Bamboozle (8/10): Music festivals are an entirely different animal than most other shows. They tend to be outside and people don’t usually come explicitly for one artist. Some people come just for the atmosphere. Overpriced beer and junk-food may not be as appealing in other arenas but when you’re hanging out with friends and hearing live music, to some that is excellent.
And of course, there’s the music, for the price of one show (or less for some festivals) you can see multiple artists. The sets and the fame usually get bigger as the night progresses.
In Bamboozle’s case it was $35 for up to twelve acts (some were DJ). I was a little more selective than that and went to just three acts(I skipped reviewing Treaty of Paris as I was exhausted) and overheard the rest. One of the things that made Bamboozle unique from what I’ve seen is that you could actually see all of the acts present. There was no overlap between sets. While this meant shorter sets, it also meant you didn’t have to pick and choose. The side stage was also close to the main stage so you didn’t have to bolt between sets.
This was like the speed dating of festivals. other festivals i’ve seen are 3 days or more with 1-2 hour sets (my old home town, Milwaukee festival Summerfest (warning flash site), is a full 11 days long) Bamboozle managed to cram what could have been two days worth of music into one. The result could have been catastrophic, but it was amazing. The sets i saw were only 30 minutes a piece, and were very close together.
The Venue--( Charter One Pavilion at Northerly Island)(7/10) I feel like im comparing apples to oranges when rating an outdoor venue against indoor venues. They are really differnt animals. The Charter One Pavilion has an enormous 7,500 person capcity, yet I’ve been in several plces at the venue and you can generally see fairly well (exception is the par for the corse 6 foot tall guy in front of my 5’1“ self, which thankfully didn’t happen this go). Another nice thing about sprawling outdoor venues is you get all the volume without as much pain on the ears. This venue has been suprisingly cheep too. I think the most I’ve paid for a show there was $75.
I feel most of the downsides are part of the nature of outside venues (weather, not as clean). However, the food and beverage prices are a bit ridiculous even for a concert ($4-5 for a 20oz bottle of water, $8 for nachos)
There was one odd nice touch, the merch booth took credit cards wich I’ve never seen before at an outdoor festival, heck some indoor shows don’t take credit, wich was a huge load off my mind.
The crowd--(6/10) The usual festival crowd which was a mix of very lively fans and laid back folks who were just there for the festival. A very comfortable, but hard to rate and even harder to anylize crowd.
On to the shows:
First Act-- (Kill Hannah)(7/10) An old favorite of mine that I’ve gushed over repeatedly, so I’ll keep it short. This was the welcome home show after an intense three week tour of Europe. They were wonderful as usual, with front man Mat Divine’s powerhouse energy and unique voice carried over a set that comprised of as many songs as the band could play in thirty minutes. It was a pleasure to see the guys back on their home stomping grounds.
And even more of a pleasure to see the guys Just hanging out and signing and chatting with fans. It was not the traditional Meet them from behind a table, be forced to buy a CD and wait in a huge line set up. They were just there among the people. While not part of the set, i found it really cool how amicable they are with their fans.
Second Act (3OH!3) (8/10): A total surprise considering It took a very long time for me to warm up to their recorded work and even now I only really like a few songs. They really brought the metaphoric house down.
3OH!3 is an odd band that is hard to figure out what to make of (according to wikipeda they are ”crunkcore“ I’d put them closer to hip-hop). On first listen their lyrics are rude, and seem sexist but there is something inexplicably catchy about it. However, the more i listen to them, the more i think they are parodying the hip hop culture, a bold move for young men who very clearly don’t look like they are a part of that culture. Its tongue in cheek that often comes very close to the style it is parodying.
Frontmen Nat Motte and Sean Forman were smashing on stage. I’ve never seen a hip hop show live before, and this was really something. The two of them were not only very articulate but incredibly fast spoken. I found myself genuinely liking them which frankly surprised me. They also took a moment to introduce the rest of the band, a nice touch and balanced the set nicely only intruding one completely new song, which the crowd liked as much as the previous set.
Electronic is hard to balance, and I think they did a very nice job incorporating electronic elements without it being a distraction.
Overall a good show.
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