The Hopscotch Music Festival isn’t a typical music festival. Yes, there’s a central stage with some hefty names on the bill, but that’s only a small part of the package. The festival is spread across nearly twenty venues throughout downtown Raleigh and crowds are just as likely to pack venues for relatively obscure acts like Lady Lamb the Beekeeper and Sylvan Esso as they are for the big name acts on the marquee, or even the mid-level acts whose shows we’ve already covered. It’s the place where biggest star of the festival was Merzbow, a Japanese noise musician who came to town for the Sonic Circuits Festival in 2010. It’s almost more like a miniature CMJ or SXSW than it is like Sweetlife or Virgin Mobile Freefest.
Yet, that’s an unfair comparison. When DCist hits up SXSW every year, we know that the chance of “discovering” a new favorite act is actually pretty slim. Sure there are a few bands that your friends from other cities tell you to go see, but more often than not, the “discovering” is done in the week prior to the festival. The flipside of that coin is that it’s very unlikely that a good local band from say, D.C. or Baltimore, will make much of an impact if they don’t have the promotional muscle to back them up.
In fact, there were a combined eight acts from the Baltimore and D.C. areas at Hopscotch and many of them (we caught six) drew the crowds that they deserved. Here’s a look at the bands, local and otherwise, that will be heading to D.C. in the upcoming months.
Pere Ubu:
David Thomas can no longer stand up while he performs but he sure does perform. Loose from the contents of the flask that he hit up periodically, Thomas’ vocals meandered over the funky sounds created by the band. In between, he cracked up the crowd with his scathing yet hilarious banter. Then, Merzbow came out and collaborated with the group on their final song, adding wild screeching stringed sounds and keyboards to the middle of an already off-the-wall performance and brought down the house. Pere Ubu provided one of the high points of the festival.
Pere Ubu is coming to Rock and Roll Hotel tonight.
Scout Niblett:
Scout Niblett and Dope Body drummer Dave Jacober are a formidable duo. His hits rung out like gun shots as Niblett’s guitar stunned the crowd with its power and her voice trembled with nuanced vulnerability.
Scout Niblett is coming to Comet Ping Pong tonight.
Jamaican Queens:
We saw three songs by Jamaican Queens and it was three songs too many. The bass heavy songs clashed with the singer’s trebly wavering voice and the keyboards never quite meshed with the rest of the instruments.
Jamaican Queens is coming to DC9 tonight.
Coke Bust:
Poor Coke Bust was one of the only noticeable victims of conflicted scheduling. There were conflicts of interest almost every night and the D.C. hardcore band thrashed across the stage as if there were far more than 20 people in the audience. Still, most of their target crowd was down the street watching Pissed Jeans.
Coke Bust is coming to The Pinch on September 13th.
A-Trak:
A-Trak was the City Plaza replacement that the Hopscotch Festival crew found when Big Boi cancelled last month. The A-list DJ jokingly quipped that no one in the crowd knew who he was. That may have been true before he started, but by midway through his set, all he had to do was stick his finger skyward for the crowd to go up for grabs.
A-Trak is coming to RFK Stadium as part of the Rock the Bells Tour on September 28th.
Angel Olsen:
For those who like Sharon Van Etten, Olsen has a similarly operatic voice that she lends to melancholy songs in the minor key. Her guitar is a little more atonal than Van Etten’s, but more fascinating is the complete mismatch between her demeanor and her words. It’s very odd that such an expressive voice should come out of such a deadpan face.
Angel Olsen is coming to DC9 on October 6th.
Ken Vandermark:
Jazz virtuoso Ken Vandermark played in one of those venues that was essentially a hallway of a bar with poor sight lines. It ended up not mattering as the only thing that might have outshone the extraordinarily talented saxophone/clarinet player was his drummer Tim Daisy. Daisy played with at least four varieties of sticks (yes, four) and only telegraphed the maelstrom to come after moments of quiet with his impassioned facial expressions.
Ken Vandermark is coming to Iota on October 6th.
Deleted Scenes:
A club that had been four people deep at the start of an early day party filled in with admirers by the time Deleted Scenes started their set. While frontman Dan Scheuerman modestly stated that he didn’t think he should get used to the packed houses the band experienced at Hopscotch, it couldn’t happen at a better time for them. Deleted Scenes has veered toward the experimental side since 2009’s Birdseed Shirt but really seems to have taken the parking brake off, messing with more insane sound effects with new songs like “Stutter.”
Deleted Scenes is coming to the 9:30 Club on October 19th.
Holy Ghost!:
We weren’t overly impressed with Holy Ghost! when we saw them play the Sweetlife Festival back in May. Yes, their percussion team was impressive and their bouncy rhythms led to a fun late-evening dance party. However, we had more or less dismissed them as a second-rate Cut Copy, who is in turn a New Order ripoff. That part has not changed. In fact, their setlist as of May has barely changed. What’s changed is that their time on the road (with New Order, in fact) has made them a tighter band. They were pleasant as a palate cleanser and a stimulus for mindless dancing.
Holy Ghost! is coming to the 9:30 Club on November 1st.
