Coachella 2011 Day 2 photos by Lindsey Best.

Bands:

Arcade Fire
Big Audio Dynamite
Bright Eyes
Cage the Elphant
The Felice Brothers
Gogol Bordello
Jenny & Johnny
Mumford & Sons
The New Pornographers
Suede
The Tallest Man On Earth

[View with PicLens]

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Arcade Fire drew the typical Saturday night main stage crowd (read: huge), cementing their oddly natural status as the coolest stadium rock band ever. (When you first heard “Wake Up,” you may not have envisioned it performed in front of tens of thousands, but it totally makes sense, right?) Win Butler seemed genuinely stoked, saying he would never have imagined in 2002 that they’d be headlining Coachella, and given that their first studio album came out in 2004, it’s a good bet most fans wouldn’t have guessed it, either.

Scissor Sisters—who started and ended while Arcade Fire’s set was still going — brought a giddily explosive contrast to the dignified reserve of the main stage act, with singer/hypewoman Ana Matronic praising the women for dressing like sluts (her word, not ours) and imploring men to add more hot pants to their wardrobe (possibly preaching to the converted). Musically, the joyful atmosphere never wavered through songs like “Filthy/Gorgeous” and their discofied cover of “Comfortably Numb.”

The bands weren’t without their similarities. Both employed audience participation-ready props; with inflatable orbs housing multicolored lights infiltrating the Arcade Fire crowd, and Scissor Sisters assailing their fans with silver foil tendrils at the start of their set.

Suede drew a disappointingly thin crowd at the Mojave Tent for their first US performance in more than a decade, though they did overlap unluckily with Arcade Fire, Animal Collective and Empire of the Sun. The folks that showed were clearly die-hards, amping up lead singer Brett Anderson through tracks like “Animal Nitrate” and “So Young” in an impeccable greatest hits-filled set. Post-punk legends Wire, playing a couple of hours earlier, also played to a sparse crowd.

Another older-skewing act, Big Audio Dynamite, got a respectable crew to listen to hits like “E=MC2″ and “Rush” (no “The Globe,” oddly), with Mick Jones pushing things to the 21st century by connecting their song “Beyond the Pale” to present immigration issues and saying that “A Party” was kind of about Gaddafi — not that the Libyan leader wasn’t around the first go-round for BAD.

Jenny and Johnny‘s later afternoon set marked the third act Jenny Lewis has played with in the last four festivals (Rilo Kiley in 2008, solo in 2009), making a run at Perry Farrell in the game of Coachella Bingo. The LA residents even dedicated the song “Just Like Zeus” to Jumbo’s Clown Room, and pulled out a couple of numbers from the 2008 Lewis solo record Acid Tongue (“The Next Messiah,” “Carpetbaggers”).

In the bizarre schedule conflict of the day, Broken Social Scene and the New Pornographers — referred to by my Canadian friend as the Beatles and Stones of our neighbor to the north — overlapped in the early evening, with head Porno Carl Newman pausing during their set to acknowledge their countrymen’s presence. Neko Case (American) joined the band, though third lead singer Dan Bejar was absent — Case noted that it was her first time at Coachella, as surprising as that sounds.

Bright Eyes did a smattering from his discography, which feels a smidge schizophrenic in a short set — there’s a lot of sonic distance between “Lover I Don’t Have to Love” and “Take it Easy” — though in context it was cohesive enough. Closer “Road to Joy” challenged all those who see Conor Oberst simply as a perpetual saddo, climaxing with the impetuous final lyric of “fuck it up boys, make some noise!”

Other things I saw: Erykah Badu in a set that ended with the plug being pulled, appropriately trippy kaleidoscope visuals accompanying Animal Collective, and a spontaneous, irony-free high five after One Day as a Lion’s Zack de la Rocha stage dove to punctuated their performance. 

—Albert Ching

Lindsey Best did her rounds at SXSW 2011 in Austin. Here are some of her favorite moments.

Bands included:

Gayngs (2x – 1: @Red 7, 2: @Mohawk)
John Vanderslice (@ Red 7)
Judgement Day (@ 6th & Nieches)
Lia Ices (@ Red 7)
Okkervil River (2x- 1: @Red 7, 2: @Antone’s)
The Cave Slingers (@Red 7)
The Strokes (@Auditorium Shores)
Portugal the Man (@ Stubbs)
Bright Eyes (2x- 1: @ Austin Club, 2: @Auditorium Shores)
The Submarines (@ Antone’s)
Felice Brothers (@ Auditorium Shores)
Kurt Vile & the Violators (@ Auditorium Shores)
Man Man (@ Auditorium Shores)
Middle Brother (@ Auditorium Shores)

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The Monsters promised us a 2.5-hour set of music from their recently released album and individual repertoires. So the evening began with a couple rousing numbers performed by the whole band (plus Will Johnson on the drums) all snazzily dressed in suits and ties. And then they handed the show over to Mr. Ward.

