As first time Hangout Fest attendees, we navigated to the festival in Gulf Shores from our condo in Orange Beach, AL on Friday afternoon.
We didn’t know what to expect the festival layout to be like aside from a couple of stages on the beach. What we discovered was a luxurious venue with the feel of a small city that had popped up beachside. As we entered the festival we saw multiple vendors and stages surrounding us. We headed toward Mac DeMarco on the Surf Stage as festival-goers around us started to run to the stage in anticipation of the show. DeMarco kicked off with his popular song “Salad Days,” which resonated with the crowd and immediately set the tone of the weekend for us. DeMarco’s psychedelic guitar riffs and Surf Style grooves seem to fit hand in hand with lounging in the sand and watching the waves. The third song in the set, “For The First Time,” was the first song he played from his new record, “This Old Dog.” Other highlights included “The Way You’d Love Her” from DeMarco’s 2015 record “Another One,” and “On The Level,” from his new record.
As I watch DeMarco play I am reminded of Knoxville musician Dakota Smith from Sweet Years in the way that he plays and carries himself on stage.
From the jump, we began to notice fashion trends among Hangout Fest attendees. Shorts and shirts with various watermelon and pineapple prints seemed to be everywhere. There were lots of music fans sporting round-rimmed reflective sunglasses, and many are sporting braided hairstyles and glitter on their faces and chests. As DeMarco’s set came to a close we wandered by a packed ASAP Ferg set with lots of familiar songs blasting at the Boom Boom Tent before heading to see MGMT on the main stage.
SUNSET SHOW : MGMT
MGMT took to the Hangout Stage Friday evening for what seemed like the perfect transition set to take Hangout Fest attendees into the night.
The band played multiple hits from their 2007 hipster classic album “Oracular Spectacular”, such as “Time to Pretend,” “Weekend Wars,” “The Youth” and “Electric Feel.” As the band began to play “Electric Feel” mid-set, large inflatable blue whales were released into the crowd. These were a big hit as the whales sailed over the audience, and were a sight to see as you watched the overhead shots of the crowd displayed on the big screen video boards bookending the stage. At one point one attendee managed to get on top of one of the whales and crowd surfed the whale over the audience. In response to this MGMT lead vocalist Andrew VanWyngarden strummed and sang an impromptu tune about “A man riding a whale”. The band teased the opening few seconds of Lynyrd Skynyrd’s “Sweet Home Alabama,” which was almost a cruel joke to the enthusiastic Alabama fans and natives in attendance. It was guitarist/keyboardist James Richardson’s birthday, for which he sported a gold tunic and kept teasing “Mary Had a Little Lamb” instead of the usual “Happy Birthday” song. MGMT has recently confirmed a new record to be released in 2017, the follow up to their 2013 self-titled release. They played several new tunes on Friday night including the song, “Me and Michael.” The band seemed to have a light-hearted, positive attitude, telling jokes from the stage and interacting with the crowd. There was one moment when a flock of birds flew overhead, and VanWyngarden drew the crowd’s attention to it – exclaiming, “Look at those geese! or… pelicans? I love you goose-pelicans!” They closed their set with yet another hit, “Kids,” which left Hangout attendees dancing and singing into the night as they headed to see other acts such as PRVIS and Weezer.
HEADLINER : PHOENIX
Taking the place of one of Hangout Fest’s initially scheduled artists Frank Ocean, French rockers Phoenix took the stage as Friday night’s headliner. The band started their set with their brand new single “Ti Amo.” They then launched into high energy, well known songs from their popular record, “Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix,” such as “Lasso,” “Lisztomania” and “Fences.” The band’s backdrop was an impressive and visually appealing aspect of their set, featuring various images and video clips changing constantly with pictures of constellations, clouds and more. Vocalist Thomas Mars thanked the crowd and stated the band was glad to be there, even though they weren’t expecting to be just ten days ago. Other highlights of their setlist included another new single, “J-Boy,” and various songs from their 2013 release “Bankrupt!” such as “Entertainment” and “Trying to be Cool.” The encore brought songs from their debut 2000 release “United,” and two more songs from “Wolfgang…”, “1901” and “Countdown.”
SATURDAY : OUR PLANS : WHAT’S TO COME
After some much needed rest upon leaving Hangout on Friday night (we drove through the night from Knoxville and arrived in Orange Beach at 7:30AM Friday morning) we are headed back to Gulf Shores for Saturday’s Hangout Fest musical offerings. We have plans to catch sets from LP, Band of Horses, The Head and the Heart, Sigor Ros and Twenty One Pilots. If the atmosphere and music is anywhere as fantastic as our Friday experience at Hangout, we will have a great Saturday recap to report tomorrow.
