Some Final Thoughts on the Second Annual Northside Festival
I survived the heat last weekend by staying indoors and making the most of my Northside press pass, but I would have rather gone to the beach.
Sweeping recaps like this are almost as irritating as the set-by-set reports from SXSW or CMJ, but probably fitting for what can be best described as a snapshot of Brooklyn, June 2010 in music. I went into this year's lineup with more than a few hesitations, asking myself, what's the point of another festival with nights curated by the usual list of local promoters/media outlets pushing the same local acts or main stage staples? All this left me questioning what it means to produce an event like this in our backyard, and simply, what it means to be successful in the shadow of every Pitchfork Festival or All Tomorrow's Parties out there. Ad revenue is obvious enough, but by Sunday I was already hoping our sponsors could dial back ambitions for next year.
The weather was great, crowds were manageable, if oddly thin at times; venues were solid; and costs were certainly reasonable thanks to The L Magazine and the amazing job they did at putting together such a thoughtful weekend. However, I found myself drifting from one room to another over four days, thinking how a little less could go a long way in promoting the sights and sounds we're lauding these days. Too many acts made for very little worth a second mention.
What I witnessed were bills of exceedingly young bands, playing to the choir in what felt like one giant college radio fest where showing up is half the reward. No matter how hard I tried this year's festival left me uninspired, exhausted and little confused.
There were certainly highlights like Frankie Rose & the Outs (left) playing a tight, honest set at Death by Audio on Saturday to a room full of unfamiliar faces, as Frankie told me later. Polvo (below) at Barge Park. However, I can't imagine anyone walking away having an "I saw them when" moment, save for Worcester's insanely catchy DOM, and that seems like a foregone conclusion by now. Nor can I see anyone begging for a festival to prove how vibrant our local scene is now.
It should take more than ten solidly recorded songs to deem anything a "discovery" and that's the rub with The L Magazine's "8 NYC Bands You Need to Hear" feature that presumably inspired these stages. Too many bands without history or context or even costumes in a proper live setting are forgettable, or at best, works-in-progress in such a competitive, saturated scene. Yet when this month's bedroom project is next month's Mountain Dew Single, I can't help but go into a festival like Northside with higher curatorial expectations. Solutions? Let's book nights with blind bills. Let's do a round robin and treat the show like a musical buffet. Let's do anything but roll out another tired festival format and call it a sampling from the best in the borough.
If you caught yourself visiting Brooklyn this past weekend, I'm sure you had a blast. However, for the locals there was nothing here that you couldn't have seen any other weekend. Where Pitchfork's festival plays like a mix tape from an industry model they created; ATP is a curatorial celebration with more than a few curve balls, regional fests like the L Mag's Northside feel like glorified block parties with acts culled from the calender pages of its free weekly. This can be a good thing in Iowa. Sadly, nothing felt necessary or particularly special about last weekend in Brooklyn.
