Tales from the Nation - Day One

The Intonation Festival was this weekend and, to put it mildly, it was a blast. The value I received for my $21 weekend pass was unprecedented. There's a lot to tell, so I'm breaking this down by days. Saturday, I rolled over there with a solid group: Gaydro, Mia and Mel, Alissa, Suz and myself were there from the start. Action Pap and Whistle Pop joined us later in the day. We picked out a nice spot located right in between the two stages so we would be able to watch all the acts without having to change locations. However, though the view from this spot was nice, it was also super hot. No shade, just sun all day. It was cool, though. There were a lot of bands playing on Sat. that I was super excited about. AC Newman was pretty good, despite some technical difficulties at the beginning. Four Tet was amazing, much more beat driven this time than his set on Friday at Reckless Records. From what I got to hear, Broken Social Scene was really good. I was waiting in line for food with 57 and Suz so I sort of missed out on seeing a lot of their set.

The Go! Team was next and this was the band I was most amped about. They made my favorite album of last year and I still listen to it like I just got it. Unfortunately, I was sort of disappointed by their show. They have this female rapper named Ninja who is in some of the songs on the album, but not often and never for very long when she does pop up. During their set, however, she rapped over almost all of the songs and even rapped new bits instead of the original samples that were in the songs ("The Power is On" being the first example that comes to mind). Now, I'm all for improvisation and the changes to a song that come with playing it live, but these were like completely different versions and I had been really looking forward to the versions from the album that I loved. I was the only one who felt like this, though. Everybody else in the group really like their set.

Prefuse 73 and Tortoise finished out the day (Death From Above 1979 also played, but I missed their set). Both were awesome and the day would've been great if it had just ended there. It didn't though, as I also witnessed one of the most amazing things I've ever seen. Late in the afternoon, Jean Grae and Will Oldham (Bonnie Prince Billy) were doing a DJ set together. This would've been cool enough, and it was really funny to see them interact together and hear their song choices. But during the final ten minutes of their set, they played and acted out part one of "Trapped in the Closet". It was incredible. Not just because it was hilarious, but because I knew I was watching a once in a lifetime event. The only thing that could've made it any better was if Princess, B-Unit, Gaydro and Whistle Pop had been there to see it with me. Still, I'm just glad I got to see it. I plan on telling my grandkids about it.

Tales from Sunday coming soon.