For those of you who haven’t seen Cool Runnings eight times, all you need to know is that four Jamaican athletes—a nice one, a mean one, a funny one, and an intellectual one—overcome their personal differences to bobsled their way to the 1988 Winter Olympics! It is truly a tale for the generations.

Anyway, M. Ward is the kind, calm, elder-brother bandmate. You can tell by his sweet voice he just wants everyone to get along. He sang us several soothing M. Ward tunes, including “Chinese Translation” and “One Hundred Million Years,” asking Jim out at one point and Conor out at another, a tradition the band members continued throughout the show. This was easily the most pleasant portion of the evening, though, with M. uncharacteristically unbaseball-capped, making eye contact and generally enjoying himself for our enjoyment too.

Then Conor took the stage. Conor is the disagreeable one, who barked and scowled and performed in his own style seemingly separate from the band. When M. joined him on “Smoke Without Fire,” though, his anger eased and they were back in the same bobsled again. (M. is like that.)

After a few Monsters numbers, the light turned on Jim. Jim is the Doug E. Doug member of the group, entertaining yet utterly passionate, and by just being himself, capturing the most attention. He sang “Bermuda Highway Blues” and “Look At You” to a thoroughly giddy audience, and called the rest of the band out to finish off the night. Mogis, by the way, is the intellectual one—so excellent at what he does, all we noticed was that the band sounded amazing.

The group wrapped up the show with stunning renditions of My Morning Jacket’s “Smokin From Shooting” and the Monsters’ own “His Master’s Voice,” proving that despite the comparisons you might make and favorites you might pick while listening to an M. Ward / Bright Eyes / My Morning Jacket concert, the Monsters of Folk can still come together and carry that bobsled across the finish line like heroes. I tried to do the slow-single-clap-turning-into-full-applause thing, but the audience was already cheering too wildly.

—Amber Hollingsworth

Stream: Jason Lytle “Yours Truly, The Commuter”

(from Yours Truly, The Commuter out now on Anti-)

Fans of Grandaddy probably sensed they would one day hear again from Jason Lytle, the band’s former singer/songrwriter/reluctant leader, for despite its well-documented struggles, Grandaddy proved to be resilient. In fifteen years together, the band produced five critically acclaimed albums. However, while their peers—bands like Coldplay and Bright Eyes—went on to achieve commercial success, Grandaddy, whether by design or by the luck of the draw, found that type of success elusive. Now, Jason Lytle is back. Though he’s relocated from Modesto, Calif. to Bozeman, the fifth-largest city in Montana, his distinctive sound is unchanged. This interview by Nina Gregory.

