Treasure Island Music Festival – San Francisco, CA
Live Review: 10/17/09
***
The Treasure Island Festival kicked off with a sunny un-San Francisco feel to it.  The weather was slightly warm, and the sun glistened across the bay.  Excitement was in the air from the moment I stepped into line to board the bus, and was only furthered by the electric atmosphere of the festival-goers upon arrival.

The view from Treasure Island

Passion Pit

There’s something about lead-singer Michael Angelakos’s falsetto crooning and fairytale-love-story lyrics that make me smile. It’s good-mood music, and their folksy, relaxed show is similarly cheerful.

It’s interesting seeing their show, because their music is a combination of keyboards, samples and live tracks, which can be difficult to pull off live. Getting a falsetto voice to shine in a live performance is pretty tough, and, sadly, there were quite a few washed-out spots where he blended into the track. I could tell he was trying to sing louder, but his voice just wasn’t there at times. It seemed like something they could’ve adjusted during the preshow soundcheck, although he could’ve just been losing his voice.

They played a pretty even mix of new and old, playing all my favorites except Cuddle Fuddle, which I think is a great song no matter what it says about me. I’ve been listening to their debut album, Manners, for a little while now, and it had started to bore me until I saw this performance. I gained new appreciation for them, and even better, it got me excited for the rest of the show. I’d say it was the perfect 3pm performance.

LTJ Bukem ft. MC Conrad

I’m going to keep it short and sweet on this drum and bass duo, because I just don’t know enough about DnB to speak authoritatively, or even act knowledgeable for that matter. They played the smaller stage, bridging the gap between two bigger acts, Brazilian Girls and MSTRKRFT, which kind of anointed them as “the bathroom act”—the one that everyone listened to as they passed from main stage to port-o-potty square way back near the entrance.

They did their job, pumping out high-speed dance music and utterly confusing all the white people trying to dance to it. Now, that’s a sight that never gets old—white people struggling to hang with drum n bass. For some reason, they always do this weird kick move, which I think is called X-stepping or X-outing or—I don’t know, but it looks hilarious. It looks somewhat neat when done to the extreme, but most of the time, it’s just silly. Call me a hater, but yeah, I get pleasure from watching it.

MSTRKRFT

Next up was the Canadian duo whose name doesn’t pay homage to the landmark German electro group Kraftwerk but sounds as though it should. In truth, they didn’t realize the relationship until after they decided on the name, but like Kraftwerk, they play a mix of electro that some would deem “out there” (though it’s slowly becoming more and more mainstream).

Coming into the show, I’d only heard a few remixes, so I had no idea what to expect from a live show. And, as we all know, DJ shows on big stages are sink or swim—it’s a tough prospect and many have bombed.

MSTRKRFT, did not bomb–they whole-heartedly delivered, throwing out a rash of different stuff and igniting the crowd. I was initially sitting in the photo pit for the first few songs, so I wasn’t quite aware of what was going on around me. I could hear the roar of the crowd as I foolishly attempted to get pictures with my impotent flash, but it wasn’t truly obvious how insane the place was going until I stepped back.

As I moved around the crowd to grab a beer—I was deeply in need of one after my photo debacle—I was absolutely amazed at the level of intensity. The crowd was bobbing together in an almost zombie-like manner, only it was to house music, so it was considerably faster than most zombies.

It was one of those landmark change-of-direction moments in the show where it had gone from fun and cheery to a true party. With Girl Talk and MGMT left to play, I think they set it up perfectly.

Girl Talk

I just saw Girl Talk (GT) in Tahoe in June, so I knew what to expect. However, this time I was in the photo pit, which really roped me into the kind of energy this kid, AKA The Hipster Jesus, has.

The songs were relatively the same as our last encounter, mash-ups of old overplayed pop, rock and hip hop classics stacked on top of one another like musical Jenga. Yet, GT has a way of making them all sound fresh—something he deserves serious credit for. Maybe it’s the toilet paper-shooting leaf blowers or the balloons full of cash, but his show is always a blast. And, although I was a little mad when one of the leaf-blower kids hit me in the head with said blower, I couldn’t fault it. I mean, the 15-year-old girls on stage looked like they were having a great time—Jesus love the kids. And I got a couple neat photos; win-win.

The only thing I found strange was that it left me feeling like MSTRKRFT had somehow topped it, which was not something I had expected. People were genuinely creaming their jeans for Girl Talk’s performance, and it was everything that his concerts usually are. If it hadn’t been for MSTRKRFT beforehand, I’d say that he killed it. They had him playing the smaller stage, so maybe that was why I was left stunned. Give him a bigger stage and a jumbo-tron, and maybe he’d have crushed it, too.

MGMT

Like most people, I’ve been drinking the MGMT Kool-Aid for awhile. There was no question in my mind why these guys were headlining, though I did hear a few from the other reporters—screw them, right

Coming off an extensive touring schedule, they seemed downright tired, and they opened the show by saying as much:

“This is our last show for awhile, so we’re going to play our first album [Oracular Spectacular] all the way through. It’ll probably be the last time we play it for a long time. Enjoy.”

The stage was questionably set, but as we all know, they have some bona fide hits on that first record, and they were headlining for Girl Talk’s sake!

Here’s the problem: MGMT’s first five songs are their undeniable bangers. This is exactly the opposite of building a set. Naturally, no one, not even the diehards, stayed for the last five. This meant that the line for the busses back to the city of San Francisco was about a mile long—no joke. I left the concert at 10pm and didn’t make it back to Haight-Ashbury until 12:30am, a whopping 7.5 mile journey.  I was exhausted.

***
All photos used in post licensed under Creative Commons