Festival Review: The Project Pabst Superlatives

More like Project Pass Out From Heat Stroke, right?

For both days of the second annual Project Pabst, the weather—the brutal, unrelenting, nigh-on inescapable, nearly 100-degree weather, to be specific—was the No. 1 trending topic both onstage and off, from the mostly shade-deprived Zidell Yards to the punishingly muggy Crystal Ballroom. Yes, there are few things as insufferable as Portlanders whining about the heat after complaining about the rain eight months out of every year. But it's somewhat unavoidable in this instance, considering it did have a tangible effect on the festival, with crowds dispersing early during many of the sets and heading for the air-conditioned arcade. 

But then, if you're going to be fried and dehydrated all day, there is perhaps no better beer to have on hand than PBR; as one band quipped, "It's basically water!" (see below). And the volunteers did their best to keep everyone cool, spritzing the audience with spray bottles and portable misters, among other techniques. (Shout out to my friend at So Cold for pegging me directly in the eye with a ball of shaved ice. Blindingly refreshing!) And, of course, for bands on the festival circuit, the ability to play on in the most uncomfortable conditions is essentially an evolutionary trait at this point. Here are the best things we saw and heard through the haze of our sun-baked delirium.

Best Harpsichord: The Velvet Teen

With no new material since the brief 2010 EP No Star, the once-hot repository for frontman Judah Nagler has been neither here nor there for almost an entire decade. The Velvet Teen is thankfully back in action, and bouncy harpsichord arpeggio that kicks off "Sonreo," the first track from their new record All Is Illusory, felt like both a wake up call and a call to arms for the few enthusiastic fans who braved the afternoon heat to give them a listen. Nagler and company have landed on the shit-hot emo label Topshelf, which makes perfect sense considering the urgency and earnest delivery that blows their former "blog-rock" peers (or whatever's left of them these days) out of the water. Their set was one crowd-pleaser after the next, with their anthemic 2002 breakout single "Radiapathy" functioning as a balls-to-the-wall cherry on top for fans like myself who had all but forgotten about them, save the occasional opening slot for Minus the Bear here and there. PETE COTTELL.

Best Act of Aggression: Against Me!

I first saw Against Me over a decade ago, in a garage in Santa Barbara. It was a different band then in a lot of ways, but in even more ways, it hasn't changed much at all. Sure, over the last couple years, singer-guitarist Laura Jane Grace has blazed a trail toward this current mainstream moment transgendered Americans, something no one in that cramped garage in California could've imagined, but the instrumental aggression and intellectual fervor with which the band the plays has not waned since those DIY salad days. Wearing a shirt declaring "Gender Is Over," Grace blasted through songs from last year's great Transgender Dysphoria Blues, a vicious, brutally honest record about taking no prisoners in the war against intolerance, and not even the most brutally hot point of the afternoon could deter a dusty mosh pit from forming. "I wish I could throw some shade at you all," Grace said, which might have been the weekend's best, possibly inadvertent double entendre. MATTHEW SINGER.

Best Use of Two Drummers: Thee Oh Sees

Lemme get this out of the way first: almost every band with two drummers totally blows (I'm looking at you, Modest Mouse). Talk about unnecessary. Have you ever thought about the rhythms in an Isaac Brock composition? But Thee Oh Sees are not your average band, and instead of lending any sort of variation or complexity to the mix, the double-drumming attack added extra oomph and visual synchronicity to John Dwyer's relentless garage-rock assault. Other bands might be more talented, but nobody plays harder than Thee Oh Sees. MICHAEL MANNHEIMER.

Best Mascot

Forget the unicorn statue planted in the center of the grounds bucking skyward: No one represented the PBR spirit more than the large, bearded and exceptionally wet dude dressed head-to-toe in Pabst swag—bandana, shirt, socks—who spent most of Thee Oh Sees' set dousing himself with water. I know that's what I end up looking like after an average night out throwing back some tall boys. (MS)

Best Intro Music: Run the Jewels coming out to "We are the Champions"

