Grit & Glitter: Firefly Music Festival 2013 PART TWO

Day 2

River daaaaaaaay! So I missed the 2^nd day of the festival because I didn't want to pay for single day passes for all three days. So I stayed at my friend’s river house while he went with our other travel companion, and I had two friends meet me for a day of docks and drinking. Which turned out to be an awesome break that I needed before heading back to the festival for Day 3.

Day 3

Unknown girl band

We got there when a band was on that apparently wasn’t very into self promotion. There was no, “Hey we’re so-and-so and thanks for coming out!” or anything. We could’ve looked at the board with the bands listed, but eh, we wanted to save a good spot for Matt & Kim…which turned out to be the best decision EVER.

Matt & Kim

Ok, I didn’t see this coming, but this was hands down my favorite performance of the entire festival. They are such energetic positive people!!! And I have never seen so many beach balls, balloons, and other inflatables in one place in my life. No exaggeration.

Plus, at this point in the day some storms were passing by the area (we only got one boom of thunder) and it kept raining on and off. It kinda sucked at first, but when Matt and Kim went on, it turned into the most awesome concert experience I’ve ever had. Hot day + cold water + great entertainers + great music + dancing = FUNTOWN. They even messed with the crowd at one point by saying, “I can think of only way to bring the sun back” and started playing the opening of “Daylight”. Everyone went nuts… and then they were like, “Just kidding we’re not gonna play that yet.” It was pretty funny :) And inbetween a lot of songs, they would play hip hop or dup step songs and just dance on stage (or in Kim’s case, on her drum set) and the crowd would freak out and break it down. I really can’t emphasize how awesome of a show it was, or even write all the little funny things they said or did….maybe I’ll give them their own post later.

Capital Cities

So it was pretty tough to follow up the experience I’d just had seeing Matt & Kim, but Capital Cities did an ok job, heh :) I’ll cut them some slack because they're semi-new and kind of breaking onto the scene now. I had only heard maybe two songs by them before Firefly, and like a lot of other people I was there for “Safe and Sound”, but I really liked their other songs and intend to download their whole CD (Tidal Wave of Mystery). They were really fun, (surprisingly) had choreography that was pretty cool, and definitely got the crowd into the show. Side note: the trumpet player (Spencer Ludwig) you hear in “Safe and Sound” is a permanent part of the band, and it was his birthday. Made it that much more positive and fun :)

Passion Pit

So we had just seen Passion Pit in Richmond about two weeks before this, and the lead singer (Michael Angelakos) was having voice problems and by the end of that show was basically almost mute. So I was worried about whether or not he had healed yet…. He had not. He got about three songs into their set before he started throwing it out there that he was not 100%. But they missed the festival in 2012 because he was sick in the hospital, so they were bent on getting there this year and putting on their show. Kudos to you! However, his voice continued to deteriorate song by song, and eventually he leveled with the audience and said they were going to have to cut the show short, BUT they would get out the songs everyone wanted to hear before they gave up. The catch was they wanted the most crowd participation ever in helping sing the songs. It worked a little bit, but the coolest part was Angelakos getting down off the stage and running up and down this path from the stage to the sound booth. I could almost touch him! Even though he was reeaally sweaty I wanted to! But yeah, then they ended their set and a mass of people started making their way to Vampire Weekend all at the same. damn. time. It was awful. We literally couldn’t move for about 10 minutes, just trying to WALK.

Vampire Weekend

This has to be my least favorite show from that weekend. Vampire Weekend already has a chill, relaxing sound, but their lead singer lacked any sort of energy on stage, making it almost a chore to stand there and watch them. The most entertaining thing about this show was looking around at the crowd and seeing all the drunk and high people dance and throw stuff and be idiots J I would’ve gladly participated, but for some reason I passed on a joint that was handed to me and chose not to drink that day. Oh well.

Foster the People

I was surprised that they were chosen as the closing band for the entire festival. Kudos to them, but when RHCP and Tom Petty closed the other two nights, I just expected a huge name. Anyway, I’d already seen Foster in concert twice and knew we were in for a good show. I love them because each show I’ve seen has been so different from the other as far as sets, lights, and theme go. And this show followed suit. It was a weird sci-fi feel with tower podiums with people in metallic looking suits dancing on them and other weird shit. It was just interesting. PLUS, most importantly, they debuted new songs that night. I was so excited because I loved their first CD so much that I’ve been keeping tabs on them and waiting for a follow up. And judging from the three new songs I heard that night, it’s going to deliver. They sounded awesome. Still kind of the same music from their first album, but you can tell how it’s starting to venture off into a new area. It’s kind of setting the stage for a new musical direction and opening the door for them to experiment with different sounds. I’m excited! They of course closed with “Pumped Up Kicks”, but nobody wanted to believe the show was over. So after the band left the stage most of the crowd stayed put and started chanting “Encore!”… but we got none. That was a little bit of bummer. Not exactly the high note I wanted to leave the concert on, but still a great show overall.