Rock the Garden

What a great day. :) I am going to be so sunburned...

It was about 80 and sunny (which was nice when moving around alternating sun and shade, but not so great at 4PM with the sun beating down hard on a line of people which never seemed to move as we crawwwwwled toward the entrance.)




What a lovely place - a beautiful venue (the sculpture garden at the Walker Art Center). At times it was idyllic.



Like when sitting in the shade on a park bench reading a good book, with good music being played just a little way away.



It was a nice way to celebrate the solstice, too - be out in it, get some on your face, neck, arms, legs. Sandals weather!

I sure got plenty of sun. Thankfully I could retreat to the indoors of the museum for a break from it, or sit on a bench in the shade and eat dinner or sip a cool drink.

Between bands I finished up "Founding Mothers" by Cokie Roberts, and am ready to start a couple of new books now (since I had finished up Silence by Sushaku Endo the week before.) Both these were good. Now I'm on to Come Be My Light by Mother Theresa, and The Road by Cormac McCarthy. They should last me through July. :)

Next year I don't think I'll worry about getting tickets. The sculpture garden was free admission, and there was hardly anyone there. Everybody was in by the bands, but... you didn't need to be.

In there it was shoulder-to-sweaty-shoulder or chest-to-sticky-back, and more than a little ... aromatic. And I don't mean that in a good way, like a pleasant fragance on a shock of long hair, or a charcoal grill cooking nearby. But that's summer at an outdoor concert, right? You take the bad with the good.

Still, you couldn't see much anyway for the crowd (7,500 people was the sellout limit, and they hit it.) Really, the sound was great in the walkway through the garden, and you could bring in whatever you wanted to for eats and drinks, which you couldn't do in the band area.



Essentially, they closed off the street that separates the museum and the Garden, and everyone was packed in there



or on the hillside beside the museum,



next to the goofy mini-golf course the museum has there for the summer. They think of it as outdoor art. Hm. Looks dopey to me. :)



From inside the museum you could see the crowds, but not hear the bands, except on the patios just outside.



They have patios on almost every floor. The upper ones were reserved for VIPs, whoever they were. Nobody I saw looked important. ;) Or, put more positively... everyone did. :)



The museum buildings are interesting, with striking facades and great skyline views.





In addition to the main views, the stairwells have itty-bitty trapezoidal windows (for peeking out at the crowd.)



From the outside they look like little finger holes on the walls.



Inside the lobby area, they were featuring an exhibit by some outfit called "Design for the other 90%" (of the world, that means), who were showing inexpensive things from housing to laptops, internet access packs and solar panel purses. Aww... aren't they cute?





Outside, there were lots of food and beer vendors, plus the usual merchandise table. I picked up a couple of things that were pretty reasonable - event specials.



They were also giving away green pin buttons with iconic images on them of some of the most famous items from the sculpture garden (like the elevated picture frame on three legs.
















































or the spoon and cherry. An example of such a button can been seen affixed to the shorts of the reader on the bench seen earlier.) ;)






In the gift shop they were a buck a pop, so... they lost some revenue there. But I think they made it up on other sales.

The whole event was a fundraiser for the museum and 89.3 FM, The Current (a local public radio affiliate that plays alternative and eclectic music, sort of like 88.9 FM in Milwaukee.)

The bike racks were packed, as people were encouraged to not drive if they lived within walking or biking distance.



And naturally, there was a section of the grounds devoted to "toilet world", as one guy yelled out when he saw it. :) Some people are easily amused.



So... the bands. Guess I should talk about them. :)

Bon Iver (pronounced bohn eevehr - French for good winter, I think), opened. He had a lot in common with the headliner, Andrew Bird, acoustically. While he didn't loop electronically like Bird loves to do, and was not nearly as layered, he used a wailing falsetto which became as ethereal-sounding as Bird's creepy whistling. Neither one were favorites, but weren't too bad, either. I don't think I'll buy any Bon Iver, but will borrow some from the library eventually. :)

Cloud Cult was a pleasant surprise. They are sooo off-the-dial "green" (not that being envionmentally conscious is off the dial - it's not, but they are a bit over the top in their... vociferocity about it), that I expected their sound to be stylistically unapproachable, too. But not at all! They were great. :) They might actually be nice people, too. ;) I'll have to rethink their advocacy stance...

They hooked me with "Pretty Voice" - what a great song, sung well, with lyrics I like. So I picked up a CD of theirs, and will review it soon. (Hm. It's "made of 100% postconsumer recycled paper, nontoxic soyink, and nontoxic shrinkwrap. Ten trees are planted for every 1,000 albums manufactured. All energy consumed in the process of manufacturing and shipping is compensated for with the purchase of an equivalent amount of wind energy from NativeEnergy.com. All energy consumed by Cloud Cult in the touring process is greened in a similar manner.")

Greened? (sigh) Yet another verb from a noun, and a co-opted noun at that. Breathe, Bob. Think centering thoughts.

Ooops. Centering? Now I'm doing it. :P

The highlight of the night for me was The New Pornographers (seen exiting the stage from the back.)




Even without Neko Case (out with a broken foot), they were still great. Love their harmonies and good song hooks. I've reviewed both their CDs and Andrew Bird's elsewhere in this blog, so I won't talk about songs here. You can search for them if you like. :)

Bird came on at about 8:30. I planned on staying for about 3 songs, since he is so quirky, and I can only take so much of him. As it was I stayed for a good 40 minutes. He behaved himself, and played nice. :) His stage equipment is sure colorful. Big orange and red megaphones!



The smaller two-headed one reminded me of what Dr. Doolittle's pushmi-pullu would have looked like if it were a musical instrument. :P Plus, the thing whirls around and produces a leslie-like effect. It fits with his other oddball sounds. He *would* use something like that.

Another odd thing. All the bands used violins at some point. It seems to be the hot new alt-rock instrument. Especially when you run it through a looping machine or a fuzz box. Sarah Beam did that - ran hers through a distortion box. Really peculiar sounding; gives these bands the ethereal sound they are all looking for. :)



So, as the sun was setting and darkness falling,



so was the rain and lightning. :( I took that as my cue to head home.



Or rather to pick up J2 (who decided not to come) and go to Coldstone Creamery to finish off the night. Orange dreamsicle ice cream blended with lemon sorbet and pineapple chunks. Yeah. :) A good day.