A Reflection on Solid Sound 2011

With so many summer festivals already well established, is there room for more at the table? The second annual Solid Sound Festival ended last weekend in the same year that The Village Voice’s popular Siren Music Festival called it quits after a 10 year run. So how did Solid Sound fair in its second year? The music was once again spectacular but this year provided more to find fault with.

Let’s get the bad out of the way first. My biggest complaint with the festival is the Comedy Cabaret. Each year an A-list comedian is selected to curate a cast of comedians to perform. The problem with this is that the comedians, while superbly funny, end up being the biggest names on the festival’s lineup. Anyone who knows comedy knows John Hodgman, Wyatt Cenac, Morgan Murphy, and Eugene Mirman, and their presence makes it all too easy to spend four full hours in the Hunter Center  rather than hearing new music. This is a shame considering how carefully selected the bands.

Friday was marked by heavy rain but that is, after all, an expected risk at outdoor festivals. To stall, comedian John Hodgman and actor Justin Long came out to try entertaining the crowd. The rain let up for a bit and Wilco finally came out with their tongues firmly in their cheeks as ‘€œRain Drops Keep Falling on My Head’€ played over Joe’s Field. The band opened with their new single, ‘€œI Might’€, and played a healthy two hours. Singer Jeff Tweedy’s on-stage banter brought its A-game.

Perhaps the hallmark moment of Friday night’s set was during ‘€œRadio Cure’€. A powerful bolt of lightning knocked out the power to the speakers. Everything cut out except for Glenn Kotche’s drums, which projected to the back of Joe’s Field without the aid of microphones. Not missing a beat, the crowd picked up the song singing, ‘€œDistance has no way of making love understandable,’€ until the power kicked back in. ‘€œAt least this crowd has our back,’€ commented Tweedy when the song was over. This seemed reminiscent of last year’s Solid Sound when a freight train passed by during the set and added to the song’s ambiance. Perhaps these impossible to recreate moments will become the Solid Sound signature.

Saturday proved a little drier. We arrived at noon to catch Sarah Lee Guthrie & Johnny Irion’s set and people on twitter were crediting them with bringing the sunshine. The married duo’s folk/country was so smooth that I wouldn’t be surprised if they really did bring the sun. After lunch, I was determined to check out a band I had never heard before and made my way into Courtyard C to catch Brooklyn five-piece, Here We Go Magic. With whacky vocals and grooving bass lines, the band managed to be both energetic and mellow at the same time. I picked up their 2010 LP, Pigeons, at Euclid Records’ ‘€˜pop-up store’ and you should get yourself a copy too.

Saturday saw quite a few impromptu shows in the galleries including performances by Liam Finn, and Sarah Lee & Johnny. Another healthy downpour pushed Wilco’s set back again but when they finally got out there they made the most of their time, performing classic tunes like, ‘€œHummingbird’€, ‘€œCompany in My Back’€, and a reprise of ‘€œI Might’€. Some guest singers were brought out including Sarah Lee & Johnny singing a tune written by her grandfather, Woody Guthrie’s ‘€œCalifornia Stars’€. Liam Finn also joined the band on ‘€œYou Never Know’€ and Wilco bassist John Stirratt sang lead on a song. Wilco ended with my all time favorite closer: ‘€œHoodoo Voodoo’€.

Sunday was about noise. Once inside the Hunter Center to see Glenn Kotche Solo, concertgoers were forced to first sit through a set by Darin Gray. Gray laid a guitar on his lap and proceeded to jingle bells in front of the pickups for 20 minutes. That is about all there was to it and yet this ‘€˜music’ seemed to speak to about 5-10% of the audience, Gray included. The other 90% had fingers firmly stuffed in ears. Glenn Kotche finally came out and saved the crowd with a magnificent display of percussive composition. Accompanied by animation, very few drummers can create such complex and captivating music by oneself.

More musical noise came from Pillow Wand: a collaboration between WIlco’s Nels Cline and Sonic Youth’s Thurston Moore whose last performance together was 13 years ago. Sunday also brought the soft country/rock of The Autumn Defense, led by Wilco members John Stirratt and Patrick Sansone. The festival was closed out by Levon Helm and His Rambling Band. I’m sure I’ll get some hate on this but the man is too old to still be a performer. I don’t discredit his past contributions to music but what I saw at Solid Sound was essentially the world’s most expensive wedding band.

The weekend ended with Wilco joining Levon Helm and his band to perform The Band’s classic, ‘€œThe Weight’€. What is so great about Solid Sound is that it’s easy to hear how Wilco is the common thread among all the performer’s sound. Without Wilco, the lineup would seem unlikely and random but adding all the performers together results in Wilco’s sound. Solid Sound 2011 did not outdo last year but it was still good enough to bring me back for next year.