, me and my still probably damp shoes are back off for day 3.

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Ranting About Music’s (Still Very Un)Official Bunbury Report: Friday 2016

Posted on June 4, 2016 by bgibs122

Cincinnati’s Bunbury music festival is my festival of choice, if only because it’s the only big one that happens right in my backyard in the summer. So here’s how Day 1 went.

IMG_3116Leggy
Full disclosure: I know Leggy’s bassist through a few mutual friends, but these Cincinnati natives are so in my lane that I’d root for them regardless. Leggy’s self-described lush punk, to me, sounds like Lana Del Rey starting a garage punk band after shotgunning listens to Wavves’ King of the Beach. I saw them twice last year in February and September or so, but never on as big a stage as opening Bunbury.

Leggy have spent most of September to now touring, and it (and playing the big stage) has paid off immensely. Their songs sound best as high-power kiss offs, and they blasted through about half a dozen of their most potent, road-tested ones as loud and as confident as I’ve heard them. Every time I’ve seen Leggy, it’s always been a progression for them in terms of audience size; I’d love to see them keep playing bigger places. If you want somewhere to start, this year’s DANG EP should be on yr summer list. Playing first at a festival is preferable to being one of the first, and Leggy started the day on a high note.

IMG_3120The Shelters
I came up with a theory yesterday. The theory goes that the more band members you have on stage wearing unadorned, trendy slim-fit all-black clothing, the less interesting the band is gonna sound. That’s not to say you should run from every band whose singer has a black t-shirt and blue jeans or members in mismatching black tanks and cut-offs, but if you’re seeing four white guys in plain black t-shirts and black jeans, at best this set won’t contain any surprises, and at worst, you might be seeing Imagine Dragons. I’m calling this the All-Black Theory.

Anywho, I was refining this theory while watching The Shelters. The Shelters only had two principle members in all black–their bassist went off-brand in a navy button down and their drummer had a green Hawaiian shirt–but their version of slick blues rock with a hint of glam seemed like a good representation of a 50% All-Black band. It was fun, but you knew what you were getting two songs in. And for an early festival slot, something you can nod your head to while spinning theories about rock band wardrobes is where you want to be.

Red Wanting Blue
The most memorable part of Red Wanting Blue’s agreeable set was the slight disagreement it caused among my friends who were present. Was Red Wanting Blue’s chill vibe more Hootie and the Blowfish, or was his vibesy chill more Dave Matthews Band? What about 3 Doors Down for his harder rocking stuff? How do Barenaked Ladies factor in? For my money, RWB could most represent DMB if they notched a few alt. radio hits; Matthews’ “It’s alright cuz it’s all right” feels like a clear aspiration that hasn’t been realized yet. Maybe RWB will make it, maybe not. In the meantime, my friends concurred that Stunt is excellent.

The Mowgli’s
The Mowgli’s played a 4:00 PM set to a mostly captive and pretty receptive audience. A lot of this came down to how Bunbury’s structured this year: there are only 3 stages (to last year’s 4), two of which (Yeatmen’s Cove mainstage and the Serpentine Wall River Stage) are fairly close while the Sawyer Point Stage is pitched at the opposite end of the festival, and the schedule’s arranged that there are rarely wholly competing sets. On one hand, the idea is that you can kinda see everyone the PromoWest overlords booked, but it also leads to wonky scheduling moments, like the 15 minute dead-time before The Mowgli’s where no one was playing, and the 30 minutes where they were only act. And they were good alt. radio act, but once another options was available, I took it.

IMG_3126PVRIS
Going back to the All-Black Theory, PVRIS (actually pronounced “Paris,” which is nowhere near how I was saying it) was made of four people wearing all-black, but they were tanktops, crop-tops, and cut-off shirts with designs, which gets them out of the All-Black Danger Zone. The all-black look fit their aesthetic and sound, which was that post-hardcore meets drop-friendly electronic meets pop sound that played well on the Warped circuit a few years back. But PVRIS were great because they have the songs, the variety, and just the sheer intensity of will to make it work, and instead of getting the Cults Memorial Indie Pop Award, I straight up enjoyed myself.

IMG_3129The Wombats
I mostly mention The Wombats to share this picture of how cool but hella overcrowded the River Stage gets when this is the only band playing. Also, I’m not sure how well it translates here, but The Wombats definitely look like dudes who’d be in a band called The Wombats.

