July 22, 2003
Siren Festival
Kelefa Sanneh gives a backhandedly sorta positive review of this year's Siren Festival and basically says that it wasn't that adventurous but it was rather comforting with all these younger bands aping styles of the Rolling Stones, Liquid Liquid, and New Wave bands. He also notes that the Coney Island venue that offered daylight was something new for the bands and their fans: "dazed-looking hipsters, blinking in the sunlight." Among the performers Sanneh mentions: Idlewild; The Kills; Datsuns, !!!, "scene-stealing" plus a song called "Me & Giuliani Down by the Schoolyard (A True Story)"; Hot Hot Heat; Northern State; Ted Leo, who appeared at Tinkle on Sunday; and Jen's favorite, Modest Mouse, whose uneven act was challenging.
Gothamist knows that some readers went to Siren, so we're waiting for them to weigh in. And check out the missed connections from Siren at craig's list.
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Siren was crowded, gawdawful hot when trapped in said crowds, terrible sound (sound engineer for the main stage blew), and mediocre bands - we like retro, we do not like retro performed by bands with marginal talent. Yawn. The rapster review was right on target, fun but painful in terms of lyricism. I made it through 10 minutes of the Datsuns(who in all fairness seemed to be a lot of ppls favs), and packed up and headed out to the beach to dance with the funksters on the boardwalk. Once past the bunnies caught in headlights hipsters and deep into the Crooklyn crowd I had more fun. Despite being "one of the least bucolic beaches in the world" (to which I answer would Brooklynites have it any other way!?) there is nothing in the world like sipping beer, dancing, and people watching on the Coney Island boardwalk. That is unless you're too busy cruising painfully clonal hipsters (which was almost shamefully fun as they ooohed and ahhhed in their trucker hats through the morass of freaks and homies). All in all, music "feh" (I can think of at least 10 indie/retro bands I would have rather seen on stage), and beach'n'boardwalk "thumbs way up", the combo however was close to priceless in terms of being a perfect "Brooklyn moment".
kiri - thanks for your wrapup. I have some questions:
- How many trucker hats? Like 7 of 10 men?
- What's the worst hipster fashion trend?
- How drunk did you get?
Yeah, as Kiri said there was a lot of retro--kind of makes me sad that NYC can't create a distinct sound and has to liberally freeload off of past movements. But the best shows were those that had a modern, relevant take on a retro sound. !!! was the highlight of the day, in my opinion. Ted Leo put on a great show. I skipped some bands I had previously seen (Sahara Hotnights, Modest Mouse) and one band I had previously walked out on (Northern State).
Non music notes...The lack of trucker hats was surprising. The abundance of lobster-red skin was predictable. Hipsters just don't apply the sunscreen, it seems. The midway was fun--I played the aim-the-watergun-into-the-clown's-mouth game a few times, and did pretty well considering the number of drinks in me. The boardwalk was classic. Primetime people watching. So nice to check the Guidos mingling with the ironic high school sports t-shirts.
And to finish it off on a low note, my trip back on the W train featured a young drunk girl throwing up all over the floor of the car. Nice!
The eighties returned full-force fashion-wise at the Siren Festival. While I would put the trucker hat ratio at about 3 out of 10. I would put the Sheena Easton Brigade at about 6 out of 10 and climbing . . .
Nah, the trucker hat quotient was higher than it ever should be, but lower than anticipated - 1:50 to 1:100 for the guys 1:500 for the girls. Girls in trucker hats should be sliced drawn and quartered - and there are never bonus points awarded for having "custom-fonted" hats. Worst hipster fashion trend, it's a toss up between torn girlie-T sleeves (they actually sell these pre-torn at Urban Outfitters), and trucker hats, the combo coupled with alligator skin cowboy boots however would be a clear winner. I only had one beer (mostly to save myself from the hellacious bathroom lines, plus it just doesnt pay to drink heavily at the beach) - I saved the real drinking for the post-Coney porch barbeque.
siren just isn't siren without some sort of 'freakshow' band playing the sidestage like Black Heart Procession.
but it has always been great to see our favorite 'rockstars' (or K.R.S.) on stage in summery sun outfits, no?
can anyone confirm that you can still enter from the back @ the boardwalk and instantly be immersed into the front of the crowd?
oh, is anyone still boycotting Modest Mouse over that whole rape issue?
My issue with trucker hats is that usually they look very big on people's heads and the people tend to look like they have Down's syndrome. There's that really annoying video on MTV and VH1 that has some dude doing a rip off of John Mayer's already crappy "No Such Thing" video - I think his name is Johnny Mraz or something and he's wearing a trucker hat and he looks like he belongs in Special Ed.
Eek - that Modest Mouse rape incident was never really resolved, was it? There was much he said/she said.
Yeah, charges were either never filed or dismissed and no one really knows. The Murder City Devils refused to play with them (the woman was a friend of their's?) but they've been broken up for a couple years.
Ted Leo can sing his balls off. That guy is great.
Remember those original mesh cap wearers...back when it meant you knew how to fix stuff.
I heard the wet t-shirt contest at Cha-Chas was pretty good.
Who was it that actually *played* hipster bingo at siren...aha, here it is: http://www.themodernage.org/archives/2003_07_20_index.shtml#105873595236949222
And I was hustled for the wet t-shirt contest, even though I was wearing a black shirt. It was a pretty ugly scene.
So much bellyaching. It was a day of free concerts, people! Free! At Coney Island no less! And it wasn't even that hot out.
Highlights were definitely !!! and Hot Hot Heat. The Datsuns made my ears bleed. Northern State were cute (which is probably a pejorative description in this case). Idlewild bored me, but maybe it was all that Gyro I ate taking its toll.
The main stage had serious miking problems, very hard to hear the singers, I know people who walked out of the Modest Mouse show because they couldn't hear.
Leaving Coney was almost a nightmare. I felt like I was being herded onto Eliis Island. The buses to the F or Q were a joke! Very glad I took the W; the MTA had a train with something like 30 cars waiting patiently for all the crabby, sunburnt hipsters.
While I was quite happy to make it out to Coney Island for the first time in my life, I missed The Kills because the train took sooo long to get there, so I was kind of bummed, and I saw part of Sahara Hotnights, but they didn't leave much of an impression. I was excited for the rest of the acts later on, but had my wallet stolen from my bag which put a damper on things. So I missed the rest of the show since I went home to cancel my credit cards, but it sounds like I didn't miss too much.