Welcome to my first (and admittedly brief) piece of coverage for the 2013 Hopscotch Music Festival that’s going on right now in Raleigh, N.C. My photographer (Mallory Pickard) and I were able to catch a few sets on the first night (Thursday, Sept. 5), but we were pretty burnt out from working all day prior. Also, I took part in a panel discussion on the Internet’s impact on music now in terms of free releases, streaming music services, and the like with some pretty awesome people (including Sylvan Esso!). Anyway, with that, you can read my thoughts on some performances below.
By the time we got to the Pour House, the place was packed (and by that I mean at full capacity) for the venue’s first performer, Carrboro’s Body Games. Upon seeing the line and lack of entry, we decided to go for a quick stroll because, well, it was really f-cking nice out that night and we wanted to give the place some time to clear out. We made it back for the end of Body Games’ clearly noisy and loud set that left the crowd sweaty from what I could gather.
Much of the crowd then dispersed and allowed us to creep forward, beers and camera in hand to catch fill-in act Moss of Aura, who’s also known as Gerrit Welmers of Future Islands. If you have ever listened to his work with Future Islands, you have a good idea of what to expect from Welmers’ solo output. It’s expansive, often has a tropical vibe, and can sometimes play out like the soundtrack to a really good daydream.
The only problem is that in a live setting, that can all become rather tedious after about 25 minutes or so, when the loops and synthesizers all blend together. Would it have helped if Welmers stood up for most of the show instead of crouching by his equipment? Maybe, but it was still great of him to plug up that potential lineup gap.
Moss of Aura also felt like the calm before the trappy, footwork-heavy storm that was DJ Paypal‘s performance. For the better part of an hour, the masked producer/DJ bounced, danced, and played with his iPhone behind his setup much to the joy of the crowd. Well, no, the audience was more in tune with the absolutely crushing tracks that blared out of the P.A. system.
This was, unfortunately, another case of too much hitting you at once, unless of course you were intoxicated in some fashion. Maybe I was just a little too tired to take an hour’s worth of sped-up vocal samples, skittering percussion, and thicker-than-hair-gel bass, but it was a lot of fun to see how much the crowd got into his set.
Also, props to Paypal for repping his label home (he had a LuckyMe shirt across his face) and the great DJ Rashad (he was wearing a Rashad shirt).
After a brief bit of downtime, Brainfeeder’s own Lapalux took the stage and brought with him his glitchy, moody, and ridiculously engaging music. But because of our personal time constraints (we had to work the next day and it was getting late), we only caught a few songs and got to snap some photos. You can peep the other two below.
