Last Band You Saw

Carrying over the thread from the old site, what was the most recent band you saw and what you thought of them and the openers?

Mine was the Outside Days festival in Denver.
https://outsidedays.outsideonline.com

I went to this festival with my son, who I knew was a fan of Death Cab, The Flaming Lips, and Cage The Elephant. I then found out that he was a fan of a few other bands.

DAY ONE

We didn’t see all of Wildermiss’s set because of traffic. Female fronted with synths and guitars, sometimes ambient, sometimes poppy. My son is a fan, I liked a few songs.

Japanese Breakfast was somewhat of a surprise for me. I had heard a few of their songs which I had mildly liked, but live the songs had a lot more punch and vibrancy. Their bass player was pretty good too. This was one of the few times I had seen a band where I didn’t know most of their songs and was disappointed when the set ended.

Goth Babe was fun and charismatic, but all their songs were basically two chords. I got tired of them halfway through their set but the crowd was really digging their upbeat vibes. Also weird they gave out a blender and a vacuum cleaner.

Death Cab for Cutie finished the set. The bass sound was off during the first couple of songs, but they turned in a good set. Also Ben Gibbard doesn’t really look like what you think he should based on his voice.

DAY TWO

We missed the first few acts.

I had never really been into Dawes, but now I hate them because I have not been able to get “Time Spent in Los Angeles” and “All Your Favorite Bands” out of my head. They actually were pretty good, although there were some tracks where the keyboard player was playing wah clavinet and it really didn’t fit.

I was slightly disappointed with The Flaming Lips, mostly because they started late due to console issues, which meant that they did a limited set. Even so they managed to fit in a fair amount of spectacle and some of their more popular songs. At this point they are basically a cover band of themselves but they still do the job. My son, who had never seen them, thought their set was amazing though.

I was considerably less impressed with My Morning Jacket. Their first song they just sang “la la” for four minutes followed by a track which made a strong argument that people from Kentucky should never be allowed to play reggae. We stayed for six songs in total, only heard one song that was enjoyable, and never heard anything that convinced us that MMJ should have been the headliner.

DAY THREE

We missed the earlier bands to hear Ed O’Brien of Radiohead speak. He began by presenting a short film he scored the soundtrack to and then discussed how nature helped him overcome depression. He then gave a gift of a sacred stone to everyone in the audience.

Grouplove was fine but they didn’t really have a strong setlist.

Tash Sultana was interesting. Her voice was beautiful but it was weird that her speaking voice sounded nothing like her singing voice. She played some reggae, blues, and funk, initially with a band, and then with loopers.

Cage The Elephant closed the show. I remember that they had a bunch of pyrotechnics and played a lot of good stuff, but for some reason I don’t really have that much more to say about them.

NOTABLE MOMENTS

Wildermiss – “WIFI”

Japanese Breakfast – “Everybody Wants To Love You”. Unfortunately it doesn’t sound as good on the album as I remembered it live.

Goth Babe – almost had someone crowd surfing on a pool raft fall on me.

Death Cab – “Soul Meets Body”

Dawes – I didn’t see a lot of Dawes t-shirts in the crowd, but when the crowd was singing the final chorus of “All Your Favorite Bands” as if it wasn’t the first time half of them had heard it, it was a beautiful thing.

The Flaming Lips – OK, it isn’t every day you see giant pink robots pelvic thrusting to the music, but I thought it was kind of funny to hear Wayne Coyne pleading with the audience not to go to the bathroom right before starting to play “Do You Realize??” And then I get plowed over by some philistine doing exactly that.

MMJ – I did get a kick out of those giant fur boots Jim James was sporting

Ed O’Brien – The soundtrack from his film had some cool tracks. And when was the last time you gift from a rock star?