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Gentlemen and Gentlewomen of the EA Forum, Friends;


Never have I had such an excellent weekend of music.


Whilst in hindsight, I, on Friday:

did lament missing the Shipping News,

did not lament missing the Supersystem,

did laud the kickassery of the entire Venus Luxury No. 1 album (despite overwhelming extra-bass flavor) of the GVSB set,

did embrace hearing Ted Leo /Rx finally, but to marginal results,

did lament wasting unretrievable minutes on !!!,



Whilst in hindsight, I, on Saturday:

was struck dumb trying to do the math on how The New Year could have been any better,

did vigourously re-educate myself regarding Italian skronk,

cheered with nostalgia to the memory of sweaty nights of Damore and Haggerty,

was seared with beauty and prowess and class via a unique postlude from the SKWM catalog,

did miss the bass from the Ex solely for my own personal reasons that in no way shape or form was due to any fault of the band and their performance,

was caught up when Killdozer crushed the crowd and re-built them in to new and more powerful machines,

heard Kat & Jon directly and clearly whist consuming consumer consumables

did lament missing a portion of the Didjits fine set due to the required stabilizing effects of walking-off of the second drunk of the day,

did lament hearing only the slightest delightful whisper of "Now I Truly Understand" by PW Long while staking Scratch Acid territory,

ignored Negative Approach successfully,

was won over by Sally Timms despite the outfit that guy was wearing, despite being entirely preoccupied with a minor miraculously forthcoming event,

had my brain entirely blown apart by the sheer savant majesty that was Messrs. Bradford, Sims, Washem, Yow - dear sweet Flying Spaghetti Monster, they were all that I have ever hoped for 18 years (and they played "Albino Slug"),

wandered around in a daze, a scratching, acid-hangover daze, while fostering the fourth drunk of the day and having MoAM as subconscious soundtrack,

did not know what to think for what seemed like hours and then the Biggest of Black (Evil Steve! Don Santiago! Fashion-forward Pezzatti!) opened with the first song I ever heard of their top-shelf output, maintaining exactly what they set out to do, and sadly repeating history by ending before it was entirely necessary,

felt my battered fugue state blown apart by the precision science and unflagging energy of Shellac of North America - who sounded incredible at every single point of the playing field - these shining vanguards, they do not tarnish.

Nay, sir. They do not.




Whilst in hindsight, I, on Sunday:

became a spastic bouncing idiot between the raindrops to the delighfully ripping Arcwelder, a top act of the weekend and a winning vintage,

was oft betwixt musiccally, yet regularly annoyed by Quasi's pre-eminant vibe of "workin' it out through the music" a la Fleetwood Mac and Ben Folds,

did feel that (merited, or otherwise), Monorchid was like a tantruming child on the day of the picnic that got rained out after you've already set up and stuff,

liked Enon much more live than on record,

was bored silly and not dancing through the raindrops for Three Mile Pilot, deflating strong memories of like re: recorded works,

Was re-entranced with Tara Jane O'Neil's craft and voice and dueting with the infinitely talented Mr. Brokaw, who forged some of the purest sound of the whole weekend,

was happy happy happy to see Seam after all of these years, a relationship which lagged of late, now re-invigored, and who reminded me just how powerful and huge they actually are live compared to some recordings,

Digested Mr. Trainor whilst saying my goodbyes,

lament not caring enough about BHP, CocoRosie, Pinback, Calexico, which allowed me to be swayed by the harshing winds and promises of home.


Whilst in hindsight, I, early Monday morning awoke adrenaline-charged at two separate times due to two separate dreams set at the festival, in which I, by some undefinable twist of fate had somehow managed to miss all reference of a Rapeman set, and on both occasions - 2AM and 5:30AM came to this very site and thread to confirm that I had not indeed missed something that had never happened.



Gentlemen and Gentlewomen of the EA Forum, Friends;


Never have I had such an excellent weekend of music.


Thank you bands.

Thank you volunteers.

Thank you Hideout.

Thank you Touch and Go.

Thank you friends.


Jesus Lizard, Live in 2031.

endtime34 wrote:
Side note: it seemed the PA on the west stage (where Killdozer and Man or Astroman? played) was having some intermittent weirdness, like someone was dropping a large cloth in front of one half of the speaker system, making odd muffly (noticed mostly with Man or Astroman?) moments. Anyone else get this sense?

