“Why, it’s hotter than a two peckered goat today!” Daughn Gibson’s observation was spot on as he kicked off the festival on the red stage. With his 6’5’’ frame, black tank top and black jeans with a black handkerchief hanging out his back pocket, Daughn would have looked right at home at the shitty dive bar he longs for on songs like the twangy country number “Kissing on the Blacktop”.
For forty minutes, Daughn belted out haunting slow blues ballads and tales of pure Americana roots like “You Don’t Fade” and “In The Beginning”. Backed with a guitarist he acknowledged as “Big Jim and the Twins” and a longhaired drummer fittingly referred to as “Reefer”, Daughn serenaded the crowd with his baritone cross between Johnny Cash and Sid Vicious’ vocals.
Daughn added more rhythm and blues to live versions of “A Young Girl’s World” and “Lookin’ Back on ‘99”, and his 808 pad contained creepy samples of Christian folk songs that were oddly fitting given the anguished lyrics. But while “Big Jim and the Twins” did his best cranking out blues scales and slide guitar solos, the sonic minimalism of the three piece couldn’t help but feel that Daughn’s music has yet to figure out how to maximize its potential in a live setting. Still, songs like “Mad Ocean” and set closer “All Hell” floated steady and eerily within the warm summer breeze, prompting a laid back groove you’d probably find in a shitty dive bar’s jukebox.
Mac DeMarco and his band were all smiles during their performance on the green stage, and Mac’s charming gap tooth grin was on full display as he cranked out slacker surf rock jam after jam. Songs like “Cooking Up Something Good” and “The Stars Keep on Calling My Name” were made to have beach balls tossed about aimlessly in response, and Mac flailed all over the stage in reminiscence of Michael J. Fox rocking out in Back to the Future.
But it was bassist Pierce McGarry who stole the show with his whimsical stage banter during pauses for guitar tunings. “We’d like to thank Bruce Willis for setting up this show for us” a Jurassic Park hatted Pierce acknowledged. His other highlights of the set included nailing a tall redheaded kid in the crowd with a full water bottle, and screaming a punk rendition of The Beatles’ classic, “Blackbird”.
Mac’s flapping tongue swung freely while frantically strumming tunes off his latest album “2” such as “Freaking Out the Neighborhood” and “My Kind of Woman”, whom he deservingly dedicated to Friday headliner Bjork. Mac and his band provided a care free time without taking away anything from the music, and the zaniness was truly captured during an array of short lived covers that included “Cocaine”, “Taking Care of Business”, “Break Stuff”, and “Enter Sandman”. Mac even awed the crowd by bringing out his girlfriend for the last song of their set “Still Together”, and gave her a piggyback ride on stage as he belted out the chorus in his best The Tokens “The Lion Sleeps Tonight” impression. It was a rather touching ending to a memorable and sporadic, yet remarkable performance.
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