This post is from Out the Other's 2009 Bonnaroo Artist Previews, where I will be posting previews of all the musical acts playing the 2009 Bonnaroo Music & Arts Festival. Please check out and subscribe to the full site to learn more about all of this year's performers.
Editor's note: This is a guest preview from contributor Seth Graves, a freelance writer and videographer based in Nashville. He can be reached at casiocasanova@gmail.com and you can check out more of his writing at the Nashville Cream.
Back in my day, music was sure a hell of a lot easier to classify. Basically, you had your club kids who only liked going to raves where they could dance and twirl glow sticks. Then you had punk and indie kids who only enjoyed cramming themselves into hip dives and smelly basements to hear rock bands. Then, somewhere in all the data-swapping frenzy that is the interweb, shit got all mixed up. Now we’ve got a steadily expanding niche falling slightly left of the middle called “indie electro." It still attracts more skinny-jeaned hipsters than the more spaciously-clothed club kids, but still seems far enough removed from conventional rock shows to ensure it never happens in Nashville.
A fine example would be Toronto’s Crystal Castles. Crystal Castles take all the filth and fury of a punk act, focus that energy into a heavy dance groove, and execute the whole thing with prehistoric Atari sounds. The finished product comes out subdued-but-fierce, exotic-but-classic, and wholly postmodern in the scariest sense of the word. On stage, hooded maestro Ethan Kath hovers ominously over a synthesizer, bobbing his head while a nameless drummer reinforces the backbeat. The rest of the show owes the bulk of its energy to the band’s freakishly captivating front woman Alice Glass, who pounces, flails, and thrashes about on stage, occasionally delivering a growling, seductive shriek into the microphone like an arresting, beguiling alien of sorts.
The band has been on a never-ending tour for the past few years now that has taken them on several trips around the world. Meanwhile, DJ nights and dance parties enjoy moderate success in Music City. Superstar DJ’s like Tiesto, Sasha, Digweed and crossover club/indie acts like MSTRKRFT, Steve Aoki, and Girl Talk can also reliably pack a house in these parts. But much like our own fine electrolytes, Makeup and Vanity Set, Jensen Sportag, and Fly Golden Eagle who continually toil in relative anonymity, even internationally successful acts like Thunderheist, YACHT, heartsrevolution, Chromeo, Juiceboxxx and Uffie may never find much of an audience in Nashville either.
This, I doubt, concerns any of those bands very much -- and most music fans in Nashville don’t seem to give a shit either. However, if you too belong in this marginal fringe of folks who dig a live indie electro show now and then, Bonnaroo is about the closest you’re going to get to a band like Crystal Castles. And if not, check them out anyway. It may be just enough of a good time to sway you over to our side.
Crystal Castles will play the That Tent on Friday night/Saturday morning from 12:30-1:30 a.m. Check out the full Bonnaroo schedule on the official Bonnaroo website.
