Los Angeles – After an intense Saturday at FYF Fest that saw an unprecedented headliner as well as a slew of top-quality acts from the indie, electronic, dance, and punk scenes, festival goers geared up for a jam-packed Sunday lineup. Morrissey headlined The Main Stage with performances from stalwarts like Thee Oh Sees and Belle & Sebastian rounding out the evening’s must-see sets. Earlier in the day, there was plenty of time to get introduced to the new bands.
Girlpool
Getting up on stage at FYF Fest was a surreal experience for the two members of Girlpool, and they were not afraid to admit it about halfway through their early Sunday set at The Lawn Stage. Barely out of their teens, the two ladies grew up in Los Angeles – and like FYF have continually grown in stature, at this point on the cusp of totally breaking out. Supporting their debut full length release, Before the World Was Big, Cleo Tucker and Harmony Tividad performed their stripped-down folk-punk with just a guitar and a bass. Most of their songs, like “Emily” “Cherry Picking” and “Ideal World” came from their full-length, though they also showed off a new song that is stylistically in-line with their previous output.
Photo Credit: Carl Pocket for FYF Fest
Lower Dens
Heading into the dark (and slightly foreboding) Arena Stage for the first time all weekend to check out Lower Dens yielded a much less crowded and frustrating scenario than last year. Typically reserved for electronic and dance-minded acts, the cavernous indoor stage was so crowded last year that some festival-goers spent all weekend waiting in lines. This year getting in and out was significantly easier, especially early in the day before the huge dance acts take the stage.
Lower Dens has some electronic elements in their new-wave influenced pop sound, but they are not afraid to let the guitars rip either. The band dropped their well-received third album, Escape from Evil, in April, and naturally its songs comprised the majority of the set. They started with “Quo Vadis” and played all of the hits like “To Die in LA”, “Sucker’s Shangri-La”, “Your Heart Still Beating”, “Ondine”, and “Non-Grata”. While Lower Dens’ sound is probably more suited for somewhere like The Lawn Stage, it was interesting to see at least one band at the indoor venue.
Photo Credit: Jose Negrete for FYF Fest
Unknown Mortal Orchestra
Always known as a killer live act, I was highly anticipating Unknown Mortal Orchestra’s first appearance at FYF Fest. Their albums have always been heavily layered and technically adept excursions into guitar-based psych pop, but this year’s Multi-Love took that sound and gave it a heavy twist of soul, funk and disco. Performing as a five-piece (including one guy that jumped from trumpet to sampling to percussion) on The Lawn Stage, the band’s sound was top-notch, translating the complex pop from the records into a live festival setting.
Having released three extremely solid full-lengths, the band’s repertoire is deeper than most. Despite having to forgo some of their most well-liked songs, they were able to fit a few in from Unknown Mortal Orchestra and II, including “How Can You Luv Me” and “So Good at Being In Trouble”. From Multi-Love, Ruban Neilson and company performed “Multi-Love”, “Can’t Keep Checking My Phone” and “The World Is Crowded”.
Photo Credit: Carl Pocket for FYF Fest
Toro Y Moi
It’s hard to call Chaz Bundick’s Toro Y Moi up-and-coming, especially judging by the massive crowds that rushed towards The Main Stage to catch his late afternoon set. The low-hanging August sun pummeled the crowd with brilliance that even the most protective eyewear could not defend against, but they didn’t seem to mind. Instead, they squinted and grooved to a mix of tracks from the band’s diverse discography. Dressed in all-white, Bundick switched between playing a matching white guitar and a nearby synthesizer. While on guitar the band stuck to the straightforward retro guitar pop of What For? on tracks like “Lilly” and “Buffalo”, when he was on synth the band tended to focus more on expounding upon their earlier chillwave roots.
Photo Credit: Kelsey Heng for FYF Fest
Mac DeMarco
Unsurprisingly, one of Sunday’s highlights was the 50-minute set by Mac Demarco at The Lawn Stage. Along with his set length, DeMarco’s profile has grown significantly since his last appearance at FYF in 2013 after the release of Salad Days and this month’s Another One mini LP. Playing with nearly the same lineup as he did at his first FYF appearance at the LA Historic Park, he entertained the crowd from the moment he got on stage for sound-check. After squawking, crooning and moaning at the audience to test his microphone levels, the band launched into several of his best-loved tracks, including “Salad Days”, “Ode to Viceroy”, and “The Stars Keep on Calling My Name”. The audience must have been in an aggressive mood because halfway through the set a thrashing circle pit formed at the center of the crowd, a bit confusing considering DeMarco’s laid-back aesthetic.
Photo Credit: Carl Pocket for FYF Fest
As mentioned in the introduction, most of the new bands were pitted against each other at different stages – unfortunately it is impossible to be at two places at once, so music fans often had decide between these bands as well as crooner Tobias Jesso Jr. and weirdo-garage rockers King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard.
Matt Matasci
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