Let’s face it. When most people think of Nashville, a scenic picture of stetson wearing cowboys blasting the twangy tunes of Garth Brooks comes to mind, right? Sorry to burst your bubble, but Nashville’s music scene is actually much more than the ultra-country stereotype it’s had since the 1950s. This past weekend SoundLand 2011 Presented by Next Big Nashville showed everyone exactly that.
Luckily for those of you who couldn’t be there to experience it (or even for those of you who did and can’t remember it) I was there to represent The Vinyl District and bring you all the coverage of the massive musical party known as SoundLand 2011 in a three part post for your viewing pleasure.
Let’s get started then, shall we?
The first two days of the festival started off with a massive bang. Nashville was graced with the musical stylings of artists like M. Ward, Dawes, Ghostland Observatory, and Boss of Nova. In my opinion, however, the highlights came from the musical masters behind the summer smash “Pumped Up Kicks” known as Foster the People, the indie duo Cults, and a surprisingly awesome band from Athens, Georgia called Reptar.
To be completely honest, until last Thursday I had no idea who Reptar was. I luckily made the decision to head over to the 12th and Porter Block Party Stage early to get a good spot for Cults and was pleasantly surprised by what I was hearing. Their music is poppy with a Vampire Weekend-meets-Animal Collective sort of vibe, the live set is energetic, and the members are as eccentric as the sounds they create. I arrived midway through the performance, but tuned in fairly quickly to catch the last remaining numbers of their set. It was obvious that all the members of Reptar just wanted to see their audience dancing and having a good time. What else is to be expected from a bunch of college kids with musical instruments?
You can catch Reptar on tour with Cults, Foster the People, and Phantogram this Fall.
After Reptar left the stage I waited around for a while watching the masses file into the block party designated area. Not too soon after the area reached a capacity of a couple thousand people and the clouds of cigarette smoke began to look like a fog machine explosion, the Brooklyn-hailing indie pop dup known as Cults took the stage.
Now I’m a sucker when it comes to making a grand entrance, but Cults came strutting onto the stage to the theme of Twin Peaks. Seriously! Even if they decided at that moment they weren’t going to do anything but scream a terrible cover of “Come On Eileen” and walk off stage, they won my heart over instantly with the intro. Bravo, Cults.
Their set was what to be expected from the band. It was fun and had that light summer indie-pop vibe we love them for.
The thing about Cults is they have a way to make you want to bop your head and sway back and forth in contentment with each stroke of the keyboard, but at the same time shred your heartstrings to pieces with the hauntingly aesthetic, melancholy lyrics. I’m not sure how they do it, but it’s simply brilliant and works for them. Definitely the best performance of the night.
The last performance of the night to catch belonged to none other than Foster the People, whose recent mainstream fame for their summer hit “Pumped Up Kicks” brought in upwards of 4,000 people to the 12th and Porter Block Party Stage at SoundLand this year. (Or so I was told?) Being up at the barricade, it was too hard to tell how many more music goers filed into the small area in a matter of hours, but the instant surge of louder conversation had me thinking that 4,000 might even be too small of a number for what was surrounding me.
Foster the People took the stage at around 8:45 PM and made it immediately apparent that the set was going to be loud, energetic, and an epileptic’s worst nightmare.
Alright, I’ve got to hand it to Foster the People. I admit that I’m not the biggest fan of their music, but it was one of the best live sets I’ve seen in a long time. I got lost in the amazing light show and tribal drum beating that was happening for the majority of the songs, and forgot they were playing music completely. With each song it seemed like they fed off the energy of the crowd to make an even more charismatic performance than the previous one.
It wasn’t until the very end when it came time for the encore that they decided to slow things down with a ballad called “Ruby” before picking things back up for a final performance; their pièce de résistance “Pumped Up Kicks.”
Overall, not a bad way to close the night for TVD’s first SoundLand experience. Stay tuned for parts two and three of the entire review. Trust me, you won’t want to miss it.
Photos: Caitrin Collins
