Hi, hopefully you’re here becuase you enjoyed my last post, where I wrote about New Colossus, the music festival I attended last weekend.

As promised, in this post, I’ll go over some shows that stuck with me, in order of when I first saw them.

I’m trying to go with my gut here, as far as highlighting a number of bands that feels right to me, and choosing bands just because I want to rather than trying to measure them against each other to see who was actually the best. Especially becuase I honestly can’t say that I saw any bad artists at New Colossus this year. Even the musicians I personally wasn’t drawn to as much were so talented. Everyone’s great, music is great. Let’s talk about some great musicians:

Flowers for the Dead (bandcamp)

Washington, DC USA

I watched Flowers for the Dead’s whole set on Wednesday, and then just a couple of songs on Friday. These kids really rock! Some of their stuff reminds me of Feeble Little Horse, one of the many Philly bands I like1, and all of it was just so energetic and fun. I got the chance to chat with them a couple of times – including getting to tell the guitarist their music reminds me of Feeble Little Horse – and they were really nice. Give them a listen, especially if you already like punk music. If I end up in DC anytime soon I will be keeping my fingers crossed that they have a show.

Orchestra Gold (website)

Bamako, Mali and Oakland, CA USA

Orchestra Gold absolutely blew me away. They’re a big band, and I don’t exactly know how the whole long-distance-band thing works, but they sounded tight so I guess it’s not an issue. I liked their coordinated outfits. I liked the lead singer’s dance moves, and I got to see her play a shekere, an instrument I had never heard of before!

Oceans (website)

Melbourne, Australia

Unfortunately, although I would have loved to catch them a second time, I only got to see Oceans once, Wednesday night upstairs at Pianos. They had some sound issues at that set that made it hard to hear the vocals but I was still captivated by them. They’re great performers, especially the lead singer. She is pretty intense on stage and the whole thing just works. I think the fact that they had come so far, and it was my first night at this highly-anticipated international music festival, made the whole thing more precious also – I knew this was my only chance to see them, like, ever ever. And I enjoyed every minute of it.

After the set I couldn’t stop saying “Oceans from Melbourne” to myself in my best worst Australian accent. So, that was fun, too.

La Sécurité (bandcamp)

Montreal, Canada

These guys were great. Really fun set. I’ve never been to Montreal despite living on Boston for four years and now New York for two, but I’ve heard good things about the art scene there and La Sécurité reinforced that for me. It was a pretty packed house with everyone excited to be there – the energy was great.

Not all live music translates to recorded music – sometimes a concert is the best thing in the universe but even in the moment you know you probably won’t go back and listen to the albums very much. Not so with La Sécurité: I’m excited to get more familiar with their music now that they’re on my radar; or at least, as familiar as I can get without being able to speak any French.

Yo Diablo (bandcamp)

Valencia, Spain

I guess Yo Diablo should technically be first on the list, since as you may have noticed from the intro to my last post, I saw them at last year’s New Colossus fest. This year, as New Colossus was slowly releasing more and more of the lineup, I kept my eyes peeled for an announcement that Yo Diablo was coming back, only to ultimately be disappointed. When the full lineup was posted, I checked again just to make sure I hadn’t missed something, but no dice.

Then, on Friday evening, my girlfriend and I were at Pianos with no-one in particular who we wanted to see, so we popped into the showroom. When I saw who was on stage, I just said, “oh my god,” about five times in a row, and then made a beeline for the front of the crowd. Apparently they were called in last-minute to fill in for a band that had to back out.

There’s simply nobody on earth who can do it like Yo Diablo. They are the masters.

There’s this certain state of mind that only live music (well, and the fajitas from Ninfa’s) can put me in. It’s not just that nothing else matters, it’s that there is nothing else. Time doesn’t exist, nor do any of my problems, nor the world’s problems. Just the music, and the people making the music, and the other people listening to the music with me. That’s what great art does.

In this case, the people making the music are one guitarist, Marcos Herrero, and one drummer, Víctor Vila. From their Bandcamp, it looks like this began as a solo project of Herrero’s, with Vila joining a few years in. They are both incredibly talented, and while I was watching them, I couldn’t stop thinking about how much trust they have to have in each other. It’s just the two of them, both so focused, so locked in – and they have to trust each other not to let any of that talent or energy go to waste. It must take so much mutual respect and belief in each other’s abilities.

I was surprised to find that Vila joined relatively recently because the two of them were perfectly in tune with each other the whole time – I would have guessed that they had been playing together for years. I hope they do end up playing music together for many years. If you ever get an opportunity to see Yo Diablo live, do not pass it up.

Mr. Floyd Larry (bandcamp)

Miami, FL, USA

They were so cool and the music sounded great. I got to have a redemptive experience at Berlin – this was only my second time there; my first time was about a year ago and I… did not like the music that time. So, thank you, Mr. Floyd Larry, for helping me heal. If I’m ever in Miami I’ll be looking them up.

Lucy Kruger & The Lost Boys (website)

Berlin, Germany

I saw Lucy Kruger & The Lost Boys on Saturday and then again on Sunday, and I’ll admit, I didn’t get it the first time. But that was my fault, and it was so rewarding to go into their Sunday set a bit skeptical, only to be proven so wrong. Lucy is such a compelling performer and I’m excited to get to know this band better through their recorded music. “You’re beautiful, I want to be useful” (from “Howl”) has been stuck in my head all day.

