Day Three, Pt 1

Musicfest NW 2011
by Justin Patterson

If Thursday night’s keyword was “devilry,” Friday’s was “soulful.” Sallie Ford & the Sound Outside kicked off the day’s lineup with a late afternoon show at Pioneer Square. The growing crowd was treated to the old school rock and roll that she flavors with lyrics which are sometimes curt, sometimes sad, but always sweet and sultry. “Cage” came with the charisma of a Bing Crosby record but the growl of a woman scorned. “Danger” offered the opposite and registered high on the feel-good scale.

Marketa Irglova followed up Sallie Ford’s bouncy stage presence with a cool flow of sub-epic melodies. She was joined by a stoic bass player and an elegant Iranian woman whom she introduced as “Ida.” Marketa, remarking that she’d “never played a town square before,” lovingly ushered each song onto the wide brick expanse with a stream of lucid nomenclature which was simultaneously history, biography and prayer. Part of the yarn, Ida sang in lilting minor over her liquid daf drum, sometimes in duet with Marketa or gentle piano.

An hour later, at Backspace coffee bar, Drew Grow and the Pastor’s Wives belted out some heavy-footed folk rock songs. “Friendly Fire,” a compelling march, wilted and soared in Drew’s warm tenor over juicy guitar licks and a deep-pocketed rhythm section. “Do You Feel It” was grandiose and catchy at the same time, a crescendo of epic indie-rock proportions. In fact, the performance was far bigger than the small and crowded stage it unfolded on. Drew Grow’s lead is vastly expressive, with cavernous guitar rhythms and an emotional honesty that is deep, warm and mesmerizing. This is a new kind of gospel, and his band, following him through every bend in his musical journey, are not his only believers.

Across the river, Reptar was inundated with color. The four-man art rock band from Georgia was moving from a vaguely Carribbean synth arpeggio into a happy techno-pop breakdown, and was about to teleport into an icy rock groove inhabited by a New Orleans four-horn band. Early in the high-energy set, it was clear that the only constant in this band’s performance would be spectacle. The music, fantastic and genreless as art rock can be, was foot-stompingly, body-rockingly, smilingly good, and it came with lots and lots of antics– from the bassist and keyboardist tossing a tambourine across the stage in time with song rhythm, to lead singer Graham Ulicny inserting seemingly random throat gurgles into otherwise docile verses, to William Kennedy’s claw-waving parody of namesake Reptar the Dinosaur from behind the keys in the middle of a song. The crowd went wild. How to describe a Reptar show: So. Much. Fun.

When the stage was cleared for MSTRKRFT, almost everything disappeared. When the Toronto-based duo briskly took the stage, they shrugged off the intense roar of their fans and launched straight into a pummeling, two hour club set. For some, this would later be described as disappointing; the band– who did not play some of the softer indie-electro dance pleasantries that the disgruntled minority had come to hear– wasn’t what they expected. This was no Beach House chill-out session. Portland radio doesn’t have a station like this. At the front, engaged in flying hands and elbows and bodies, cameras dropping onto a floor of oblivion, it was, in fact, a bloodbath. But for those enthralled in the heat and the intensity and the physical engagement (a large contingent) it was definitely awesome. Tech trance blended with solid-state Daft Punk-ish club beats and crashed into hoovering dubstep. Unexpectedly, Portland got one of the best and most danceable electronic sets ever, where every song that dropped was perfect in timing, placement, and energy. When MSTRKRFT left the stage (abruptly, just as they entered, with the crowd demanding an encore that was not given) normalcy descended from the ceiling-lights of the Wonder Ballroom, and the street began filling with a dazed and deflated zombie apocolypse.