On Friday morning, the fog lifted for a sunny and jam-packed Day Two of Big Ears 2016.
The beginning of subsequent days of festivals can be gorgeous, blissful times in a festival-goer’s life, basking in the afterglow of the late night shows mingled with the fleeting fuzzies of the lucid dreams they inspired. One can reconvene with new festival friends and hash out the night before and compare personal schedules for the day. The fatigue that began setting in toward the end of the first day evaporates mid-way through the next as the festival-goer gets his or her “festival legs” back , shaking off the soreness and hitting a stride on constant volleys between venues, bouncing around downtown like a pinball.
Sometimes themes, patterns, or narratives develop in conversations buzzing throughout the weekend at a festival. A few of them that have emerged thus far with Big Ears: Bryce Dessner seems to be everywhere. Eighth Blackbird rips! John Luther Adams’ installments will either slowly drive us insane or create a magical psycho-sonic breakthrough in our minds, leaving us forever changed. According to some sources, Yo La Tengo have apparently not been super-friendly. Big city folks in for the festival really seem to think Knoxville is as cool as we do, which is amazing.
Another common festival theme that quickly emerges, and here’s a riff on an old adage by Socrates: the more shows you see, the more shows you realize you’re missing. So, far from a comprehensive rundown, this is a personal account of a day in the life, of an individual festival experience.
A few shows Blank did catch on Friday:
Anthony Braxton and 10+1 TET
The Bijou Theatre was packed at capacity with a line out the door for this entire show. The band’s frenetic energy and chaotic, cacophonous improvisations and abrupt stops and lurching rhythms were directed by Braxton’s emphatic gesturing and body language. The 70-year-old composer and bandleader’s movements and sax runs were spry and lively and he wore a broad smile and mischievous twinkle in his eye as he blew through a challenging set that pushed the limits of how much tension a song could build and how far a song could stray from conventional melody and rhythm without losing the crowd. It had the unsettling effect of making the listener feel a sense of dread and waiting and excitement, like waiting for a short-circuiting machine to finally either resume normal operation, fizzle out and die, or….explode.
John Luther Adams’ Veils and Vesper
This installment was particularly special and interesting to me as its venue, First Christian Church, is where my parents got married many moons ago. It was eerie as nothing seems to have changed in the interior of the sanctuary–it seemed hermetically sealed and preserved, retaining all the same qualities of the room in the aging photographs in my parents’ albums. I thought about what they must have felt like, up on that altar 35 years ago, when they were 10 years younger than I am now. Were they ready to be adults? Parents? I thought about what has changed in the world, their lives, and Knoxville since then. I thought about how this sanctuary and other historic buildings seem to be frozen in time as memory museums.
Adams’ work lends itself to this type of deep introspective reflection: in the gorgeous historic sanctuary, there were speakers set up throughout, emitting different elements of ambient drone, creating a soundscape atmosphere that was inviting audience members to wander around the room to feel different vibe pockets, lay on a pew in restful repose, or sit in prayer, meditation and reflection. I had just come from a stressful Friday at my day job, teaching high school English, and the respite and release to the gentle but persistent audio drone was a refreshing psychic renewal moving into the weekend. I can’t wait to see what he does in his percussion concert Inskuit at Ijams on Sunday. The show is free to the public so if your friends, lovers or family have been unable to attend up to this point, it’s a great opportunity to see what should be a triumphant finale to the festival.
Drew Drake and Logan Morris
To be transparent, the stop in to Jig and Reel began more as a quest for fish and chips to refuel for later shows. But instantly a new friend was made as a stylish, refined gentlemen saw me confused, looking for a seat in the crowded room and gestured me over to join him. As per usual in Knoxville, we found a few mutual connections within minutes, and settled back to enjoy some smooth slam and soul from Drew Drake and Logan Morris. Their show was loose and vacillated between soulful singing and guitar picking with spoken word, slam poetry and rap. They threw in covers of Leon Bridges and Stevie Wonder songs. It seemed loosed, they seemed somewhat inexperienced compared to the other acts, and the continuing religious themes in the poetry could have different effects depending on how you feel about all that, but Drake’s positivity, charismatic charm and his and Morris’ voices in harmony created a smooth, sweet blend that was the perfect soundtrack for a laid back afternoon recharge.
Boogarins
I have a man-crush on every member of Boogarin. Or maybe I want to party with them…or be them, or…? That’s the kind of feelings this Brazilian indie-rock group inspired in their rowdy yet ethereal set in a packed house at The Standard. Singing in falsetto Portuguese while they jammed out tight, poppy, spacey psychedelic stuff reminiscent of Tame Impala and MGMT. The crowd was dancing, head-bobbing, swaying, otherwise blissed-out. The band gave the impression of like, stoner skater friends that got together in high school and they’re so excited they’ve made it and they’re still in that phase where they’re loving every second of it…probably the most fun set at the festival so far.
Eighth Blackbird with Bonnie “Prince” Billy and Bryce Dessner of The National
Mesmerizing intricacy and passion exploded out of Eighth Blackbird’s set with Will Oldham (aka Bonnie “Prince” Billy) and Bryce Dessner of The National. Eighth Blackbird jammed several songs on their own first. Their pieces aren’t as brash as Braxton’s, more tight and melody and narrative driven, while still very experimental and improvisational. The band has been playing together for 20 years, and the intuitive tightness with each other shows, but they also seem to retain a youthful excitement about risk-taking and embracing complex, frenetic, beautiful arrangements that seem to alternate in split-second change from a dark heavy metal-style cello-carving riff to a dancy xylophone and harmonizing flute run to lurching, sharp piano/drum stops…ever moment is engaging with this group. The group did a few of Dessner’s pieces and some of Oldham’s songs, but the highlight of the set might have been their performance, with Oldham, of Frederic Rzewski’s “Coming Together,” a 1971 piece based on a letter from a prisoner in the days leading up to the fatal riots at Attica prison in New York. Oldham, in a measured and eerie spoken-word recitation, hypnotically read the letter in a looping style–first sentence, first and second sentence, first, second and third sentence, and so on, as the band built behind hum until the crescendo of the piece with Oldham and the Eighth Blackbird members alternating between screaming different phrases from the letter over a chaotic swirling cacophony.
Blank’s suggestions for today, Saturday, DAY THREE:
-The Necks, 5pm, Bijou Theatre
-Sun O))), 9pm, Tennessee Theatre
-Indie Poetry Slam, 7:30pm, The Square Room
-TAMIS and Knoxville Stomp present Drew Fisher (Knox County Jug Stompers) and Jesse Tindell, 11pm, Jig and Reel
-Kamasi Washington, 12:15am, Mill and Mine
