10 best festival sets since 2000

10 best festivals sets

by Alexander Laurence

2001: July 17^th – Guided By Voices @ Siren Music Festival / Coney Island. This was the first year of the festival and it was super hot and humid. I went there with my girlfriend at the time. We waited hours, watching bands like Peaches and Superchunk. Finally we got to Guided by Voices: they were great. They played all the hits. During the set my girlfriend passed out. That was the only time I rode the Cyclone. It was memorable.

2002: March 16^th – Merzbow @ ATP (UCLA) Los Angeles. I think that I had a pass for the whole weekend, but I think that I only attended one day. It was a mix between soft rock bands and laptop bands. At some point Wilco and Big Star played, but I was obviously in the wrong place. I remember watching Deerhoof and Destroy All Monsters for the first time. But the most exciting was Merzbow. He had two laptops and he created this wave of loud sound for an hour, somewhere in between the Boredoms and Aphex Twin. It was truly otherworldly and amazing. I got lost and didn’t get home until 7am the next day as I remember.

2003: August 23^rd – Brian Jonestown Massacre @ Sunset Junction. One of the first years I attended. BJM played super early, around 3pm, in the mid-heat of the day. People were still arriving. The band had some guys in it who I didn’t recognize. Anton was very talkative and insulting. This was pre-Dig The Movie era, even though a few seconds of this gig appears in that movie. This would be the last really out of control shambolic BJM show for a long time. After this, Dig The Movie won best documentary at Sundance, and Anton Newcombe and company would start becoming the internationally known touring outfit they are today.

2004: August 27^th – The Cure @ Curiosa Festival (Carson, CA). I had pretty much given up on the Cure at this point. I hadn’t seen them since the early 1980s, and didn’t much care for what they did after Pornography. They were playing with some newer bands like Interpol and The Rapture. They were much better than those bands. I had also seen them at Coachella but had fallen asleep as they played for hours. They were great that night back in 2004, but haven’t really wanted to see them since.

2005: July 29^th – The White Stripes @ San Diego Street Scene. I was hanging out back stage with the other bands. I saw Wayne Coyne of Flaming Lips hanging around. It was chill. And then, there was a parting of the red sea, and everyone had to make room for the band The White Stripes. I could barely even see them as they were guided towards the stage. It was a great show of the many times I saw them. They played a bunch of shows of Elephant, and Jack White played keyboards and bells. It was impressive.

2006: May 27^th – The Flaming Lips @ Sasquatch! Festival. First time at this festival. This was The Flaming Lips at the peak of their Soft Bulletin/Yoshimi excess. There was 100 people onstage, and all this stuff flying around. They played “Bohemian Rhapsody” and it was a sing-along. I remember being in the photo pit with Ice Cream Man and thinking this was a great show. What made it even more spectacular was there was a hail storm around 6pm during Neko Case. They stopped the gig and everyone took cover. It was suspended for three hours before Ben Harper and Flaming Lips came back onstage really late.

 

2009: October 17^th – MGMT @ Treasure Island SF. We made a last minute decision to drive up to San Francisco from LA. I was with this band Magic Wands. We got there hours after it had started. I was on the list and I had a photo pass, but the Magic Wands didn’t have tickets. I went in and took a bunch of pictures. Minutes later I got a call from Dexy from Magic Wands. They were in the VIP section. They gave me a wristband and we were all hanging out together. Magic Wands had hopped the fence and went right to the VIP section. It was hilarious. We went from having a disaster, to having a great time, and the MGMT show was the best ever. They played the whole first album in order.

 

2011: August 6^th – MGMT @ Huntington Beach Pier. This was a free show during the surfing competition. I have gone a few years in a row. This show was the most packed it ever was. I was hanging out with Foxygen, and members of Magic Wands and Miranda Lee Richards. Everyone showed up to this gig. The summer gigs in Huntington Beach have been very exciting over the years. Last year there was a riot. This MGMT + Surfer Blood was the best show of them all. In 2013, I got to hang out backstage with Modest Mouse. But MGMT was the cream.

 

2012: August 11^th – Alabama Shakes @ Outside Lands. I had been hearing about this band for a while. This was the first time that I actually saw them. But I couldn’t get anywhere near the stage. Everyone had the same idea and a lot of people got there at the festival at 3pm when they came on. It was the most crowded I had ever seen the second stage. After about three songs I went to go catch some other act. I saw Alabama Shakes a few weeks later, but I remember this Outside Lands set as being very important.

 

2014: April 11^th – Foxygen @ Coachella. They played fairly early in the day. In the past, when some band played at 1pm, there was hardly anyone there. But in Foxygen’s case, it was very dense for that time of day. Some people came there just to see Foxygen. Sam France was the craziest frontman of any band I have ever seen there. They played a few new songs that I have never heard before. It was surreal.