Charles Bradley & His Extraordinaires 
As you may have noticed so far, Friday was almost exclusively, exhaustingly rock bands. And I like rock bands! But sometimes you need a little variety, and soul belter Charles Bradley and His Extraordinaires were more than happy to oblige. Bradley was first inspired by James Brown and later cut his teeth as a James Brown impersonator, and he brings the stage presence he must have honed there to his own material (his 3rd album was released earlier this year). He brought that old show business charm to Bunbury: his backing band introduced him and played him on, he had a costume change from one gloriously open necked suit to another with a sequined jacket (why did I not stand closer for this set?!), had a dance break, and at 67 years old brought more joy and presence than damn near anyone else. Bradley’s guitarist introduced him by asking if we were ready to fall in love, and three songs in, the answer was undeniably yes.

X Ambassadors
Man, this was a weird one.

Music critic and fellow Ohioan Chris DeVille once described Bunbury as bringing in occasional corny fake indie bands, and based on my very limited exposure to X Ambassadors, I feel like they fit that description. Take “Unsteady” or the Jeep-hawking “Renegades” for example: they’re not bad songs, but kind of flavorless in that way “rock” songs have to be to cross over nowadays. And this is a band who rang the All-Black Danger Zone warning bell when they walked out in pre-shrunk black tees and black pants. They boasted about doing a song with the king of Corny Fake Indie Bands, Imagine Dragons. They had the world’s most overeager keyboardist. Their lead singer played sax solos.

And yet, they showed they could do so much more. Lead singer Sam Harris has a killer falsetto that goes relatively underutilized, and the band had a few honest to God rock-out moments, especially on “Jungle” that got its own shred-heavy guitar solo. There’s not much stopping them from going for It Won’t Be Soon For Long-era Maroon 5 with the falsetto or veering into a pop version of Queens of the Stone Age if they really wanted to. But they reverted to corny fake indie with closer “Renegades.” Which was fine, but I’ve never seen a band so willing to play smoke and mirrors with their own abilities.

IMG_3145HAIM
Let me touch one last time on the All-Black Theory and why I think it matters to a live band. Wearing your Target 4-pack black shirts and off the rack black pants is such a lousy choice because it’s literally going out of your way to look nondescript. No normal person picks this outfit. It’s the industry standard for pit orchestra members and stage hands whose job is not to be seen, and as a member of a rock band, being seen is like 53% of your job. If you’re gonna be the dude in X Ambassadors playing the shit out of a guitar solo, you need to look the damn part.

I mention all of this because HAIM is really, really good at the rock band look. I mean, yes the outfits were on point (so much so that my friend remarked their outfits were giving her life this late in the day), but it goes beyond just what you’re wearing. Este Haim’s bassface is already a quick topic for discussion, but sisters Danielle and Alana get in on it as well, making faces, headbanging, swaying, and strutting across stage just feeling their own music. Everyone even coordinated movements during a cover of Prince’s “I Would Die 4 U.” And you start having more fun because they’re having more fun.

HAIM doesn’t just have the look and the charisma, they have the songs, too. I respected Days Are Gone more than I liked it–“The Wire” connected, little else truly did–but now I’m convinced my problem with it was that it was a HAIM album and not a HAIM live album. The intricacies are still there live, but the moments where everything comes together are so much more thrilling; “My Song 5” was this full-bodied stomper live when it just kind of shuffles on record. They have a new album on the way soonish, so maybe that’ll fire off more.

IMG_3168The Killers
I completely skipped Tom Petty’s Mudcrutch to get a good spot for The Killers because I am a good/terrible millennial and a terrible rock critic.

But as soon as The Killers opened with one of my favorite jams ever “Spaceman” I knew it was worth it. The Killers, at least to me, occupy this space where I’ll probably never list them as a favorite band, but I know most of the words to and will wild the fuck out to at least half a dozen of their biggest hits. And holy shit do those hits still hit: those first few seconds of “Somebody Told Me” sound like the bombs falling around you 12 years later, and the guitar in “Smile Like You Mean It” still as urgent. Frontman Brandon Flowers knows how to pump out the Las Vegas charm, talking amicably about the Reds winning a game, how much he loved home and traveling, how good it was to play, and he graciously introduced the band’s cover of Interpol’s “Obstacle 1” which worked great.

He had a great crowd to play off of, too. The Killer’s best stuff aims big and feels bigger, perfect for singalongs on “When You Were Young” and “All These Things I’ve Done,” and ballads like “The Way It Was” and “A Dustland Fairytale” were almost euphoric. The night was picturesque at times; because it was Fireworks Friday at Great American Ballpark behind the stage, we were treated to fireworks during barn-burner “Runaways” and the band’s cover of Elvis’ “Can’t Help Falling In Love.” I’ll be honest, I wasn’t super thrilled about seeing The Killers until it happened, but once it did, it was somehow everything I’d wanted all day.

