Landmark Festival (2015)
TL;DR: day 1: band of horses, drake were amazing. day 2: alt-j was my personal favorite of either day 1 or 2.
pre-fest, logistically stuff: christian drove me, trey, and kelli up 64 to drop off kelli in a town called west point. followed back roads until we got on the highway to dc. stopped in springfield, metro’d into the smithsonian station. i love the metro’s grid system and the satisfaction of knowing the correct stops and lines that one has to take to reach their destination. easily enough, we were on one end of the blue line, and needed to take the metro about 12 stops to get to the festival, held in west potomac park. it’s about a 10 minute walk from smithsonian station, not too bad. getting wristbands was easy enough through will call. security was pretty lax and you had people smuggling in, as usual, tons of weed and some inflatables. food was above average. the beer situation was the best: buying 3 and 4 beers at a time, the bar staff just gives you the beers without cracking them open. portapotties were relatively clean. 5 stages; spread out just right. i think that about covers it.
day 1: we saw the hunts, twin shadow, band of horses, daughter, miguel, and drake
the hunts: the hunts were a “family band” that were actually from chesapeake, va! i’d say the ages of the band members ranged from late teens to early 20s...they were all really young looking. but they rocked their set. they had a highly “in the moment” folk sound, drawing from current bands like of monsters and men, the lumineers, and most definitely the *other* family folk band from chesapeake lol, the last bison. still, as far as songwriting goes, i was very impressed. this band’s ready for the big time. the harmonization was super well done and the way they isolated instruments (a violin part here, a piano part there) was enjoyable too. great start to the day.
twin shadow: eh, okay for the most part. twin shadow came out around 2010 so i still remember him from that era of reclusive, chilled-out lo-fi dance music. his large stage presence and overwhelming 808′s (seriously, the bass almost knocked my chest in lol) suggest that he wants to be more of a star now. though i felt his set dragged at times, other times i really liked what i was hearing. and he came out in a yahama motorcycle outfit lol. one thing i noticed is that he was trying really hard to get the crowd moving and people just.... weren’t moving lol. at one point before a song he says something like, “i see you kids sitting down over there... stand the fuck up!” haha. i think he had a bad time slot (2:30 pm) and if it were later at night, people would have been more in the mood for dancing.
band of horses: this is my fourth time seeing band of horses and they always deliver. they’re a safe festival band to book because anyone who’s even moderately interested in indie loves their stuff. their set was half new-ish stuff, half fan favorites. ben bridwell is an amazing performer and he always has a smile on his face, like he’s still excited that people love his stuff, lol. “the great salt lake,” “laredo,” “ode to lrc,” “is there a ghost,” “the general specific,” and “islands of the coast” were among the highlights. we walked out on their last song (”the funeral”) for the bathroom, but honestly, they always end on the funeral so who cares.
daughter: we stood in a beer line for her entire set, but honestly from what i heard, she really didn’t sound like much, lol. i never understood why she was popular and i remain unconvinced lol (sorry daughter...)
miguel: miguel was the WORST act i saw at the fest. and yes, he can sing. he is technically proficient at singing. but his song selection and between-song banter was the worst. we got his hits of course, but he drags them out so long in a faux-jam style that they stop being good after the 5 straight minutes he is commanding us to say “hey, hey, ho ho.” if he would have played N.W.A. and really jammed that, i would have actually loved that. but you can’t jam “sure thing” for too long; like, we get it, love is a sure thing dude. and then he kept giving us REALLY bad stoner philosophy. REALLY BAD. i can’t stress this enough. he was saying like, “they want us to be normal, but like... ~what is normal anyway~?” really dude? even a high schooler could come up with something more profound than that. idk it was too much “be who you wanna be, not who society tells you!” sort of shit. honestly, it makes good charlotte’s “the anthem” look like serious poetry or something. i will say a positive thing here: he brought out wale for lotus flower bomb, and that was really cool. wale’s tight. anyway, miguel went on right before drake, so we had to put up with him lol. shout out to miguel, he’s not as bad as i’m making him out to be, and he’s certainly one of the better r&b artists in the game, but i was not thrilled on his set.
drake: what everyone was waiting for, the main event, the headliner of the whole festival, drizzy drake rogers. it actually started drizzling before his set, very fitting. everyone was getting hella antsy around the last 30 minutes before his set time (8:30) and they even started a chant to get people to put down their umbrellas...lol. he comes out to bobby shmurda’s “hot nigga” and launches into “legend” which is a super good song to come out on. then he just steamrolls through his songs. like, i lost count of how many songs he did. even if they were half of a verse, it was lit. there were fireworks. there were flamethrowers. there was a huge screensaver behind him with shit like “1-800-hotline bling” on the screen. and he was really personable too. you know he say the same shit every night, but he cares enough to be like, “okay, i think you guys were the best crowd i’ve played for!” and “i’m gonna do something different for DC tonight!” (yeah right, prolly the same shit lol). one thing i didn’t like is that he didn’t really dig into his catalogue too much. he claimed he wanted to know who the “real” drake fans were but played his really well known hits like “over” and “headlines” lol. like, casual drake fans know those fucking songs lol. how tight would it have been to hear him rap ACTUAL lesser-known songs in his catalogue like “replacement girl” or “lord knows” or a b-side like “dreams money can buy.” i was also really pissed that he didn’t do the final verse to “worst behavior” because i would have turned up so much. but i digress.... it was LITTT!!! lol. he did a lot of “left side, i need yall to turn up” “right side, it’s your turn” etc. and he said “that boy dead” in relation to meek mill. idk i could fill up a whole post of just drake but let me just say he is well worth the hype but i wanted him to do more “real fan” stuff and not just current and obvious hits. and “but it’s a festival!” is not a copout here: every drake show is huge, lol.
-end of day 1-
