Matt and Kim at Siren FestivalPhoto by Flickr user Steve and Sara
Summer in New York. The Yuppies head for beaches and the hills. The Hipsters hit the streets. And me with them. The unprecedented amount of free, good music in New York makes spending the weekends in Brooklyn bearable, if not downright fun. Skinny boys in their best t-shirts. Mop-haired girls in their sun-dresses and oversized sunglasses. Bands that you might not pay to see, but will see for free. The crowds and all the people touching people. Tall boys making their way to the front, the small girls on tip-toes just trying to see the stage. The occasional too-hip child with the too-hip parents. Ah, the festival show.
Saturday, I got a late start heading out to the final Siren Music Festival at Coney Island, missing both White Rabbits and Dr. Dog, the two bands I was most interested in seeing. Somehow, amid the crowds of ever-younger hipster kids, I found CD by the Stillwell Stage. We flitted back and forth between the two stages, allowing me to catch most of We Are Scientists and Voxtrot (the first straight ahead indie rock coming out of the folds of mid-90s Merge and Matador, the latter an Austin, TX based sextet channeling Ted Leo playing the Smiths, both bands acquitting themselves well), and a few songs each by the Black Lips and the incredibly excitable Matt and Kim.
It's a bit of a shame that the festival won't re-up next year (will the fin-de-siecle feeling in New York ever end?) While the sound isn't great, and the blocked off streets where the Stillwell and Main stages sit get crowded, the masses of summertime-attired hipsters descending into the carnival atmosphere of Coney Island, mixing with the odd Bangladeshi family, the young inner city kids, the body builders, and the Russian locals makes for an eclectic afternoon. Twin guitar attacks emoting under the rickety shadow of the Cyclone doesn't hurt, either. I guess it's a shame, mostly, that Coney Island is going to change.
Sunday, I took a study break to stroll back down to McCarren Pool Park to catch a set by Band of Horses. It was a little disappointing that the pool was twice as crowded today for three mid-tier indie rock bands compared to last weekend's Ponderosa Stomp, but I guess I'm as guilty as any other hipster on that front. While I'm not a huge Band of Horses fan, they were pretty good today. The mic-ing of the vocals could have used some evening out, but the open air venue served the loud-soft-loud walls of sound dynamics of the band well. While I'm never overwhelmed, I'm never really disappointed, either, by bands like Band of Horses and My Morning Jacket, that occupy the country-flecked high-register wailing between Mr. Young and Skynyrd. I wonder if they knew what they would produce?
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