Just found this in drafts. Can’t remember why I wouldn’t have posted it when I wrote it. Was I not finished? Oh well. Here it is:
—————————————————————
Well, that was interesting.
I’ll come right out & say that I’m not alone in believing that this may be the last artistically viable Hopscotch Music Festival, at least for those of us who like freaky shit. Even from outside the entirely opaque tent that is Hopscotch HQ, it’s hard to miss the sense that this year’s freakiest entrants are holdovers from previous years’ wishlists.
Having said that, I still had a pretty damn great time, and I hope to be able to do so again next year. And given that I actually wound up missing a lot of the weirdest bookings of the festival, maybe that part of my concern is illegitimate from the get-go.
Here’s the list of everyone I saw:
Thursday:
See Gulls
Le Weekend
Schooner
Judy Barnes
Museum Mouth
Last Year’s Men
The Tills
Author & Punisher
Friday:
Bachman, Graves & Bowles
Jenks Miller & Rose Cross NC
Little Black Egg Big Band
Sunburned Hand of the Man
MV+EE
Mary Lattimore & Thurston Moore
Obnox
Bedowyn
Artificial Brain
6 String Drag
Power Trip
Saturday:
Lud
Midnight Plus One
Some Army
Silent Lunch
Wing Dam
SubRosa
Screature
White Lung
The first rule of Hopscotch for me nowadays is Always Avoid City Plaza. It will crush your dreams and make even bands you admire dearly seem like puny automated museum dioramas.
This also gives you time to nap and eat dinner, which are ultimately the true foundation to a successful Hopscotch experience.
I only saw 27 bands (over 3 days, an average of 9 bands a day, not too shabby by any normal metric). I have weirdo acquaintances whose tallies are more than likely in the 40s at this point.