Scenestar

ARTICLE BY JOY SHI

AUGUST 24-25 | MONTEREY—Monterey opened its historic county fairgrounds to the inaugural First City Festival this weekend. Organized by concert promoting giant Goldenvoice, the flagship festival ventured confidently into the spotlight cast by Northern California’s thriving music culture, home to the Monterey Jazz Festival and the Monterey International Pop Festival. In addition to headliners Modest Mouse and Passion Pit, the venue hosted more than 35 indie, folk, and alt-country music acts.

Day 1 Recap
The festival kicked off in temperate spirits on Saturday, bathed in postcard worthy sunshine and mild breezes. An early highlight of the day included North Carolina country-rock outfit Delta Rae, whose soaring, made-for-ballads vocals could be heard from the festival entrance as concertgoers filed into the fairgrounds.

Oregon’s experimental folk group Blitzen Trapper was a fitting act to open the historic Redwood Stage, once home to The Grateful Dead, Otis Redding, Janis Joplin, and The Jimi Hendrix Experience at the 1967 Monterey Pop Festival. Blitzen Trapper has frequently toured with alt-country heavyweight Dawes and embodied the essence of First City Festival‘s strong ties to folk rock and Americana. It was a five-minute walk from the Redwood Stage to the Cypress Stage, where psychedelic-rock outfit The Black Angels was playing. The Austin-based band was the only group playing the festival at 3:30 p.m. and consequently drew a large number of listeners who lounged on the grass.

As Brooklyn pop rockers The Hold Steady held the attention of the crowd at the Redwood Stage, five-piece indie band Guards (featuring Cults‘ Madeline Follin) also drew a strong showing to the Manzanita Stage, the smallest of the festival stages and tucked in a grassy niche near the entrance. Four-piece indie band Civil Twilight played their brand of ’90s-inspired alternative rock, with influences by U2 and Radiohead. Originally from Cape Town, South Africa, Civil Twilight gushed with gratitude for playing at the First City Festival.

While indie rockers Okkervil River played to an increasingly restless, milling crowd, fans patiently awaited the arrival of Father John Misty at the Cyprus Stage. After a short delay (which he chalked up to moisturizing while backstage), Josh Tillman and his band kicked off their set with opener favorite “Funtimes in Babylon.” The crowd responded favorably to the singer’s famous hip-swaggering, as the band performed additional Fear Fun tracks. The bearded singer decried the basketball man for running a rigged game at the carnival. And when a plane flew overhead during his set, he joked, “You know how much it cost to have that plane come out at that exact time? Definitely more than a few tickets.”

Beach House encountered the first of the evening’s technical difficulties at the Redwood Stage. Despite a faulty mic’d drum set, the Maryland-based duo pulled off their early evening set with songs from 2012 album Bloom, including “Wild” and “Lazuli,” as well as older tracks from 2010 hit Teen Dream. As a burlesque-clad performer on stilts randomly sauntered near the stage, singer Victoria Legrand joked, “Don’t worry, we’re Beach House, but we’re really the Moulin Rouge.”

As night fell, the carnival section of the fairgrounds glowed into being, including the fancy late-century-style carousel and swing rides from Neverland Ranch. From the center of the festival grounds, traffic could be seen picking up as fans crossed between Delta Spirit‘s energetic live set at Cypress Stage and MGMT‘s performance at Redwood Stage. In spite of the hyperactive backdrop of bleeding colors and patterns, MGMT‘s audience seemed ambivalent to any material that strayed outside of the band’s 2007 album Oracular Spectacular, an issue that frontmen Benjamin Goldwasser and Andrew VanWyngarden navigated with timely performances of their hits “Time To Pretend” and “Electric Feel.”

