Bonnaroo Music Festival 2008 Kicks Off Thursday with Superdrag, Vampire Weekend, Battles and MGMT

Jack Johnson performing at the second annual Bonnaroo (2003). Photo courtesy of evilvince.com

Thousands of music and arts enthusiasts are gathering in the beautiful foothills of Tennessee to enjoy four days of music, arts and plenty more. Bonnaroo is one of the largest festivals in the United States and the first major festival of the 2008 summer season.

In recent years, Bonnaroo has become as well known as other big music and arts festivals like Lollapalooza, Coachella and Austin City Limits.

But Bonnaroo does not start of with a bang. The line up for the first day of the festival pales in comparison to the artists and bands set to perform this weekend.

For the Thursday kick-off, bands like Vampire Weekend, Superdrag, Battles, and MGMT are scheduled to play – all of these in the so-called “This Tent”. The other ‘stages’, or tents, feature lesser known artists, or bands and musicians that have a comparably small or local following, such as Lez Zeppelin, Dark Star Orchestra, Grand Ole Party and The Felice Brothers.

MP3: MGMT – “Destrokk”

For music fans that have never heard The Battles, check out this driving electronic rock video titled “Atlas”. It has been viewed over one million times.

It’s not much of a surprise that the first day of the festival, being that it is a Thursday, is not loaded up with must-see bands. Furthermore, the music doesn’t even get started until early evening.

Nevertheless, on Friday, June 13, Bonnaroo becomes the epicenter of a wide array of impressive bands and artists, including The Raconteurs, Metallica, My Morning Jacket, Drive-By Truckers, Steve Marley, Jose Gonzales, Rilo Kiley, Willie Nelson, Tegan and Sara, MIA, The Swell Season, !!!, MSTRKRFT, Tiesto, Les Claypool, Minus The Bear and almost a dozen others.

Tegan and Sara performing “Back In Your Head” (YouTube video)

The only problem, and this is the problem with most festivals that have multiple stages, is that you are almost guaranteed to miss some of your favorite artists or bands because they perform simultaneously in different locations. That’s why pouring over the schedule in advance and mapping where you want to be and when is so important to maximizing your musical experience.

With that said, and to the credit of the organizers, Bonnaroo is one of the top music festivals at which who plays where and when has been scheduled in such a way that most festival goers will have the opportunity to see most of the ‘big name’ performers in their genre (i.e. indie rock) without too much overlap.

Another cool thing about Bonnaroo is that headliners play very long sets (Metallica is playing for 2 1/2 hours and My Morning Jacket is playing for three hours) and the music goes well into the wee hour mornings, when the summer sky is full of stars and the cooler night time air makes for a wonderful experience.

Check back for more Bonnaroo coverage or subscribe to the IRC RSS Feed (Feed Me Indie!)

NYC’s Vampire Weekend Continue Relentless Touring

With a catchy name and unique sound that combines indie rock-pop and Afro influences, New York’s collegiate ‘indie’ sensation Vampire Weekend have managed to become one of the the hottest bands during the past two years, selling out shows, performing on Saturday Night Live and garnering a massive amount of buzz in the mainstream press and on countless music blogs.

But there are disadvantages of being so popular; there are music fans who absolutely love the band, and there are others who declare VW are vastly over-rated.

Live MP3: Vampire Weekend performing “M79” at SxSW 2008

Yet the soaring popularity of the band appears to be unabated. That can be a good and a bad thing, as we’ve seen so many times before. Nonetheless, I’d bet my Cadillac that many record labels are in a bidding war for these guys right now.

The band has toured relentlessly since early 2007, and there is no sign that they intend to take a break. In fact, VW are booked solid through the end of September when they will play at the famous Austin City Limits festival.

Here’s Vampire Weekend’s tour dates for the next four months. It seems as if they are playing nearly every music festival this summer, not just in the U.S., but worldwide:
If you’d like to see the band live, it is strongly recommended to get tickets once they go on sale, since tickets have regularly gone for double and triple the price on eBay and other third-party ticket auction sites.

One of the most interesting things about a band from New York City is that they have a number of songs about Massachusetts in their limited music repertoire (“Boston”, “Ladies of Cambridge” and “Cape Cod Kawasa Kawasa”)

The band describes their sound as “Upper West Side Soweto” – a reference to their early gigs playing at frat and literary parties for NYC social elites where people began to take notice of their unique blend of joyous indie rock infused with melodic Afro-beat rhythms.

Vampire Weekend’s band members are Ezra Koenig, Chris Baio, Rostam Batmanglij, and Chris Tomson. The group derived their name from a college film project shortly after forming in 2006.

Their first release, the EP Mansford Roof, caught the attention of music critics, including The New York Times. Word spread quickly about Vampire Weekend’s unique sound and lyrics (the track “Oxford Comma” refers to a comma use in a list of three items), buoyed by the band’s self-released EPs, which they recorded in locations spanning their Columbia dorm rooms to a family barn.

The buzz around Vampire Weekend reached a feverish peak in 2007; that summer, the band embarked on a seemingly endless tour in 2007, made several appearances at that year’s CMJ Music Marathon, and eventually signed with XL Records that fall.

Since then, Vampire Weekend has continued to grow in popularity, evidenced by the fact that most of their shows for this spring and summer have already been sold out.

Some worthwhile VW links, including audio and video performances:

Vampire Weekend: Fresh blood on campusUK Telegraph

See more Vampire Weekend on IRC including a special and exclusive video performance shot at San Francisco’s Rickshaw Stop show on Easter Sunday.

Streaming Video Session: Vampire Weekend live on KCRW

Webs: Vampire Weekend’s official website and MySpace page.

Lollapalooza 2007 Special Edition: Music Video Performances

Missed out on Lollapalooza? Well, don’t sweat it.

IRC has put together a hot compilation of videos from festival goers and mainstream media highlighting the indie rock and pop artists that helped make Lollapalooza 2007 a great success.

Even threats of thunderstorms were not going to allow the feast of music to be interrupted, although there were a few, brief showers, which you can imagine was a nice relief from the searing heat and icky humidity that has made it an unusually warm summer in the midwestern United States.

Don’t miss reviews and postings for festivals still yet to take place, such as Austin City Limits Festival, Monolith, Download Festivals, Vegoose and many more.

Check out YouTube videos from Lollapalooza (videos have been approved for quality) and other Lolla links.

LCD Soundsystem at Lollapalooza 2007 (from AT&T Blue Room)
Daft Punk Is Playing At My House
North American Scum
Time to Get Away

Pete Yorn (from AT&T Blue Room) at Lollapalooza 2007
Closet
Young Folks
Policies

Son Volt from Lollapalooza 2007 (from AT&T Blue Room video)
Afterglow 61
Underground Dream
The Search

Various videos from Lolla 07:

Daft Punk
Daft Punk
Awesome Light Show
Muse – Apocalypse Please
Muse – Starlight
Spoon –
Turn My Camera On
Motion City Soundtrack –
short clip 30 seconds
Interpol –
Heinrich Maneuver – partial clip
Kings of Leon with Eddy Vedder
Silversun Pickups (
35 second bite)
Ted Leo & The Pharmacists –
Where Have All The Rude Boys Gone?
Dax Riggs –
How Long The Night Was
Back Door Slam – Lonely For You