That was not an issue with the actual PA. It was a direct result of the wind swirling the sound waves, which caused those very noticeable changes in the sound quality, particularly in the higher frequencies. The windier it got, the more this was heard. The west stage seemed to be effected by this more than the east stage. It's just one of those things to deal with at any outdoor show.

You guys don't know anything about Dave Riley, and the speculation is surprisingly irritating. He was not there.

KrisPoulin wrote:

endtime34 wrote:
Side note: it seemed the PA on the west stage (where Killdozer and Man or Astroman? played) was having some intermittent weirdness, like someone was dropping a large cloth in front of one half of the speaker system, making odd muffly (noticed mostly with Man or Astroman?) moments. Anyone else get this sense?

That was not an issue with the actual PA. It was a direct result of the wind swirling the sound waves, which caused those very noticeable changes in the sound quality, particularly in the higher frequencies. The windier it got, the more this was heard. The west stage seemed to be effected by this more than the east stage. It's just one of those things to deal with at any outdoor show.

What he said.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wind_shear

If you're listening far enough away from the speakers, you can get a similar sounding ill effect if one or two large people are moving around right in front of the speakers and messing with the high frequency information's ability to get directly to you.

Likewise you can get a vaguely similar-sounding effect if you take a highly directional sound source (like a particularly beamy speaker in a guitar amp) and put a mic about 5 feet away from it, pointed directly into the speaker, and then hit record, and walk around between the speaker and the mic.

But in this case, it's mostly all about the movement of the air. Sound is transmitted through the air. When the air starts moving around gusting up to 20mph, the sound gets a little wonky. The closer you are to the speakers, the less you're gonna hear it.

I thought the sound systems they had at this event were excellent. Right in front of the stage was generally loud and powerful, though not so overbearing that earplugs were required.

75 or 100 feet back from the stage generally sounded good and clear, though noticeably less powerful than closer to the stage.

This show was such a perfect illustration of something I was taught by Malcolm Chisholm, RIP... that one of the *best* absorbers of sound is the human being. Standing maybe 15' back from the stage in anticipation of Big Black/Shellac's sets, surrounded by people, Man Or Astroman's performance on the other stage was barely audible. If we weren't all packed in like sardines, it would have likely been easy to hear them playing.

There were only a couple points where I found myself standing in a location where I could hear a very clear, discreet echo of the snare drum (on the East stage) bouncing off the face of the Hideout and coming back into the music area. And I never stayed in those spots for long, cause it sounded heinous.

As far as the acoustics/sound system/stages/layout, this show was a thing of beauty. Every band I heard sounded good or great, pretty much with just the one exception.

The only thing that could have made this better was if they provided vibrating couches to rest and massage my aching back

Christopher_Dragon wrote:

Anyone else feel the "ghost" of their 3 day pass wristband?

I cut it off last night, but I still have phantom pains!

What a fun weekend!

Salut to all involved!

offal wrote:The New Year's set... FACE. SLAYED.

Fuckin' A right.
I debated sleeping in and missing them due to hangover. I know I would have regretted that.
Whoever said Pegboy didn't look into it, I know where you're coming from, but I remember them always being pretty much the same as they were Saturday, only with Larry's voice not being blown out halfway through a set.
John Haggerty always just sort of stood there, looking stoic, Pierre Kezdy always just sort of stood there, looking more than stoic.
At any rate, I thought they were great. They played almost all the "hits."

Most of you have already commented on the things I thought were great. If I knew Corey were going to read this, I would thank him over and over.
So, what the fuck is wrong the lead douchebag in exclamation point exclamation point exclamation point? Douchebag....of.....the......century. His d-bagery is so strong I think an entire thread could be dedicated to this topic.

And I was totally moved by Tim and Andy's set, and I don't even know them. I probably would've teared up had Heather and Steve not been playing with this really cute little blonde girl 20 feet in front of me. A-D-O-R-A-B-L-E.

Most importantly, if something like this ever happens again, Tar needs to get back together for that shit. Also Polvo.
A friend said he saw one of the Polvo dudes there.
Rock tease.