For the fifth year in a row, The Northside Festival is returning to Williamsburg, Greenpoint and Bushwick on Thursday. This year, the big headliners include Black Flag, The Walkmen, Mac DeMarco, Lambchop, and, um, Solange. (Why should we care about her again?)
There’s also a film festival and something called NExT (Northside Entrepreneurship and Technology) which will bring a series of tech presentations and discussion to the ‘hood. Evidently, the “big” free shows (The Walkmen/Phosphorescent on Saturday and Solange on Sunday, 3pm at McCarren Park) are both sold out, but badgeholders are guaranteed entry.
This year, there’s much more press and buzz about the festival, as it finally feels like its become a Brooklyn tradition, instead of a fluke. New York did a good job of summing up how we feel about it:
The Stedmans aren’t the only ones who have figured out how to stage a festival here? Electric Daisy Carnival is in its second year, and Governors Ball, on Randalls Island, has expanded each of its three years and will this time around feature Kanye West, Kings of Leon, and Guns N’ Roses. But the Stedmans are the only ones to have figured out how to stage a music festival that doesn’t seem in some way to contradict the city. Rather than chase bands famous enough to draw fans from across a county to an empty field, Northside books lots of local acts, with local followings, in local clubs — just more of them at once than you’d ever see any other week of the year. Which makes it feel much less like a straightforward festival experience and more like an extremely amped-up version of a night out in Brooklyn (if one sponsored and therefore subsidized by Heineken, Jameson, Vitaminwater, and General Electric).
As always, we’re looking forward to the Northside Festival. Here are some of our highlights:
Justin Little, June 17, 2012 Quiet Loudly always delivers, so what makes anyone think this would be any different? Good stage presence, great sound, and fans singing word for word is a great recipe for a fiesta! Great set guys! Other than Tony’s nonexistent rat tail I really enjoyed the set.
Bad news is I lost one of my HD cards during Northside Festival. Good news is someone was nice enough to return it to me. There are some good Samaritans out there after all! Back to the topic at hand.
Justin Little, June 15, 2012
Caught up with The Bach Street Boys on the street during my Northside Festival adventures. Very soothing stuff. They definitely got me in the mood for like a spot of tea and a nice game of chess.
Justin Little, June 16, 2012
Next set I caught was Dinosaur Feathers at Spike Hill. I hate to bash any band but there were negatives to this set. So the songs were good. The drummer was really good. The lead singer/guitarist did his thing. During the main part of the song the bass was good but you left me asking myself the question “What the fuck is he doing?” quite a few times. I don’t know if it was to try and give the song a grunge feel or what. But I just didn’t get it. It sounded like at points of the song he was hitting the bass to make some kind of weird ambient sound. I’d say drop the weird unnecessary bass banging/noises or whatever you want to call them and keep it simple. Good set but I must admit there were a few awkward moments. Sorry guys, feel free to invite me to one of your sets and change my mind.
Last Friday Deafheaven and Indian Jewelry co-headlined the Pitchfork/Weird Northside Festival showcase at Saint Vitus Bar in Greenpoint. While knowing well in advance what kind of blistering sonic bliss to expect from Deafheaven, Indian Jewelry’s strobe infused tribaldelia won us over by complete surprise. Check out some videos from the show below.
Justin Little, June 16, 2012
I particularly like the lighting in Spike Hill so I made my way back to catch Miniboone’s set. They filled the place up and it seemed like the crowd knew all the lyrics to their songs. Some way, some how they’ve managed to slip by without me hearing of them before. I’m glad I got to see them. Their musicianship was definitely on point. Great set! I’ll have to pick up one of their CDs so I can sing along next time.
Justin Little, June 15, 2012
By this point in the night I could barely hold my eyes open. Some of my friends wanted me to come hang out and drink for a bit. But I had no energy. That is until I made my way down to The Charleston basement to catch The Dunnie Bobos set. The people in this place seem like they’re always ready to enjoy a show. It’s that basement, old school punk, floor level stage vibe I’m guessing. All that I know is by the time I left I wasn’t ready to go to sleep anymore. Good set guys.
Justin Little, June 15, 2012
Dualing boards, dualing drums, and dualing front women? Zambri you get dualing thumbs from me. Spike Hill was packed for their set. At this point in the night all the crowd jitters are gone. What I mean by that is everyone in the crowd has already seen about 3 bands. They’re over that first awkward instances where people tend to start bobbing their heads to the music and peak around to see if anyone is watching or dancing. By now, well during Zambri’s set you can clearly see everyone in the crowd having a blast(and/or buzzed). Great set! I’m sure they opened a lot of eyes tonight. They definitely opened mine. It started out slow and got sexier and sexier. I feel like I need to go wash my sexy laundry. Rumor has it the two front ladies are sisters? That’s Sassy! Allow me a moment to dwell on that. PS: Did I just say that out loud?
Justin Little, June 15, 2012
I started out on Friday at The Charleston to catch Clouder’s set. Great way to wake up after a long day of work. When shooting high energy bands in little basement environments it’s either hit or miss. It was a good, sweaty, packed, “shovey” show. Thanks for the wake up call! I almost took a shot to the face from the lead singers swinging microphone. That woke me up real quick. If you ever need to get going, sniff some Clouder up your eardrums. Enjoy!
