15 October 2016 (gig)
19 October 2016
This weekend’s Treasure Island Music Festival was the last in its home of ten years. Moving off the island, TIMF joins NYC’s Governors Ball (on Randall’s not Governors Island) and Washington’s Sasquatch Festival (relatively few Bigfoot sightings) in the ranks of festivals with misleading namesakes. The move is due to planned development on the island that sits between Oakland and San Francisco. Rumors of moving it to Oakland have been written about, but at the moment it’s still “to be determined” according to official TIMF statements.
The festival saw unfortunate weather lead to set cancellations or shortening. Highly billed acts Flight Facilities, Duke Dumont and James Blake did not perform. How To Dress Well had their set shortened to 30 minutes. Many of the acts who did perform had their set times pushed back. The festival was extended to midnight on Saturday, and extended again on Sunday. Sunday morning an email was sent to attendees apologizing for the lack of communication. Many festival goers departed early on Saturday due to these delays, but were encouraged to return by TIMF on social media, stating that they would be allowed to reenter.
The difficult circumstances resulted in some tension between artists and the festival. Duke Dumont and the festival promoters took to Twitter and press releases to give their sides of the story. The promoters claimed Dumont refused to go on despite on site experts giving him the green light. Dumont claimed the stage was unsafe to perform on. Flight Facilities who performed before Dumont had been directed not to perform due to unsafe conditions. One concert goer was taken out on a stretcher after being struck by a falling vending machine that came down due to high winds.
The groups who did play did their best to inspire fans to dance through their delay, confusion, and mud based woes. For the most part, they were successful. Fans partook jubilantly in the music once it started. One winning characteristic of TIMF is that the scheduling excludes any overlap between the two stages. This combines well with a second unique aspect of TIMF: they separate the festival days by genre. Saturday emphasized electronic music (Duke Dumont, Flight Facilities, Zhu, Mura Masa) and hip hop (Ice Cube, Young Thug, Kamaiyah). Sunday featured the guitar based groups (Mac Demarco, Deafheaven, Car Seat Headrest, Hinds), though still electronic leaning (James Blake, Purity Ring, Tycho, Sylvan Esso).
Stand Out Performances:
Neon Indian’s 5:00 pm Sunday set had the masses surge to the front despite ruined shoes. The setlist started with seven straight from his newest album, VEGA INTL. Night School, released in 2015. The segue from “Slumlord” into “Slumlord’s Re-lease” saw fans chanting along, and lived up to the promise of the recorded tracks. If you haven’t yet, watch the combined short film/music video for both. The set closed with the two biggest from the first and second albums, “Deadbeat Summer” off 2009’s Psychic Chasms, and “Polish Girl” off 2011’s Era Extraña.
Mac Demarco’s set ended just as Neon Indian’s began. It saw him play evenly across two studio albums and two mini albums. Upbeat early crowd favorites like “Ode to Viceroy” and “Freaking Out the Neighborhood” were played alongside slower, newer numbers like “Another One” and “Chamber of Reflection.” He also managed to squeeze in Steely Dan’s “Reelin’ In the Years.” Towards the end of the set, Demarco invited out two members of Wild Nothing, a Brooklyn based band who appeared earlier in the day. As labelmates at Captured Tracks, Demarco treated them to some crowd surfing.
Preceding this action were two upstart bands. Hinds, a garage rock all female four piece from Spain, kicked off the day. Car Seat Headrest, a post punky group based out of Seattle, performed shortly after.
Hinds are fairly new arrivals on the US festival circuit, but more well known numbers like “Bamboo” had many of the earliest attendees singing along. They wrapped up their set with a cover the early nineties UK all female three piece Thee Heacoatees’ “Davey Crocket.” They’re self professed fans of The Strokes and Arctic Monkeys, and if you are too, you won’t regret giving them a listen. Car Seat Headrest may also be new to bigger festival stages, but the opening guitar lines of set starter “Fill In The Blank” felt right at home in the setting.
