Recap in Crayon: MusicFestNW, Day 2

Day 2 of MusicFestNW started to get a little more serious. Bigger names like CHVRCHES, Deerhunter, Murder By Death, and XXYYXX were playing and drew a lot bigger crowds than anything on Day 1 drew. Deerhunter was playing the same time as CHVRCHES, but luckily I didn't have to make the tough decision since I had seen Deerhunter play a mindblowing show in Seattle the week prior. I was unable to catch Murder By Death because public transportation had stopped running and it was raining. 

XXYYXX

Marcel Everett seems like such a nice guy; his set just made me want to hang out with him. Anyway, he put on a good show. After starting off with some new familiar stuff, he went back to some of his earliest tracks: “I don’t usually talk like this during a set but I have to warn you: this next one was the first beat I ever made. It’s really shitty so just laugh at it while I play it.” The room was packed, and I think a lot of the people were just there for CHVRCHES, but that didn't stop them from having a good time.

CHVRCHES

CHVRCHES was the last show at the Roseland Theater that night, so you know that everyone was there only because they wanted to see them, which is always a good thing. Lead singer Lauren Mayberry is another person I can add to my list of Currently-Touring Famous Musicians To Hang Out With. She’s a cute little Scottish girl with a rock-star stage presence who was really able to get the crowd going. For one song the band switched the roles of Mayberry and synth-man Martin Doherty so that Doherty was lead vocals. Doherty showed that he was an equally capable, if not even more energetic, lead and that versatility was pretty impressive.The other thing to note about the show was the lighting design. It was nothing extravagant but the arrangement and use of the lights and fog was really well done. There always seemed to be the perfect amount of fog filling the stage so that when it was illuminated with stage-length strobe lights, it resembled some other-worldly atmosphere. You can really see this in great detail in the crayon drawing below.

Larry and His Flask

This was a show that I had known nothing about, but that I just hopped right into after CHVRCHES got out, and I think I enjoyed it more than CHVRCHES. It turned out that it was a bluegrass-punk band from central Oregon with a smallish but really loyal fanbase, who have a propensity to make the shows really crazy. So, yes, it was amazing. It started off with a decent energy and only 2 or 3 people dancing around, but by the middle of the set the whole front half of the venue was a rowdy, beer-splashing mosh pit.Before the last 2 songs, the lead singer/standing drummer asked “Were any of you at the Murder By Death show in Denver last month? There were some rowdy guys causing shit in the crowd and then some more shit later on in the parking lot after the show. Were any of you there?... Well, those guys were us. It’s called a dance floor for a reason!” That really got the crowd going and brought the set to a close with a bang.