Have you ever thought about what music you would walk out to if you were a famous musician or, say, a baseball player? (Personally, my at-bat walk-up song would be Young Jeezy's "Go Crazy." Chyeaaaaaahhhhhhh!) Killer Mike and El-P sure have, and in "We are the Champions" they have the perfect intro for what has become potentially the Best Festival Set in the World. For one unrelenting hour, Run the Jewels plowed through all the best moments from their two impeccable records, getting every single person in the crowd to throw their hands in the air and at least try to rap along. "That's my brother right there! I love him," Killer Mike said near the end of the set after hugging El-P (Best Bro Hug!). Maybe this is something they do every show, but screw it—there's not one performer I've seen the past few years who can top RTJ's adrenaline-fueled fun. (MM)

Best Shirt

It’s a toss-up between the one reading “Che Guevara” under a photo of Tom Selleck and the Frasier promotional tee featuring a bemused Kelsey Grammer. I give the edge to the latter because it was accompanied by jorts and a ponytail. (MS)   

Best Cruise Ship Band: Blondie

Debbie Harry turned 70 this month. Somehow, that makes me feel old, even though I was negative 4 years old when Parallel Lines came out. Her voice was in fine form, and Harry herself was as icy-cool as ever, rocking shades and a hot-pink dress. With guitarist Chris Stein slouching in the background, it wasn’t hard to see why they’ve long had to insist that “Blondie Is a Band,” not an assemblage of studio musicians. To their credit, the band doled out American pop classics like “One Way or Another,” “Hanging on the Telephone,” “Call Me” and “Heart of Glass” with the expected professional polish. The problems began, as they often do, when they insisted on playing a new song, which turned out to be a new reggae-inspired number that lurched along for what felt like interminably long time. Then they did “Rapture,” to prove Harry’s mid-song rap verse has not improved with age. Then they covered “(You Gotta) Fight For Your Right (To Party),” to give her reason to rap more. Then she yelled “420” for some reason. They played their rendition of the Paragons’ “The Tide Is High,” which always sounded like a Carnival Cruise Line jingle, even back in 1980. I’m sure this all would’ve played exceptionally well after a few pina coladas on the way to Aruba. In a dirt field under the Ross Island Bridge? Not so much. (MS)    

Best Commute Soundtrack: The Lyft Driver Playing Buzzcocks Pandora

OK, I'm not sure if this was actually a Pandora station, but on the quick ride from Zidell Yards to the Crystal Ballroom we heard Buzzcocks, Elvis Costello and the Rolling Stones. It was the perfect comedown after standing in the burning-hot sun for over seven hours. Did Project Pabst director Matt Slessler secretly make playlists for every cab driver in the city? (MM)

Best No-Show: Ghostface Killah

A member of Wu-Tang Clan blowing off a gig is as surprising as the sunrise. But it's one thing to make a paying audience wait for a show that'll never come, and another to make that audience wait in a goddamn equatorial sauna. To the credit of his would-be backing band, Badbadnotgood attempted to salvage the evening with a fusion-y jazz set, but after standing around, staring at an empty stage for 45 minutes while sweating every last ounce of fluid from their pores, you could hardly blame much of the crowd for bailing as soon as it became obvious that Ghost wasn't showing up. Later, he went on Twitter and kinda sorta apologized, blaming a vague mixup at the airport, though the more likely truth is that he probably just got caught up preparing the Action Bronson dis video he dropped on Monday and totally forgot he had a show to do. Don't you hate when that happens? (MS)

Best of Old Portland: Terry and Louie

Portland might be a much different place if the Exploding Hearts had survived. That's not to say a group of pop-punk bleeding-hearts could have possibly stemmed the tide of #gentrification, but had it not been for the tragic van accident that killed all but one of its members over a decade ago, and if the group made good on the potential evident on its incredible lone album, Guitar Romantic, maybe our current music culture would be slightly less twee, a little more gritty, a little less...Decemberists. All we've got now are what-ifs and memories. But what memories they are. Sole survivor Terry Six, flanked by "fifth Heart" "King" Louie Bankston and members of his Missing Monuments, charged through a set of songs new and old, highlighted by Ex-Hearts classics like "Modern Kicks," "I'm a Pretender" and "Sleeping Aides and Razorblades." It felt tentative in spots, a little sloppy in others, but if you closed your eyes, it felt like 2003 again. The guy singing along in the ratty pink Poison Idea shirt would certainly agree. (MS)

