THURSDAY
7:49: The line’s stretching out to Portofino for Boomslang’s opening show at the Kentucky! The hipsters in line have already begun to snipe about how hipster the other hipsters are! Note: I reserve rights to the band name “Self-Devouring Subculture”.
8:22: About a half-hour waiting in line and the first comparisons to “starving Africans waiting in line for rice” have been made. KIDS THESE DAYS.
9:33: William Tyler’s ornate finger-picking, folksy leaning towards prog, is dazzling. But the stories behind the songs threaten to eclipse the music itself: one involves a Quizno’s that caused the destruction of a literature archive.
10:07: A constant stream of oddball inventiveness streaming from the stage during The Music Tapes’ set: a man-sized metronome, an automated organ-playing puppet, and a singing saw all in evidence. The music is entrancing though: torch songs fused with 50s sci-fi movie soundtracks.
10:35: Julian Koster ends his set with a lovely tribute to Bill Doss, which was unfortunately marred by a fight that broke out between two audience members and was stopped by the police.
10:43: According to officer Raymond Mitchell, the fight broke out when one audience member got irritated at another loudly talking and jumped up and slapped him, leading to the exchange of punches.
11:58: Gorgeous, spare set by Jeff Mangum, who seemed understandably overwhelmed by the at-times deafening support of the crowd. And nice to see Koster join Mangum for a mini-Neutral-Milk-Hotel reunion at a few moments.
Full Set Reviews Coming Soon!
