Festival Review: The Pickathon Superlatives

In many ways, Pickathon doesn’t deserve the slander of being called a “music festival.” Its ambitions are too humble, the setting too serene, the aftermath too non-apocalyptic. Even after 17 years, national press attention and gushing appraisals from multiple artists, it’s resisted the temptation to expand beyond sustainability nor give in to corporate sponsorship. The worst thing you can say is that it’s gotten pricier in recent years, but the cost of admission is offset by an experience other, bigger festivals just can’t provide.    

All that said, leaving Pendarvis Farm this year, it certainly felt like I'd been at one of those overwhelming, agoraphobic music festivals that seem to take a few years off your life. As with Project Pabst last month, the heat exacerbated the typical discomforts of spending three straight days outdoors, watching bands until the wee hours of the morning—some of which are unique to Pickathon, like the fact that every patch square foot of the farm feels like it's on an incline. The organizers do their best to mitigate such inconveniences, including installing a mostly ineffective AC system in the Galaxy Barn. But, as I overheard one very zen camper say, "Dust happens." 

It’s enough to make a veteran attendee wonder if it’s still worth the hassle. But after dragging my sore, dirt-caked and sun-scorched limbs to car on Sunday afternoon, then showering, sleeping and getting enough of my brain power back to reflect on the weekend, I know my answer to that is, “Of course.” The rare pleasures of Pickathon don’t always come easy. But then, few moments of musical transcendence do.   

Most Mind-Blowing Act of Stamina: Kamasi Washington 

After saxophonist Kamasi Washington and his eight-piece live band—including two drummers and a special guest appearance from his dad on soprano sax—stepped off the main stage late Friday afternoon, it was impossible to imagine they had much left in the tank. The musicians had just flown in from L.A. a few hours earlier, it was 100 degrees, and the hugely energetic sound of the Brainfeeder artists' roaring songs had solo builds and drops so big, we might as well have been in an EDM tent. But almost instantly upon the group hitting the stage at the Galaxy Barn a few hours later, we were proven very, very, wrong. The younger Washington started his set with a 10-minute tenor sax solo over "Change of the Guard," the high-spirited opening track from his latest, three-hour-long record, The Epic, which ended in a bout of soprano squealing the likes of which we have never seen before, at least not at Pickathon. He then smiled through his bushy black beard, thanked the audience, and blew his ass off for another 50 minutes, easily rounding out two of the most downright astonishing live performances of the entire festival, virtually back-to-back. PARKER HALL.

Best Casual Stagewear: Dylan Baldi of Cloud Nothings

Friday night on the Mountain Stage, on what was close to the hottest day of the year in Happy Valley, Dylan Baldi took the stage rocking a pair of black Adidas skinny sweatpants. Everybody knows that the Official Rock Band Dress Code calls for no shorts onstage (sorry, Pavement) but Baldi clearly does not give a F about how an indie star should act or dress. In fact, his embrace of casual wear was more punk rock than the band's set, where its razor-sharp take on pop-punk felt diluted away from the studio. MICHAEL MANNHEIMER.

Best Shredders: Ex Hex

Saturday at Pickathon is a marathon, not a sprint, but no one told that to Ex Hex, who came screaming out the gates on the main stage as campers were still wiping sleep from their eyes. The band's swaggering power-pop—delivered with punk snarl and rock-goddess manuevering from singer-guitarist Mary Timony and bassist Betsy Wright—was just the caffeinated jolt many of us needed. MATTHEW SINGER.

Best Kids Show: King Tuff

Forget the cartoon woodland creatures on the festival's commemorative plates and tin cups: Kyle Thomas, aka King Tuff, is Pickathon's true spirit animal. This was the garage-rock goofball's third year at Pendarvis Farm, though only his second as a performer. He came in 2014 as a fan, and this year spent his time between sets wandering the grounds in overalls, looking like an overgrown, scraggly-haired and prematurely bearded toddler who'd lost his parents. Onstage in the Woods, Thomas reverted back into an adult, though just barely. In his "classic" King Tuff apparel of black jeans, ball cap and pins-and-patches-adorned denim vest, he resembled a Hawthorne street kid you'd dip into a Starbucks to avoid running into. But as soon as he opened his mouth, revealing his disarmingly prepubescent singing voice, it was easy to imagine the dude entertaining the actual toddlers over at the circus-themed Big Top Stage. His sugar-sweet, big-hearted power-pop is filled with the same messages Raffi tries to impart to his audience—don't judge books by their covers, and love people for who they are on the inside, even if they smell like rats—only with more guitar shredding, metal moves and fog-machine action. It was impossible not to bop along, though with an intensity more ball-pit than mosh pit. (MS)

