I’ve had more than a full week to recover now from the 2009 10,000 Lakes Festival. Let me say upfront it was more fun than I’ve had in a long time, with the jam bands, the blue grass and the hippies — oh, sweet Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds, the hippies. In fact this retrospective is a little late because I spent most of last week sulking that I wasn’t drinking beer and listening to music in the sun anymore. But I told Greg I’d write about the frivolity of 10,000 Lakes if he gave me tickets, and I intend to do that.
I just need to clear my mind first with this open letter to Dave Matthews: Dear sir: I know David Byrne; David Byrne is a friend of mine, and you sir are no David Byrne.
More after the jump…
Wow, sorry for losing my temper there, but I just can’t abide a big-name headliner like Dave Matthews bringing me down on the last night of a festival. In fact when you look at the other headliners it makes me wonder who even invited this guy. You have cult favorite Widespread Panic and legendary Wilco. Then there’s Dave.
Don’t get me wrong, Dave Matthews is a great musician; “Ants Marching” was one of the first songs I remember really jamming out to as a preteen (we weren’t called tweens back then). But that was ages ago and the problem is most of Dave’s fan base just became frat boys instead of growing up, which was all too obvious Saturday night.
Picture this: A Wilco audience is energized and happy to let you move freely about in front of the stage. A Dave Matthews audience is a bunch of comatose tree stumps who will glare at you if you try to have fun.
This was Dave Matthew’s first-ever outdoor concert in Minnesota so I wanted it to be great. I can only hope the abundant dude brahs and brohams enjoyed seeing Dave — or living vicariously through his stage presence, as I imagine they were there to do.
And so, I guess I can’t blame Dave too much for trying to rouse the audience with The Talking Heads’ “Burning Down the House.”
Boy that was a downer. I enjoyed the rest of the weekend, I swear.
Let’s start with Atmosphere, who performed opposite from the main stage after Wilco on Thrusday night. Slug and Co. only got a few songs into their set before heavy rains blew in from the prairie, but the crowd was moving and I was having fun watching them before things got drenched.
Another Minnesota favorite, Cloud Cult, played Friday afternoon at the more intimate Barn Stage. This was the kind of show where you just bring a blanket, sit in the grass and enjoy great music. Missy lost her phone after this show (read her 10KLF review here), but some awesome soul promptly returned it to lost and found, and the folks their texted Perfect Porridge. Crisis averted.
There are certain bands that I think everyone just has to see; unfortunately there are a lot of bands of that list that I’ve never seen. 10KLF allowed me to cross Widespread Panic off that list. These guys played a total of seven hours split between two shows. I don’t know how they do it, but they love every minute of it and so does the audience.
Saturday provided a nice break from the jam bands with Too Many Banjos, Town Hall Stompers, Minnesota Bluegrass Band, and The Pistol Whippin Party Penguins all playing at one of the small campground stages. And probably the best surprise of the whole festival was seeing Ryan Young and Dave Carroll of Duluth’s Trampled by Turtles, who were hanging out at the back of the crowd, join some of these bands on stage.
Then there’s Wilco. Wilco has been a favorite band of mine for as long as I’ve known them, but they were another band I’d never seen live. I don’t know why I waited so long to see them. They were hands down my favorite performance of the four days. (Wilco plays October 2 in St. Paul. See you there?)
There were countless other bands we saw or heard in passing. Unfortunately, at any festival with such an outstanding lineup, you’re bound to miss as much good music as you hear. After all you have to make time to meet your camping neighbors (we named ours!: Good Neighbors, Bad Neighbors, Quiet Neighbors, Other Neighbors) and you might forgo a show or three to drink with Good Neighbors instead of paying festival prices for beer.
I was stoked to see Sharon Jones and the Dap-Kings take stage after the closing night fireworks, but after the joy lobotomy that was the Dave Matthews show, we decided to head back to the campground instead. So we missed what may have been one of the best shows of the weekend. Instead we got one of the best laugh lines of the weekend from a stranger yelling at whom I presume was a friend as we walked back: “Don’t go in your tent while your tripping! You’ll have to call 911 to unzip the fucking thing!” Haha, like I said, hippies are great people.
I can’t wait to go back. –Doug Hamlin
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