Best Dis of a Corporate Sponsor: Alvvays

Alvvays’ swooning indie-pop is undeniably charming on record, but it’s much better suited for a cool, grey day than the middle of the hottest afternoon of the year. No other band had quite as much incentive to hope for a reprieve from the heat, but guitarist Alec O’Hanley took it further, openly praying for the gods—specifically, “Captain” Frederick Pabst, the company’s founder, whose visage overlooked the main stage—to open up the heavens and rain PBR down upon the scorched masses. To which singer Molly Rankin replied, “It’s basically water!” Oh, snap! Being good Canadians, she quickly clarified that she was “just kidding,” but it might have been too late to deter Pabst from storming across the border and trying to take Labatt by force. Sorry, Canucks, they’ve got Russia on their side now. (MS)   

Best Meta Banter: The Both

Nominally, Ted Leo's career slots somewhere between spry AOR rock and punk-rock lifer, which makes his pairing with singer-songwriter Aimee Mann a little out of left field but comforting nonetheless. The story goes that Mann and Leo began their musical endeavor through a pithy back and forth via Twitter, so of course Leo jokingly egged on Mann to check her Instagram feed and tell jokes while he restrung his guitar (because Leo is still 65 percent punk, which is too punk for a guitar tech or even a backup axe) and jostled the cables of a dinky synth he had set up a few feet from his amp. Like an L.L. Bean Edition Subaru, some of the most pleasant things in life are just too darn obvious to not be co-branded for a brief period of time. The music landed halfway between politely urgent agit-punk and wry meta-balladry—exactly what NPR die-hards have come to expect from this union. (PC)

Best Bubblegum: Passion Pit

There was a very brief period of time, perhaps in the winter of 2010, when Passion Pit was poised to dethrone MGMT from the top of the heap of glittery maximalist synth-poppers whose music made you want to run out and buy a Kia for some reason. They bypassed the middle period of slumming it in clubs almost entirely—everyone has that one friend who saw them on the heels of their Chunk of Change EP in a venue half the size Dante's, only to choke on their tongue from the whiplash induced by seeing the band catapult overnight to headlining the Crystal two nights in a row. Unless they hole up with Nigel Godrich and release a double-album of deconstructed jazz standards, it's likely Passion Pit has reached a plateau of playing to fields full of sweaty kids who are too young to shop at American Apparel and not receive a frowning from their parents. This is completely OK—pop music requires such a group to exist, and opening with "Little Secrets" is a guaranteed way to get high returns on their investment. When you demand so little of a group like this, you're bound to be surprised at how well they pull it off before remembering the few months when this shit was actually exciting. I surely don't miss the hangovers of those wilderness months I spent with Passion Pit closing out late nights on the stereo, but the vitality is still there in brief spurts, and that's something, I guess. (PC)

Best Weezer Fans: Alvvays

It was no surprise that Weezer drew the weekend’s biggest crowd: Everyone, to some degree, is a Weezer fan. Some are flag-waving loyalists (seriously, someone brought a tall-ass flag emblazoned with their logo, as if this were Glastonbury and Rivers Cuomo had conquered a small country), others just sing along to “El Scorcho” under their breath while pretending to scowl. But if you came of age in the ‘90s—a demographic that happens to be Project Pabst’s target audience—the band exists in some recess of your heart, and that won’t change no matter how shitty their albums get. And as it proved with last year’s “Back to the Shack,” a song explicitly apologizing for the last decade of shitty albums, the band ain’t too proud to indulge in a little fan service. To close out the weekend, the Weez brought the goods, affably running through every hit in its arsenal. (How many hits is that? Put it this way: They played “Say It Ain’t So” in the middle of the set.) It didn’t matter that it followed “Back to the Shack” with “Beverly Hills,” proving it’s learned nothing: Only the most miserable cynic could find something to complain about. The rest just screamed their approval—including Alvvays’ Molly Rankin, who, at one point, while standing right behind me, let out the kind of piercing, elongated “Wooooo!” only someone who sings onstage for a living is capable of. The gods never did bless us with a beer shower, but it certainly seemed like somebody's prayers had been answered. (MS) 

All photos by Courtney Theim.

WWeek 2015