The Tape @ Detour
Written by gzabriel on Monday, 6 of October , 2008 at 6:21 pm
This Saturday, 4 Tape bloggers ventured into the heart of downtown Los Angeles on an ugly overcast afternoon to witness and in part review the 3rd annual Detour Festival. My arrival was belated due to a delicious lunch but upon my arrival I met up with my fellow bloggers and headed to Tape Official Favoritest Band: The Mae Shi. Last time we saw the Mae Shi had been at the glorious F Yeah Fest at which they delivered a performance full of well rehearsed spazz outs, energetic shouts, and danceable seizure pop. Detour yielded similar results with the boys delivering rousing renditions of classic tunes such as Run To Your Grave, 7xx7, and I Get Almost Everything. They tramped around the stage knocking over tom drums, somersaulting mid screech, getting tangled in perilous microphone chords, and sharing the magic of an Omnichord with an eager crowd. Surprisingly, they were able to put their rainbow tarp to good use and a good amount of audience members got to participate in the fun.
After The Mae Shi we wandered around the festival taking in the sights, somewhere amongst the drifting from band to band we discovered what lupethefiasco had previously encountered at Lollapalooza. The most delicious drink of drinks was sampled and adored. I, particularly affectionate of the Half n Half, refer to it as a drink of the gods of tea.
We headed over to the stage at which Datarock was playing in order to see Black Lips. Though we at The Tape do love Datarock, the live performance takes away some of the tongue in cheek geekiness of their album in favor for a hard rocking Norwegian party. This wouldn’t be such a bad thing had our love for Datarock not come from a strong affinity for exactly their brand of tongue in cheek geekiness. Alas, The Black Lips took the stage in not-quite-as-drunk as we would have liked form and proceeded to rip through their catalog the highlight being somewhere around the time they played O Katrina. I personally felt disappointed by the performance but maybe I had set my hopes too high for a slot that was late afternoon and a band that was far too sober per their usual standards. The pilgrim hat was a nice touch though.
After more wandering I ended up waiting for Hercules and Love Affair…or so I thought. After waiting a good 20 minutes involving a lot of pro Gorgol Bordello the band finally came on. Their sound however, was not of perfectly replicated New York disco but of some post gothic synth rock. It took me no longer to realize that this was Shiny Toy Guns and I ran off ashamed at waiting so long for such an undeserving group. At that point I tried in vain to catch Hercules and Love Affair but my enthusiasm was worn out and I conceded to watching the rowdy gypsy punks that comprise Gorgol Bordello. Unfortunately, I literally know nothing about Gorgol Bordello other than the aforementioned Rizzo comparison and the titles of the two most popular tracks. I assume they put on a good show though.
We headed over to the steps of City Hall to witness the proponents of the DJ Stage. We caught the tail end of young french house maestro Surkin who we couldn’t get excited too much about due to the fact that we had little to no idea as to what he was playing which seriously discredits our mad music blogging skillz. You win this one Surkin, you and your awesome dance moves. Adam Freeland took the stage and gave a quite contrary performance whipping us and the crowd into a frenzy with Bloc Party remixes, Stress remixes, and his take on Aerodynamic which involved a lot of chanting O-B-A-M-A. We partied hard, attempting to split time between Freeland and Cut Copy who were doing their Aussie thing and sounding damn good at it. As Adam Freeland came to a close and Buraka Som Sistema came to take his place I made a valiant push towards seeing Modular electro duo The Presets. My attempt was met with little enthusiasm and I resolved to yell at people for not wanting to see the Aussies. We danced hard despite my dissatisfaction and all proved to be well.
The closing act of night was to be masked italians, The Bloody Beetroots who seemed to suffer the same problems we found with Surkin. The super hip choice of music left us grasping for references and we found ourselves lost in a sea of Dim Mak and Italian Electro grasping for something to feel cool about knowing. We left the stage not in anger but in frustration, all we wanted was to hear La Serenissima and stare up in awe at the imposing image of City Hall as the clouds obscured the darkened sky and then proceed to dance really really buoyantly until our feet and backs hated us. Vuvuvu almost made that happen. I left Detour a little proud and a little sad as I felt like I had missed out on some of the best acts of the night. Oh well, there’s always Coachella right? Video of The Mae Shi performing Run To Your Grave + Mp3s below.
The Bloody Beetroots - We Are From Venice (La Serenissima)
Daft Punk vs Adam Freeland - Aer Obama
The Mae Shi - Lamb And The Lion
Category: Miscellaneous
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Comment by ashkap
Made Tuesday, 7 of October , 2008 at 3:52 pm
Matt and Kim + Abe Vidgoda + Wolf Parade + Half ‘n’ Half = The Mae Shi