At 8:30 p.m., the Cypress Stage transformed into a fairy-like fantasy world for Washed Out‘s performance. Surrounded by draping overhead lights and glowing floral arrangements, Ernest Greene debuted celestial tracks off his latest album Paracosm, including “It All Feels Right” and “Weightless.” The otherworldly quality of the scene was further enhanced by the reverberations of planes flying overhead, unseen through the mist that had settled around the clearing.

Passion Pit‘s delayed headlining set suffered through technical difficulties the whole way through, with singer Michael Angelakos’ voice nearly inaudible during the opener “I’ll Be Alright” from 2012’s Gossamer. Although the sound issues were left unresolved, the audience’s spirits could not be dampened, as the band played hit after hit, including “Constant Conversations” and fan favorites “Sleepyhead” and “Little Secrets.”

Day 2 Recap
Saturday marked a collectively strong finish for the festival. San Francisco’s indie rock duo The Dodos led the way with a nicely executed show at the Cypress Stage early in the afternoon. Electronic indie outfit Seventeen Evergreen, New Orleans’s Generationals, and Avey Tare’s Slasher Flicks played to responsive, dancing crowds at the Manzanita Stage. Although Akron/Family drew only a modestly sized audience, the band’s yelping, heavily crashing set drenched appreciative fans in cresting waves of sound and intensity.

Early on at the Redwood Stage, The Antlers and Dr. Dog confirmed the sound system was capable of functioning properly. However, the feel-good kings of the afternoon—and possibly the whole weekend—were Los Angeles indie pop outfit Capital Cities. Wearing matching satin jackets, frontmen Ryan Merchant and Sebu Simonian arrived on stage singing Nat King Cole’s “L.O.V.E.” Backed by the smooth jazz stylings of trumpeter Spencer Ludwig, the singers suavely flattered the crowd with simple, coordinated dance moves during “Kangaroo Court,” “I Sold My Bed, But Not My Stereo,” and the so-much-better-live version of “Farrah Fawcett Hair.” Set highlights included a cover of the Bee Gees‘ “Stayin’ Alive” and when everyone in the audience did the Capital Cities shuffle. After performing their radio claim to fame “Safe and Sound,” the group bounded back for some shirt-removing and crowd-surfing fun before bowing off. Not bad for a show that lasted just under an hour.

Indie folk singer Devendra Banhart inspired many dancer circles at the Redwood Stage, as he performed tracks from his latest album Mala. Surrounded by a flock of five guitars, Banhart burst into spontaneous hip shaking and offered many gracias in between songs. Toro Y Moi followed, delivering a dance set that kept the audience moving as the afternoon ended. “You guys got good vibes,” commented 26-year-old Chazwick Bundick.

Country-noir singer Neko Case held court at the Redwood Stage, delivering new tracks from her forthcoming album as well as older hits, including “I Wish I Was The Moon” and opening number “People Got a Lotta Nerve.” The relaxed songstress commanded her band and the audience with an easy grace, punctuated by her humorous commentary. “I feel like I’m at my cotillion where my rich father is auctioning me off,” she remarked of the large rodeo arena. Across the festival grounds, Purity Ring closed down the Cypress Stage with a luminous set that resembled an underwater tribal scene, further enhanced by a thick layer of fog. Wearing a white dress, vocalist Megan James resembled a translucent paper doll while singing hits “Lofticries” and “Fine Shrine” in her robotic, ethereal voice.

The last act of the weekend, festival closers Modest Mouse found redemption for their earlier festival woes this year, when the band was cut off early for running overtime at Coachella. The band played a career-spanning set including such classic hits as “The World at Large,” “The Moon and Antarctica,” “Spitting Venom,” and “Dashboard.” Frontman Isaac Brock switched guitars incessantly and played the set with eccentric zeal, but he visibly chose his words with care when he addressed the crowd. “Festivals are complicated…” he said in a brief allusion to Coachella, laughing in spite of himself. Later, Brock attempted to lead the crowd in four seconds of silence. “Honestly, I just want a fucking zen garden for a second,” he said, before giving up and launching into the remainder of the set.