You’re in London right now. How does it feel to be back on tour?
It’s fine—it’s still an experiment, though. I quit doing all this stuff, and I’m seeing little glimpses of why I quit—and I’m still at the front end of what appears to be a number of months of touring. So I’m having to make sure that I deal with it however I can. I’m a loner… and all of a sudden I’m always around people. Always. Always. The shows are good, though, and Europe’s pretty, but I do like my privacy. The tour just started and we sold out of all our merchandise a few days ago. We had no merchandise, so I got what I thought was a good idea. I know this good artist in London—Daryl Waller. I really like his art. So, I went to his studio and hung out… and I said, ‘Hey, let’s create a bunch of merchandise.’ We went to some dollar stores and bought mousetraps and pillowcases. We’ve been downstairs in the dressing room like two kids customizing this stuff. All these people keep walking in—and I just want to be that six-year-old kid playing with my coloring book. I do have that to look forward to when I get off the phone with you. I’m not good with too much stimulation. I need silence and you don’t get that on tour.
The artwork on your new album is really lovely. It’s like a children’s book with a little twisted take on typography, with branches for your initials. Do you design your album covers yourself?
Yeah—all of the full-length stuff was either designed by me or created by me. I get a lot of enjoyment out of that. It’s not a weird power or control thing—I just like to do art. I have an art table all set up in the studio with my musical equipment. In my world all that stuff blends together.
Your songs often have a melancholy feel—the last Grandaddy album was like a sad farewell. But now your first solo album opens with, ‘Last thing I heard I was left for dead… I may be limpin’, but I’m coming home.’ What are you coming home to?
I’m coming home to that thing that I mentioned before: the little kid sitting in the middle of the room with coloring book and crayons. That’s sort of me in the studio. I enjoy getting to that point where I get lost in the whole process of making songs, and over the years it seems that my medium for artwork has shifted—for me, making records is really like painting pictures. It’s kind of a celebration for me, getting back to that point. I had almost given up on my ability to get to that point.
Your music tends to be very personal—writing from experience and observation. In the past, one subject that arose in your music was life in and around Modesto—the tech bubble, relationships, isolation, the landscape. Even though you no longer live in the Central Valley, do you think about things there—like, say, the housing crisis, which has devastated the area?
I have always made what I feel to be a concerted effort into pursuing the escapist aspects of making art. I tend to shy away from politics. I like to keep music separate from those things and give you a break for four minutes—maybe even as long as an hour. I always felt I needed to be someplace like Montana. Even in California I always gravitated to places where I had space and there wasn’t constant audible and visual clutter. I like to feel as if I have a grasp of what’s going on around me, but it takes awhile for me to figure those things out. I can’t be always going. I can’t deal with constant stimulation.
So it’s safe to say you’re not Twittering.
There’s just no depth. It’s a big waste to see how much you can cram in. It’s just going to end up bad. It has to be up to the individual to say, ‘That’s enough.’ But, at that point, your ability to know how to get away from it—you’ve lost this. It’s shrunken—this little something that should have been exercised all those years while keeping up with the race.
With all the constant, intrusive forms of communication, do you think the ability to have some intimacy has been lost? Do you have to fight for that in your music or is it just your sound?
There is a craft to what I do. I refuse to let a song leave the house until it feels right. Even if it’s a stupid joke, it has to be structured and constructed, but it usually comes down to a balance, some discernable form, some human connection. It just happens the smaller and more mellow stuff starts to make me feel a certain way—I come up with lyrics after that, then you come up with this thing that feels like a human made it. I will fly that flag proudly as long as I can.
You seem painfully shy. Do you get any joy from performing?
It’s a weird contrast, performing versus being alone. I grew up around crazy skateboarders, going to parties, getting into fights—there’s that whole part of my upbringing. But there’s also the part—the introvert kid who can get lost in pages and get lost in the world of headphones… and at this point I’m just trying to reserve my strength. Because I’ve narrowed it down to the things that I’m pretty good at. And I don’t like spending too much energy or time on things that I’m not good at. I’m saving my energy for the good stuff at this point. And if that comes off as shyness, so be it. I’ve got a crazy sense of humor and don’t mind hanging out.
I want to go back to your Grandaddy days for a moment. You toured with Elliott Smith. What did you learn from him?
He had a really good sense of humor. Elliott was a really funny guy, which a lot people don’t know. He kind of had that thing I was just talking about—reserving your strength. At some point, you realize you’re just giving it out, giving it out, giving it out. Then, when it comes time to drive home and get through a hard day, you got 20 minutes left in the show and it’s not going the right way and you have to pull out the stops, and you dip into those reserves, I picked up a bit from him. Other than that, I’ve had a few friends that took this tragic route. He did. I realized that I don’t want to be like that. I love being alive and I love having these moments of beauty and experiencing things. It really sucks when you have friends that have died and you realize every time you’re having a happy moment—it just makes me wonder why they ended up taking such a tragic route.
David Bowie was a big fan of Grandaddy. Do you hear from him? What was it like to have Bowie as a fan?
It was pretty neat. More surreal than anything. He was really, really sweet. And oddly enough he was very informed of the albums and the music and songs, specifically. We have a few pictures of the band standing next to him. It doesn’t seem real—it just seems like us standing next to a cardboard cutout.

JASON LYTLE WITH TWO GUNS AND O’S AND THE OCULISTS ON THUR., JUNE 11, AT THE ART THEATRE, 2025 4TH ST., LONG BEACH. 7:30 PM / $16-$20 / ALL AGES. ARTTHEATRELONGBEACH.COM. AND WITH NEKO CASE ON FRI., JUNE 12, AT THE GREEK THEATRE, 2700 N. VERMONT AVE., HOLLYWOOD. 7:30 PM / $35-$40 / ALL AGES. GOLDENVOICE.COM. JASON LYTLE’S YOURS TRULY, THE COMMUTER IS OUT NOW ON ANTI-. VISIT JASON LYTLE AT JASONLYTLE.COM OR MYSPACE.COM/JASONLYTLE.