Animal CollectiveThe last band I was officially dispatched to watch on Saturday–

Published 7:00 am Sunday, May 24, 2009

Animal CollectiveThe last band I was officially dispatched to watch on Saturday– and one I’ve really enjoyed for years but never seen live for fear that their bizarre, bleep-y records wouldn’t translate well to a live performance– did not do it for me, and not because the band didn’t sound great or give it their all. Quite a few of my Animal Collective-loving friends opted out of going to Sasquatch this year in favor of road-tripping it down to Portland to see the band in a club, and I think that they had the right idea. I’ll probably do that next time. Point Juncture, WA is a band I’ve enjoyed for quite some time and who’ve finally come into their own. Unfortunately, the Yeti stage sound person had been struggling since Mad Rad, and not only was the balance totally off, there was a lot of feedback as well. Things evened out a little toward the end, and live, I found myself enjoying the songs I normally skip when I listen to their third and latest album, Heart to Elk, while the songs I love best on that record, like “Sick on Sugar,” did not sound as good live as I’d assumed. After watching the end of Hockey’s set (a campy dance band that was lots of fun and headed up by a hilarious, pasty, wiry dude in a sweatband), everyone filed out of the Wookie stage. The crowd virtually replaced itself before John Vanderslice. In the interim, some ignoramus of a sound person somehow thought it was cool to play, uh, Korn. Between Hockey and John Vanderslice. Which, even though Hockey’s sound didn’t set off any bad-sound alarm bells in my head, does not inspire confidence in a sound person. Fortunately, Vanderslice is a seasoned artist who (thankfully) spent a solid fifteen minutes adjusting the sound and working with Once everything was kosher, John played a really lovely set of both old and new songs from Romanian Names, including one of my favorites that I’m glad is a staple of his set lists, “Tablespoon of Codeine.” Something I’ve noticed about artists like John Vanderslice is that, like Doves, the set is only engaging for people who are already fans of the music, but John Vanderslice’s audience had doubled by the end of his set. His songs are energetic, dynamic compositions that help him effortlessly draw in a new audience like the Pied Piper of sad bastards.