Even though the last day of Moogfest was Halloween, it was the end of the festival and a Sunday in an otherwise sleepy, small town, so the schedule was not as long as it had been on Friday and Saturday. That was fine with me—I had a two-hour drive home after the last act. Most of the acts on my itinerary were acts whose albums I had a strong familiarity with but had never seen live. First up was Sleigh Bells whose debut, Treats, was one of my favorites for the year.
I entered the Thomas Wolfe Auditorium to meet a listless audience who was, no doubt, just as worn out as I was, but they were ready for one last stretch of bands. I checked the clock on my phone: Sleigh Bells was supposed to have started playing by now. People were probably listless because they were upset. It wasn’t a big problem: Sleigh Bells only had one album’s worth of material to play with, and they had a 45-minute slot. It’s not like they could have filled all of it, anyway.
Minutes later, bandmates Derek E. Miller and Alexis Krauss ran out onstage and worked the crowd like indie hip-hop stars (or something). Miller had his trademark shades on (initially), and Krauss swung her black hair to-and-fro. While Miller did play a few riffs on his guitar, the majority of the music was being played on a track. This was somewhat disappointing. No doubt Treats was largely produced using samples, but it would have been nice to see a bit more live replication. Caribou did it, so why couldn’t Sleigh Bells? Their insistence on the easy route was detrimental to their live performance and rendered it as a couple of people standing onstage essentially doing karaoke. Sleigh Bells isn’t a live act I’ll be jumping to see anytime soon. Speaking of jumping, the crowd bum-rushed the front of the theater during tracks like “Tell ‘Em” and “Kids,” jumping/moshing/dancing so hard that it broke the historic theater’s floor! I’m not sure that will work in Moogfest’s favor for next year’s plans, but you can’t blame kids for dancing.
I’m a person who often avoids blogosphere hype like the plague, so you can understand my dilemma when Neon Indian and the whole “chillwave” movement hit it big in 2009. I never went out of my way to hear Psychic Chasms, Neon Indian’s debut album, but I did hear rumors that they were pretty good live, so I stayed behind in TWA and waited for their set. They had a particularly bright stage setup reminiscent of the colorful geometric shapes on their Psychic Chasms album cover. Bandleader Alan Palomo was dressed up as the titular (and iconic) character from the anime Akira–that level of geekiness was unexpected but appreciated (by me, anyway). The band performed the majority of the feel-good anthems from their debut, translating them from summer to Halloween party-appropriate, which the Moogfest attendees appreciated (they also appreciated the guitarist’s kickass LED instrument). Palomo took off his shiny red vinyl jacket before leading the band into “Deadbeat Summer,” which lost a little bit of its hazy chillwave sound but packed a lot of punch. The rest of their set followed suit, provoking me to listen to their debut for the first time when I got home. I can honestly say that these guys are much more satisfying live act than a studio act—check ‘em out when you get the chance.
Hot Chip is a band full of shamelessly nerdy men who know how to dance and create some of the most irresistibly danceworthy music of our generation. How is it that the nerdy ones usually have such a good grasp of dance music? It beats me. But nothing could beat me for Hot Chip’s set, even though my feet were pretty exhausted from worshipping at the Church of Jónsi and grooving a little bit to Neon Indian’s set. Exhaustion from the last few days or not, I was ready for the floor. Indeed, most people were ready for Hot Chip and ready for the floor to—not collapse anymore than it already had, so the security guards moved them further back into the theater. The sudden consolidation of people made us a lot closer to each other and thus, a lot sweatier.
That body heat and sweat increased as Hot Chip launched into their blistering neo-disco set, reproducing their more well-known songs, such as “One Life Stand,” “Ready for the Floor,” “Boy from School,” “Over and Over,” etc. They also got down with several songs from the new album, as the promotion for the new disc couldn’t be avoided. Alexis Taylor, the diminutive, geeky frontman is actually far more charismatic than the average passerby might give him credit for, and his wavering, high tenor voice made quite an impression as it bounced off the theater walls. Hot Chip actually does the whole live instrumentation thing as well, and it just brings that much more energy to their sound and performance. They defy the soulless, manufactured dance genre by give us some astoundingly vivacious, textured tracks. Hot Chip is a band in the highest sense of the word—a troupe of really talented guys with a strong familial bond.
Hot Chip blew me away and exhausted me once and for all, so I knew that I had to truck on back to Tennessee before tiredness would soon take over and cause me to spend more money on a hotel. I wanted to avoid falling into that trap. Although, there was one more act I could stand to catch a glimpse of, at the very least, and that was Dâm-Funk. Dâm’s retrofuturistic take on electronic and funk has always intrigued me, so I wanted to see what he was about, and this was his second and final set at Moogfest. He was playing in the Moogaplex, a venue especially crafted for the festival, and I realized that I hadn’t gone there throughout my entire time at the festival. Why not close out the festival doing something I hadn’t done before?
I got there and met a blue and red-lit room that was pretty industrial-looking, but the Moogfest crew had it decorated to give it that retrofuturistic aesthetic that dominated the fest—something that would suit Dâm-Funk quite well. I sat on the floor and waited for him to come out. Eventually some guy in a sweater, shades, and a toboggan came onstage, and I thought it was an opening act. “Oh okay, so I suppose he’s doing a DJ set before Dâm comes on,” I said to myself. Suddenly I realized that while I didn’t recognize any of the songs as being songs from Dâm’s album Toeachizown, there was a heavy funk slant on his choice of beats, and he was improvising on the mic. Actually—it was Dâm-Funk! He had either cut or was hiding his long, sleek superhero hair that became such a major part of his image, and he wasn’t in his usual funky duds—just basic street clothes.
Suddenly it hit me— Dâm was doing a Halloween DJ set. The program even specified that info, and I’d just forgotten since then. From afar, I saw Alan Palomo of Neon Indian bobbing his curly head to Dâm’s beats, and rightly so. His set was ill, but I was beginning to feel pretty ill myself, and not in the good way. The clock struck midnight—November 1st—and I knew it was time to head homeward and say goodbye to Moogfest and Asheville.
If Moogfest continues (and I hope it will), it should keep Asheville as home base. Bob Moog spent the rest of his life in that town, and touring bands treat the Moog Museum as a type of Mecca. It only makes sense. And a tightly-knit town like Asheville, where community is so important, is integral for the survival for such an intimate festival.
As I walked to my car, I was being joined by legions of costumed festivalgoers suddenly and spontaneously cheering in the streets. It wasn’t drunkenness, as far as I could tell. They were just overjoyed and communicating with each other, even though they were mostly total strangers (although some people made lifelong friends by the end of the whole thing). Asheville claimed me after many years of beckoning me to the comfort of those hills, and you know what? Next year at Moogfest, it can have me again.
Standout Acts: Massive Attack, Hot Chip, Jónsi
Pleasant Surprises: Caribou, Neon Indian
Most Disappointing Acts: MGMT, Sleigh Bells
All photos and images courtesy of Moogfest.