Best Beautiful Mess: Ryley Walker

"I keep getting faded," the Chicago singer-guitarist confessed at the start of his mid-afternoon set, explaining that the volunteer staff kept forcing him to chug his drinks when going from one part of the farm to another. Indeed, the guy seemed to be barely staving off the same alcohol-and-sun-induced heatstroke as the rest of us. Bed-headed and wearing a tattered striped shirt, Walker looked like he'd just survived a wolverine attack. As soon as he picked up his guitar, though, leading his drummerless quartet through a transfixing set of soulful, jazzy folk, spirits didn't necessarily lift—the crowd stayed mostly splayed out on the ground—but he did manage to clear out some of the collective cobwebs, like a shot of Earl Grey tea to the heart. It was all very Van Morrison. And then he covered Van Morrison, first teasing "Brown Eyed Girl" like some basic bro, before drifting into 1974's "Fair Play." It sounded sublime as I headed back to my campsite for a quick beer nap. I'm guessing Walker did the same immediately after. (MS)

Best Star-Is-Born Moment: Leon Bridges

Pickathon didn't book any obvious headliners this year, but it did have at least one star—26-year-old soul phenom Leon Bridges, whose debut album, Coming Home, is not even two months old. Most early evening shows at the Galaxy Barn are SRO situations, but I can't recall feeling more tangible anticipation in the humid air than before Bridges' Saturday night set. The kid's evocation of midcentury R&B is preternatural enough on record, and it's only enhanced by the boyish charisma he projects live. Though he's often compared to Sam Cooke, he doesn't yet able to turn on the raw energy Cooke would surprise live audiences with (see Live at the Harlem Square Club 1963 for proof of how wild a Sam Cooke show could get), but his mannered presentation was commanding regardless. I'm sure he'll learn to get looser with time. He's going to have a lot of it. (MS)  

Best Lullaby: Tinariwen

After getting battered by Ty Segall and a scathing Viet Cong set, the trance-inducing, psychedelic desert blues of Mali's Tinariwen seemed the perfect nightcap, especially in the open-air of the Starlight Stage. It worked almost too well. I had been anticipating the band's performance, but the spiraling guitars, elliptical percussion and chanted vocals drained the last bits of energy from my already exhausted body. After basically nodding off in my chair for 20 minutes, I threw in the towel and headed to my tent. But it made for some beautiful music to dream to. (MS)

Best Jersey Sighting: Calbert Cheaney

Festival Jerseywatch™ is back, son! Though the Pickathon crowd is still more "I make my own granola" than your usual assortment of Festival Bros, the sweltering heat brought out a few vintage jerseys, mostly your usual cast of characters: Kevin Garnett, Penny Hardaway, Isaiah Thomas, Shawn Kemp. But in all my time tracking jerseys, I dunno if I've ever been so excited to see someone reppin' a former player like the dude who brought his Calbert Cheaney threads to Pendarvis Farm. Cheaney, the sixth pick in the 1993 draft, had the sort of unremarkable 13-year career that has left him as more of an afterthought than a cult hero. Again: someone wore a Calbert Cheaney jersey to a music festival in 2015. Never change, bro. (MM)

Best Merchandise: Total Babes' LeBron shirt

In case you couldn't tell, some of us around here are pretty big NBA nerds. So it filled us with geeky delight to see Ohio punk band Total Babes selling a T-shirt incorporating the prodigal son of Cleveland's "sad mirror selfie" Instagram photo, which briefly became a meme in the basketball blogosphere this past March. Pity we didn't see it sooner, or we would've made an effort to catch one of the band's sets. (MS)

Best Early Afternoon Wake-Up Call: Edna Vazquez

Portland's own Edna Vazquez was nothing short of mesmerizing in the Galaxy Barn on Sunday afternoon, firing up a hungover and sun-dazed crowd by bringing out a full mariachi band to play behind her and stunning voice. After a nonstop rush of indie rock, punk, and folk-rock all weekend, her take on classic Mexican mariachi jams was refreshing and vital. She also drew more than double the crowd as Brooklyn buzz-band Diiv managed to pull in later that night, even as Diiv singer Zachary Cole Smith's girlfriend Sky Ferreira watched from the side of the stage. (MM) 

Best Velvet Underground Cover: Ty Segall and "The Roling Stons"

One of the biggest selling points of Pickathon will always be the fact that every act performs at least twice over the course of the festival's three days. Miss Tune-Yards on the mainstage? You can always catch Merrill and Co. again later during the weekend. So while I was a little bummed to get shut out of Ty Segall's sweat-soaked destruction of the Galaxy Barn on Saturday night, I was still able to squeeze my way to the front of the woods the next day for take two. Playing with "The Roling Stons"—aka Los Angeles psych-rock wizards Wand—as his backing band, Segall tore through a greatest-hits set of his material that leaned on the heavier end of things, with songs stretched out and jammed out till each sludgy riff kicked you in the face and the heart. The superband's best trick was actually a faithful cover of the Velvet Underground's "What Goes On" that amped up the tempo just a nudge without losing the intensity of the original. It was cool watching it on a stage from the beer garden outside the barn and totally incendiary in the woods, with only the temperature drop on Sunday to keep the band from burning the whole thing down with their molten guitar freakouts. (MM)

WWeek 2015