Ducks Ltd. (website)

Ducks was the only artist on this year’s lineup that I already knew – I’ve been listening to “18 Cigarettes” almost on a loop for a few months now. I was excited to see them (twice!) at this festival, and they did not disappiont. They seem like total pros, and they were very polite about the broken mic stand at Pianos on Saturday and the needlessly confusing scheduling at Arlene’s on Sunday despite clearly being a bit taken aback by both.

BackDrop Cinderella (website)

Tokyo, Japan

When I said that nobody does it like Yo Diablo, I lied. BackDrop Cinderella also does it. I’m pretty sure their lead singer, Dendeke Ayume, is superhuman. They performed at Bowery Electric on Saturday night, where the venue has two levels of standing room for the audience, and he kept stage diving off of the top level, or climbing on the ceiling and then stage diving, and crowd-surfing in the most acrobatic way possible, and subsequently being dropped by the crowd, all without missing a single beat. It honestly gave me a bit of cognitive disonnance to listen to the music, completely perfect and uninterrupted, while watching the person who I knew was singing the lyrics being dropped, like, not always really on his feet.

I was surprised to find out online the next day that BackDrop Cinderella has been at it since 2006. It makes perfect sense, given how tight the music was, but what doesn’t make sense is how mere mortals could have the energy to keep creating this for so long. The room was on fire, everybody was losing their minds, and like with Yo Diablo, time and space ceased to exist outside of that room.

Of course, I moshed for most of the show. It was easily my favorite mosh pit I’ve been in. Ayume ran it great; I remember before the second song began he parted the crowd down the middle, and then at the first notes with just a wave of his arm he sent the two halves of the crowd crashing into each other. It was no-holds-barred, yet at the same time, one of those wholesome, ultimately safe mosh pits that really makes you feel the brotherhood of it all. At one point I fell and even though I stood back up right away, in a split second someone had grabbed my arm to help me up. There were hugs all around. And for my my girlfriend, who doesn’t like to mosh, unlike at some other (worse) shows we’ve been to, that choice was respected and she had no trouble enjoying the show.

Although I’m a firm believer that the responsibility (and, therefore, the glory) of running a good mosh pit ultimately lies with the band, I do want to give a shout-out to the great group of guys who were there that night. I don’t know any of their names but I always admire the Music Scene “Elder” types, those guys who have clearly spent a million hours at punk shows, love it more than anything else, know what’s up, and are there to make sure everyone has a good time. If that describes you, just know you’re appreciated.

As BackDrop Cinderella’s shirts apparently say – dance Unza Unza. It cures everything.

Diary (website)

Brooklyn, NY, USA

By Sunday at a music festival, it’s harder to be credulous about the whole thing: I’m exhausted, I have work the next day, and my excitement has already been satiated by the past four days of music. It’s harder to go see new artists with an open mind.

Thankfully, Diary was able to pierce through that. Despite the fact that it was 2pm and I was already thinking about how excited I was to crawl back into my bed, I couldn’t help but enjoy myself at their show.

I, as someone who doesn’t know anything about anything, would describe their music as college rock, a genre that I really like; I had fun, thought they sounded great, and am excited to check out more of their music.

Airu (instagram)

Bilbao, Spain

Upon listening to the New Colossus playlist before the festival, Airu quickly became the band that I was the most excited to see. They played the Pianos showroom on Sunday evening – they were originally scheduled for 6:15 pm but ended up starting just after 7 – so this was the very last set that I saw at this year’s festival, with the anticipation building all weekend.

All of the Sunday shows were free to attend, so just before the show started, a group of girls showed up who had no idea what was going on and plowed their way to the front. They were by far the most belligerent people I’ve ever encountered at a concert. After a few songs I had to flex my own “concert elder” muscles, not in the fun “let’s all mosh and hug” way, but to ask them to either stop talking or move to the back of the crowd. Thankfully, they calmed down after that, but only after I was on the wrong end (I guess they’re both wrong ends?) of the truly shocking amount of nonconsensual touching that one of them had absolutely zero idea she was doing.

Not that any of that has anything to do with Airu. If anything, I’m especially glad I was able to intervene because not only does nobody deserve to have their set talked over (and especially not to have your set talked over in a foreign language while visiting another country), it’s also a shame to not pay attention to such perfect art.

Anyways, I don’t have anything clever to say about Airu, their music is just the best. I appreciate them coming all the way over here to the US; seeing them play live was such a gift. I had already listened to a bunch of their recorded music before the festival (like I said, the anticipation was building), so I already can confidently recommend it. Start by listening to “Coloco Los Pies” – that’s the song that got me hooked.

The End

Thanks for reading all of this. Before New Colossus, I had been in a pretty long music rut – lately, I’ve been busy, and life has gotten in the way of me keeping up with new releases and going to shows as much as I like to. Needless to say, I now have plenty of new favorites to listen to, and I hope that after reading this post, you do, too!

  1. Perhaps in the “critiques” section of my last post, I should have also said: None of the American bands were from Philly?! What?? HOW? It’s the music capital of the world, as far as I’m concerned. ↩