Each year, Portland is transformed. Its streets are filled with music fans scurrying from venue to venue, trying to catch the last, dying of chords of a whispered up-and-coming band before heading off to see a headliner or the band of a friend. Unlike other music festivals where the audience is corralled onto and confined to a field and left to its own devices, MFNW turns the entire city into a playground. Tired of listening to indie rock? Walk over to the Someday Lounge or Roseland and check out some hardcore or hip hop.
It’s that total freedom, the ability to walk out of a venue and onto a bus or into a restaurant or a bar that makes MFNW so liberating. You’re not stuck eating overpriced venue food or wilting in the sun. If you get tired, go home and sleep in your bed or crash on your friends couch. And the best part? With so much going on, not one festival experience is ever the same.
Wednesday-
The rain that makes Portland famous came down in sheets, soaking those waiting in line for MFNW’s one and only show that evening. The venue, Berbati’s Pan, shares the same block with Portland’s landmark Voodoo Donuts and a porn theater. While people waited to get into the venue, which featured sets by Okkervil River’s Will Sheff and folkie Damien Jurado, guys passed out free ice cream, begged for weed and munched on Voodoo’s cock and balls donuts. Once inside, the humidity from the rain, poor ventilation and a capacity crowd made Berbati’s, as Sheff called it, volcanically hot.
Perhaps it was the wrong venue but people talked through Jurado’s set and when Sheff appeared, continued to chatter though he implored them to shut up. Sheff, visibly exhausted after a direct flight from Israel, still managed to play a rousing set that favored Okkervil’s newer material, including a beautiful version of “Plus Ones” and “Lost Coastlines,” featuring the Portland Cello Project. The evening’s definite highlight was a touching, emotional version of “A Stone.” Unfortunately, the fuckers at the bar decided to fill in the quiet places with their own self-important blather.
Thursday-
MFNW is designed specifically for the night owl. With gigs that stretch towards the AM, a lot of the best music doesn’t even get started until past 11pm. There are dilemmas, as well. Do you see the legendary Dirty Three or beeline for the buzzworthy The Pains of Being Pure at Heart? While the answers are obvious for some, it can make a truly difficult evening if you don’t let go and enjoy where you are.
Cymbals Eat Guitars vs. We Were Promised Jetpacks. That was the first dilemma our group faced and while some of us went to see the Pitchfork-patented band at the Doug Fir Lounge, others opted for the Scottish band at Dante’s. Admittedly, watching Cymbals frontman Joseph Ferocious argue and whine when security wouldn’t let the underage guitarist into his own gig was quite amusing but these young guys put on an inspired, frenzied set. Playing stuff from debut Why There Are Mountains, the band tactfully employed the quiet-loud-quiet dynamic of so many famous ’90s bands. It felt refreshing.
We Were Promised Jetpacks played a blistering set at Dante’s, a welcome upgrade to their debut These Four Walls that proved exactly why the Pitchforks of the world just don’t like them: they’re unpretentious, just four lads from working backgrounds putting on a show that’s all about an indie rock that doesn’t swipe from third world nations or Victorian slang. On stage, the quiet anthems of their debut ditch the quiet tag altogether and aim straight for the rafters, climaxing with “Quiet Little Voices,” the strongest track from their debut. They may not have been the most important band at MFNW, but if you were looking to be saved by rock and roll, this was your salvation.
One of the highlights of the entire festival was a rare performance by Australia’s Dirty Three. Better known as part of Nick Cave’s Bad Seeds and Grinderman, Dirty Three violinist/virtuoso/madman Warren Ellis played an inspired late night set at Berbati’s Pan that spanned the group’s discography, reaching as far as back as 1996′s Horse Stories.
Between songs that were alternately filled with fragile beauty and frenetic mindfucking, Ellis would shout non-sequiturs to the crowd such as, “This is a song about taking so much crystal meth that your brain feels like a shriveled-up testicle” and that Jim Morrison stole his mojo. By the time the set ended at 1:30am, we crawled out into the night, sweaty, happy and ready for the fest’s next two days.
by David Harris (Jetpacks section by Morgan Davis)
[Photos: Darren Higgins (Jetpacks photo by Morgan Davis)]