Welp, I’m running late for today’s set!

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“I’m Not Like You Guys”: Ten Years of Angels and Airwaves

Posted on May 23, 2016 by bgibs122

Ten years ago today, erstwhile blink-182 co-founder Tom DeLonge released the first album by his second band, We Don’t Need to Whisper by Angels & Airwaves. This was a baffling move in 2006, and has only gotten more confusing with time, because from the day they started, Angels & Airwaves (abbreviated as “AvA”) have always been a weird band. Not in the sense of making off-beat artistry or anything like that, but in the sense that DeLonge walked away from the commercial juggernaut that was blink-182 to hunker down and write about like, his mind’s eye or whatever for a fraction of the audience and influence. It’s been ten years dedicated to a flunky idea, a story made even more bizarre by the fact that AvA have yet to make a Great album. So little has been written about this band because only a sap would take this seriously a decade out.

Here’s the thing, though: I find Angels & Airwaves sort of fascinating. To clarify, it’s the same part of me that saw/followed the spectacle of last year’s Fantastic 4 reboot, and spent a week in December obsessed over Kid Cudi’s grunge-rock flop Speedin’ Bullet 2 Heaven; it’s a mix of genuine awe and appreciation with a healthy side of rubbernecking. It’s a sentiment born of asking “Why was this made?” If Angels & Airwaves was a brief vanity project, it’d be easy to say it exists to validate Tom DeLonge’s as an artist or something. But AvA is a band that has now survived a full ten years and different permutations. It clearly means a lot to DeLonge, so much so that he was willing to kill blink-182 (twice!) for it. There has to be something to this.

Astute readers will notice that the title quote isn’t from a We Don’t Need to Whisper song, or any Angels & Airwaves song for that matter, but from blink-182’s “Aliens Exist.” “Aliens Exist” isn’t a well-known blink song; it’s a deep cut from 1998’s Enema of the State that hasn’t been played live since 2002 (according to setlist.fm) whose biggest claim to fame is getting peppered with gay jokes on The Mark, Tom and Travis Show. But as a song about space, conspiracy theories, and Life Out There, it shot into relevance as space became a big part of AvA’s iconography at launch some 7 or 8 years later in the fallout of blink-182’s implosion.

I also lead with a blink quote because you can’t talk about Angels and Airwaves without touching on blink 182’s 2005 hiatus. In reality, blink’s hiatus was DeLonge quitting the band, something that all three members would dispute less as time went on. DeLonge has maintained that he quit the band because he wasn’t able to spend enough time with his family and had concerns about the band’s creative direction, and whereas bassist Mark Hoppus and drummer Travis Barker attribute the split to DeLonge trying to dictate the terms on which blink existed. Either way, the fact remains that blink-182’s break up was a widely-publicized dissolution of one of the world’s most popular rock bands when that distinction meant something. And, with all three members visible in the press, there was a public interest in next steps.

Reading post-2005 interviews with DeLonge, you get the feeling that he eventually saw blink-182 less as a ship to be steered, and more one to be abandoned. In a 2006 interview with Rolling Stone, he distances himself from the band, saying it was something he started when he was 16 that sort of kept going. Even when he came back to blink for an ill-fated reunion, he held the band’s jokester legacy at arm’s length, implying that blink-182 was who he was while Angels and Airwaves is who he is.

That DeLonge wants Angels and Airwaves to be his legacy is thunderingly obvious to anyone whose heard their debut single “The Adventure” and its “Hello, here I am/And here we go/Life’s waiting to begin” chorus. DeLonge had to make a good first impression with AvA’s first single/video, and on that front, “The Adventure” succeeds: you walk away from the song’s soaring, reverb-soaked, U2-biting guitar riff, that strident, stadium rock beat, and arms wide open chorus, and the video about the stars and planets and nature and life and shit, and you immediately get what Angels and Airwaves is about and are curious to hear/see more. This is gonna be a band that’s about positivity and light and healing and finding beauty and how we can save each other from ourselves and war (2006) and the human condition and everything bright and Important, and it’s going to be super Artistic and full of Statements. Suck it, Hoppus.

