Hopscotch 2018 Review
Read about WXYC Business Manager Ike Crickmore’s weekend at Hopscotch!
On Thursday, I saw the act that had me daydreaming about Hopscotch for weeks. Beginning at 11:00pm and continuing past 1:30am when I left, the members of Sleep, without ever speaking to the audience, blasted us with the primal drones of their guitars and drum. If you’ve ever listened to Sleep, it might have felt like stepping into a sensory deprivation chamber as a result of the uninterrupted and extensive nature of their music. Stepping into the basement of Raleigh’s Convention Center that night awakened the same set of sensations for me, where Sleep held me suspended in their sorcery.
Sending spells back and forth, the band remained as stoic as could be. Al Cisneros, bassist and vocalist, belted out his otherworldly message on one pole of the stage, while Matt Pike, the opposite wizard on guitar, answered with instrument alone. Jason Roeder sat behind them on drums, exhibiting the most resonant technique I had ever witnessed at a live show. Occasionally, the three would convene around Roeder, facing each other and forming a triangular locus of energy. I departed in the middle of the band’s monolithic song Dopesmoker: a sixty-two minute long statement, and a masterpiece in my eyes.
Friday came, colored by our loss of another important musician to drug overdose. I had been aware of Mac Miller since his (now controversial) hit single from 2011, “Donald Trump.” However, Miller was one of those musicians whose career possessed the rare quality, as Paul Thompson of Rolling Stone wrote in his obituary, of being “defined by self-improvement.”
As I headed to the Thundercat (birth name Stephen Bruner) show in City Plaza that night, I was totally unaware that he and Mac Miller had been collaborators on Miller’s latest album, Swimming. Bruner dedicated the show to Miller, and it was clear the two had become very close: “I hope you can hear this one, Mac,” he said, “this one’s for you.” Thundercat played with emotional intensity on every song, taking everyone’s favorites from 2017’s Drunk to the maximum, and clearly hoping that his bandmate and brother would hear him, wherever he was.
My next and final show of the evening was Miguel, the most highly anticipated star on the Hopscotch lineup this year. I managed to find some WXYC friends at the Red Hat Amphitheater, and we waited an hour for the show to begin — and boy, was it a show.
If you’ve listened to Miguel, you’ll understand what I mean when I say that attending his concert is akin to stepping into his bedroom. He has perfected an image, in terms of stage mannerisms, vocal performance, and lyrical theme that transports you directly into the realm of the erotic.
For us, he began atop a set of white stairs in the middle of the stage; when he finally emerged amidst the synthetic fog, the crowd burst into hysterics. He performed against a digital display, filled with ethereal 3D renderings which included a melting Earth, random geometric shapes, and a limbless female mannequin. Miguel filled the stage with backup dancers, and became engaged in erotic combat with them — he invited all to join in the practice with him, asking us to pledge “I want to f**k all night” at his command.
Even a star as bright as Miguel could not avoid the tragedy of the day; after all, he and Mac Miller had been collaborators as recently as 2015 for the song “Weekend” on Miller’s album GO:OD AM. He gave his dedication, and as I walked away to get some rest before work the next day, he explained how petty our differences often are. Perhaps by embodying openness, sexually and spiritually, Miguel hopes to counteract these differences; if there was a gap created when Prince departed from us, Miguel has surely filled the space. My only regret that night was not hearing “Adorn” live.
Although bummed at having missed Nile Rodgers & Chic after leaving work on Saturday, I knew the night was young. I met up with WXYC’s station manager, who had just finessed a media pass, and we settled in for the wonderful Renata Zeiguer.
Zeiguer’s LP Old Ghost was featured in WXYC’s rotation this past spring, and became one of my favorite releases of the season. Her intimate set at King’s felt like the perfect way to begin the night, eventually hearing my favorite song from the album, “Wayside.” Zeiguer’s voice is extremely distinct, and the melodies are smooth and crisp. In the same vein as the classic advertisement, “Nobody sings Dylan like Dylan,” I would be so bold as to say that no one could sing Zeiguer’s songs quite like she does. She approaches the crowd with a certain humility we have come to forget in our musical idols; she is deeply connected to her craft, and the work shows on stage.
Soon after, I traipsed over to the basement of the Convention Center, slammed a tall boy energy drink, and waited for Gang Gang Dance.
Having never listened to GGD before, I went on my girlfriend’s recommendation, and I certainly wasn’t disappointed. The Manhattan ensemble, using a wide array of electronic instrumentation and led by frontwoman Lizzi Bougatsos, invited us to adopt the ideology of “Chill Out,” a mantra plastered all over their instruments. The group represents something larger in music, a syncretist project of turning away from the local and toward the global, and the de-escalation of tension through the blending together of different or even apparently opposing cultures.
The final act at this year’s Hopscotch festival left the most lasting impression on me, surrounded by the climate of police violence on my college campus and Nike’s strange appropriation of Colin Kaepernick’s response to police violence against people of color across the nation. Vic Mensa’s concert, following Gang Gang Dance in the basement of the Convention Center, remained true to his body of work thus far; it gave the crowd a glimpse into a lived experience where one is unable to divorce the personal from the political, whether they would like to or not.
Vic Mensa is undoubtedly one of the most radical voices in hip hop today, and he doesn’t shy away from his politics on stage: one of the first songs he performed for us was “16 Shots,” an anti-cop anthem created in response to the murder of Laquan McDonald by the Chicago Police Department. At the same time, his work is deeply personal, and he performed songs from The Autobiography and There’s Alot Going On whose topics ranged from adultery (“Homewrecker”) to alcohol dependence (“Liquor Locker”). Mensa told us that he had not slept in five days, and sometime during those 120 hours he received the news that Mac Miller was dead from apparent drug overdose. In spite of all this, he gave the performance everything there was to give; he reminded me that the act of listening is central to empathy, and empathy central to revolution.
I drove the forty-five minutes back to Chapel Hill that night, feeling full from hopping around downtown Raleigh and making something of my weekend.
