Yeasayer Opens The Beach at Governors Island: Lines, Boats, and Coconuts

photo via mybrokenmouth on flickr

Yeasayer kicked off their summer-through-fall 2010 tour opening The Beach at Governors Island Saturday night. The music was fantastic, as expected (Yeasayer setlist). The logistics of getting thousands of sweaty hipsters out to an island accessible only by boat, on the other hand, were insane. Kudos to Bowery Presents, Highline Ballroom and Mad Dog Present for even trying, and thanks for keeping the taxis and music free.

It all started with a very long line, as such things do, that spanned from the gates of the Water Taxi building allll the wayyyy to Battery Park. Almost everyone behind me never even made it to the show as the island hit capacity about ten minutes after 7:00pm. The spot itself is awesome — right there on the Governors Island “beach” overlooking the East River and NYC skyline. Best of all, they have dayglo fake palm trees.

Opening bands Keepaway and Delicate Steve were the openers, Yeasayer the main event. All rocked it solidly, but let’s talk logistics, after the jump. In the meantime, here’s Yeasayer performing O.N.E., via eyots:

Gone to Governor’s – Yeasayer from The Big Secret on Vimeo.

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Getting there

Get at the water taxi in Manhattan BEFORE 6pm. You’ll still wait at least an hour, but at least you’ll have a chance getting on the island. There is a liquor store beyond Battery Park just next to the Wall St. bull. They came in handy. Organizers promise they’ll have a Brooklyn-side water taxi up and running soon, so hopefully that will help cut down the crowds. But man, that was bad!

Drinks

Drinks selection was solid: Brooklyn Lager, liquor, Sangria, etc. Outside drinks are banned, and they’ll search and pat you down on the way in. You’ll wait in another line getting a 21+ wristband, but thankfully they’ve got three tables set up so it spreads things out a bit.

Food

What the fuck guys. If there’s one rule I go by when attending summer shows, it’s always order the fucking sausage. You are guaranteed to get a foot-long kielbasa on a nice big hot dog bun, which you then slather in spicy mustard, sit back, and wait for the heartburn to kick in. But what did you give me? Half of a HALF of a sausage on a hamburger bun. You butterflied my half of a sausage and dropped it on a dried out hamburger bun! Saddened, I sauntered over to the condiments table but only faced empty buckets and teeming patrons scooping every last drop out of the ketchup and mustard bins with the sauerkraut tongs. It was total condiment mayhem. Conclusion: Don’t go to Governors Island hungry.

Music

The stage is big, so the views are fine from front to back. The music’s pretty good too, but of course, it’s best from the concrete up front and the wood planks in the middle. Once you’re in the sand it starts to lighten-up. But you’re in sand in New York City so who cares, right? Yeasayer is awesome, I can’t say it enough. I loved their lighting situation, which basically created a band of silhouettes.

Getting home

As you can imagine, everybody getting in by boat has to leave by boat, so don’t think you’re getting home after the encore — more lines! I’d recommend you leave sometime between the second-to-last song and the encore and catch that first batch of water taxis home.

The bottom line

Get a canoe, pack a flask and a sandwich.

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