Music Blog

Photo Review: PDX Pop Now! '09- Day 2

Jeremy Petersen on July 26, 2009 at 04:11 PM, last updated March 10, 2011 at 02:54 PM

Saturday's PDX Pop Now! action brought one highlight after another, whether it was the heady rhymes of wordsmith Luck-One, the measured and complex delivery of Church, or the block-rocking nightcaps served by Pierced Arrows and Strength. It was hot, it was sweaty, and, more often than not, worth the endurance.

We arrived first for noise-punk duo Magic Johnson who, despite their name, had little to do with basketball and sang mostly in spanish. Then again, there's that "showtime" connection. We dug.

Luck-One had been impressing us for a while now via recordings, including his latest, Beautiful Music, which you may have heard a track or two from right here over the past few months. That said, he was several degrees better on stage, producing a big response from a crowd that might have otherwise lazed through a late afternoon set with the sun still beating down.

Contrasts were a big part of this year's fast, and it hardly gets more different from Luck-One than Red Fang, who played the same stage just an hour later. Even if you don't know Red Fang's music per se, chances are you came across the Whitey McConnaughy-directed video for "Prehistoric Dog" at some point last year. Decemberist Chris Funk also sung their praises, naming their tour CD one of his five favorite albums of 2008. They played a vicious set.

Indoor sets from Church, Tara Jane O'Neill and Deelay Ceelay followed, and the oppressive heat inside didn't stop the minions from filling Rotture. Church pulled off the complexity that exists on their upcoming release, Song Force Crystal, without a hitch, adding a horn section for the occasion to further flesh out their songs. Tara Jane O'Neill's quietly powerful guitar and drums set was made up largely of songs from her new A Ways Away and ascended to new heights for its finale with a bit of communal percussion. Deelay Ceelay, meanwhile, were all beats, lights and fog, as the drumming duo left a sweating, heaving mass that shook Rotture's old warehouse floor.

Cue the contrasts once again: immediately following Deelay Ceelay's set, a no less packed audience stood in rapt attention as Laura Gibson began the final grouping of acts of the night on the outdoor stage. Gibson's been on the road a lot this year and it shows in a good way, as interesting new wrinkles seem to have creeped into even newer songs like "Spirited," perhaps the result of logging so many recent performances with bandmates Sean Ogilvie and Micah Rabwin. Gibson's set highlighted one of the impressive things about this year's festival, that being that the audience (all ages, no less) showed the same appreciation for music that moved them, as they did for music that makes them move, often within just a few minutes of one another.

The return of Nice Nice followed, as well as a vicious set from ~~Dead Moon~~ Pierced Arrows that had a whole new generation of kids moshing in front of the stage. The slick funk-pop of Strength closed the night in fine style, as they showed why they might be THE party band of this year's festival. Frontman Bailey Winters preened and worked the still packed crowd into a jumping frenzy during a set which included a spot-on version of The Romantics' "Talking in Your Sleep." The irony on many levels was not lost, including just how long after this song was popular many jumping in front of the stage were born. It was a riotuous close to Saturday's action-- one that left just over ten hours until Ah Holly Fam'ly's opening set on Sunday. We're not convinced everyone went home.