As you might have noticed, the fact that we aren’t living in naturalistic, spacefaring utopias communing with each other through our spiritual energies means that neither “The Adventure” nor the rest of We Don’t Need to Whisper set the world on fire. There are two reasons for this. First of all, DeLonge looks 546 times sillier as a Serious Artist waving his arms to illustrate the magic of the forest than he ever did running through a city naked or mocking Britney Spears. Secondly, for the considerable mileage AvA gets from their sci-fi rock band aesthetic, WDNTW is a decent if very limited album. Earlier I said “The Adventure” was a great first impression, and maybe it did its job a little too well: nothing on the record pushes outside that song’s sonic pallet, and those elements (“big” sound, reverbing guitars, soft synths, etc.) rarely coalesce as well elsewhere in the album. In fact, it would take until AvA’s fifth album The Dream Walker in 2014 for DeLonge to not use “The Adventure” as a template.

We Don’t Need To Whisper has plenty of cool moments–“Valkyrie Missile” is as cinematic an opener as you’ll ever find, “It Hurts” and “The War” are solid tunes, “Do It for Me Now” has a surprisingly effective beat, and at least it always sounds pretty–but it comes with a set of built-in weaknesses. DeLonge’s responsible for what works here, and in a very tangible way, he’s responsible for what doesn’t. Pulling off work this focused on uplift without sounding corny or contrite requires a deft touch he just doesn’t have, nor does he have a voice capable of supporting a melody when the tempos are as lumbering (side note because this will never be relevant again: “Distraction” always reminds me of Paul McCartney’s “Wonderful Christmas Time” for reasons I can’t explain and piss me off). He also falls for the common (and incorrect) presumption that Serious Artistry Means Long Songs, stretching everything here north of 4 minutes long, resulting in a 49 minute album that feels at least 10 minutes longer than that.

All of these factors contributed to a decidedly mixed reaction. The album sold well enough thanks to legions of inherited blink-182 fans, but didn’t generate any hit singles of its own, and critical reception peaked at “well-intentioned but misguided.” Audiences were likely put off by DeLonge’s proclamations that Angels and Airwaves first album was going to be “The best music made in decades” and that he was “preparing the greatest rock and roll revolution for this generation”, claims that don’t exactly pass muster for a mild-mannered 80’s-era U2 record. DeLonge would later circle back on these comments, disclosing that they were the result of then painkiller addiction, but it would seem sobriety hasn’t changed the modus operandi for AvA, who released records to a lesser–but still sizeable–fanbase in 2007, 2010 (one of RAM’s earliest reviews, in fact), 2011, and 2014.

In recent years, DeLonge’s gone multi-media with AvA, too. Around the release of their second album in 2007, he founded Modlife, a sort of pro-Bandcamp/social media hybrid for bands to connect with audiences, and started prepping for an AvA full length movie. The movie LOVE eventually came out in 2011 (I watched it back when it was on Netflix–it’s a fine “it’s late and my brain is slightly melted” sci-fi drama), and in 2014, Modlife transitioned into To The Stars to focus more on AvA related ventures. With this shift, the band’s become more of a studio project; longtime guitarist David Kennedy and bassist Matt Wachter scaled back their involvement somehow, leaving just DeLonge and drummer/instrumentalist Ilan Rubin. Through TTS, DeLonge’s produced books, animated movies, and graphic novels based on AvA’s output and alien conspiracies, as well as EPs and demo comps at a decent clip. Presumably there’s an audience out there for t-shirt and graphic novel bundles and AvA instrumental downloads, but I also wonder if any of these book deals are subsidized by like, “First Date” royalties.

Ten years in, Angels & Airwaves aren’t in the upper echelon of rock bands, but I think DeLonge’s fine with this. He’s finally somewhere where, even if his vision gets laughed at by outsiders, it’s his. No one can take that from him. This dedication was reaffirmed last year when he was fired or quit again (depending on whose story you believe) from blink-182 after refusing to put in time for a new blink record. Honestly, AvA’s lasting legacy might just be how much they’ve meddled with blink’s: the ’05 hiatus sidelined blink just as a newer generation of pop-punk acts came up, you can hear AvA all over their not very good post-reunion album, and they’re why the newest version of blink features Matt Skiba. More than that, without that first hiatus, blink-182 stays contemporary for a longer time; now as a reunion/legacy act, anything Skiba, Hoppus, and Barker come up with will forever be written off for the Mark, Tom, and Travis show. The ten years after We Don’t Need to Whisper haven’t always been predictable, but for better or worse, DeLonge didn’t plan on being quiet. You can hear it as “Valkyrie Missile” ends: “Who do we think we are? We are Angels & Airwaves.”

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