With all your power, what would you do?

--The Flaming Lips

AH. I spent this weekend in San Francisco, on good old Treasure Island for its eponymous music festival. It proceeded as follows:

Saturday

This was the 'party' day.... just more the electronic music. I drove up to SF after an early wake-up post Cafe Night and lab work, and met up with Tim in the city. It was an absolutely gorgeous day, with weather in the 70s in the city. We picked up a sandwich and made some lunch before heading over to the island for Passion Pit. UNFORTUNATELY, we underestimated how many people would be waiting for the shuttle over to the island, so we waited in line for 40 minutes and finally got over to the island just as they played their last song. SAD. The festival had an awesome setup: the two stages were pretty close to each other, and you could definitely hear the music really well if you were between the two stages. As a result, you didn't really have to move far to hear things clearly, which made things super convenient. We checked out Dan Deacon, who is this balding, pot-bellied guy who has this huge ensemble playing percussion of various sorts while he has a voice modulator that does funny things with his voice. Interesting, to say the least. After that, we posted out for a couple of hours, hearing mediocre acts until about 7pm when MSTRKRFT came on the main stage. This group was really really good. I only had one of their remixes (one of my favorite songs lately, remix of Heartbreaker by John Legend), but they did an awesome set. They remixed D.A.N.C.E. (YAY!) and finished with Bohemian Rhapsody. They have an all around great sound, which made it awesome. We left that set early to get into the crowd for GirlTalk, which was a big dance party. Great mashups, except that I don't really like them to begin with... a lot of the songs that he uses, I really like, so it's sad for me when I hear a song I like and it's gone within 30 minutes. Following GirlTalk was the last set of the night, MGMT, which was pretty disappointing. Their songs are good, but they sounded more rock than electro... we left early to beat the crowd and headed home.

Sunday

The chill day! Perfect for me! I did some work before we headed out, but we got on the island at about 3 in time for Grizzly Bear, which was pretty good. There was their one song, Four Weeks, which is played pretty often and seems to be the most well known, and I knew that one! But they did a good set. I think that kind of music definitely catered to the festival more, because it was nice to be able to stay a distance from the stage, but enjoy the music, as opposed to totally raging, which is what the night before seemed to try to get at. After Grizzly Bear, Beirut played the sunset, which was absolutely amazing. They had an accordion player, and an awesome brass section... including tuba solo. The ensemble was really beautiful and made me appreciate the layering of sounds they weave even more than I already do. Post-Beirut was The Decemberists... which was really disappointing :( I love their old songs, and I think they have a new album out (which I haven't heard), but the set was basically a rock opera of sorts. It didn't pause, and they had this background movie/animation going on as they were performing... Their new stuff strays a little too much from the pirate-y rock sound that I really like in them. I understand that they have a new album to promote, but I really would have liked to hear Los Angeles, I'm Yours, or Sixteen Military Wives, or O Valencia... Finally, after fried chicken (OMG SO GOOD), the Flaming Lips finished up the festival, which was great. They were super energetic and had quite a set up. The main guy ran on top of the crowd in a giant inflatable balloon (like a hamster ball but for a human), and then they played my 2 favorite songs (The Yeah Yeah Yeah Song and Yoshimi Pt 1) before I had to leave to come back to campus.

Overall, it was a very satisfying event! I mentioned the fried chicken once.... but this stuff was so good. On a bed of garlic fries.... mmmmmmm. Sunday was really cold, too, so it was so nice to hold this tray of hot garlic fries and fried chicken... 2 days in a row. So bad, but SO good :)

Anyway, this was my recap of the weekend! I have to head to class, but I wanted to do a bit of a distillation before I forgot it all.

Bon.