Fun Fun Fun Fest 2014 Day Two

With shorter lines at will call and better weather than the first day, the second day was looking up for people at Fun Fun Fun Fest. Day two of the festival kicked off with a slow start, but had a killer schedule for the day including Nas, Modest Mouse, Girl Talk, King Tuff and more.

To start the day, Fat White Family played the Black Stage in front of a small crowd. They played “I Am Mark E Smith,” which like many of their other songs has a very psychedelic sound. Their vocal performance was decent, but overall their set wasn’t really anything special.

Next door at the Orange Stage, King Tuff was killing it. Lead singer Kyle Thomas was shredding it on the guitar while they played songs “Bad Thing” and “Eddie’s Song.” King Tuff is one of those bands you could put on while driving down an old beach road with the windows down. With jammin’ tunes and nice Texas weather, the set was all around fun. The fans responded positively to their set with lots of cheers and fist pumps.

Back at the Black Stage, Glassjaw was ready to destroy the set, attracting some of the craziest fans yet at the festival. While playing “Jesus Glue” their fans did backflips off the stage, crowd surfing and rolling over the fans holding them up, contributing to an absolutely nuts set. Glassjaw’s hardcore sound made for a pretty good part of the festival.

To contrast the Black Stage, San Fermin was taking the Orange Stage. As a group, San Fermin has such a very unique sound, using trumpet, saxophone, violin and two lead vocalists with completely different voices to create beautiful music. They played songs “Daedalus,” “Crueler Kind” and “Sonsick,” each which seemed to sound more amazing as they played through their set. They blew the crowd away with their performance; so much passion was put into the set it was hard to not feel it. San Fermin are amazing performers and will no doubt go far in their musical career.

Courtney Barnett followed San Fermin’s performance and wasn’t nearly as exciting, receiving less love from the crowd as a whole and putting on a slightly boring performance even though she sounded great. She played “Don’t Apply Compression” and “Are You Looking After Yourself,” which like all her music has a sort of psychedelically witty sound. Her performance seemed underwhelming and mellow.

Back at the Black Stage, Iceage put on a pretty dark show, in a sense that the group’s sound is very depressing and angry. They opened with “On My Fingers, which didn’t seem to do much for the small crowd they attracted. They have a very raw sound and although passionate, was not very exciting to watch. They also played “Glassy Eyes, Dormant and Veiled” which had some people moving around up front but the show as a whole didn’t do a very good job at keeping people’s attention for the hour.

The Orange Stage was gearing up for The Pain of Being Pure at Heart who attracted a small crowd to their set. The group played “Heart In Your Heartbreak” and “Come Saturday,” but their performance as a whole had no ‘wow’ factor, coming off as somewhat average. None of the band members seemed to display any passion; they were either really bored or really focused. The crowd didn’t seem to be to stoked on their set either.

The Black Lips, on the other hand, were ready to dominate at the Black Stage. They drew in tons of fans and people were packed in to see them. They played all the fan favorites including “Modern Art,” “Dirty Hands” and “Boys In The Wood,” and had the gathered crowd going absolutely crazy for them. As a whole, The Black Lips definitely did not disappoint, and it was one of the highest quality performances of the day.

Up next at the Orange Stage was The New Pornographers. They played “Myriad Harbour” and “Modern Rock” towards the beginning of their set. Their upbeat alternative sounds seemed to be drawing in a large crowd, and many fans were dancing along to the songs. With six members on the stage it was hard for them to all go crazy, but they were pretty entertaining to watch. Not the best performance of the day, but they were an awesome band with definitely good beats.

Sick Of It All was next on the Black Stage and had a super small crowd compared to the crowd drawn for Black Lips. The group played “My Life” and “Scratch the Surface,” which had their fans going wild, inducing a wall of death at one point. Sick ran around the stage, trying to evoke mayhem for most of the set and displayed the true essence of rock and roll, and between all the moshing and crowd surfing it would be hard to say the set was anything less than entertaining.

As for the Blue Stage, Nas was pulling in fans from all ends of the festival, attaining one of the largest crowds. The rapper performed “Memory Lane” and “Bang Bang” which were accompanied by colorful lights on stage and fans singing along. Towards the end of his set he rapped fan favorite “Got Yourself a Gun.” To say Nas got ‘nasty’ would be an understatement; Nas is one of those rappers with a hell of a lot of soul, and a quality sound to match. It was overall an incredible performance.

Following the Nas performance was Girl Talk, and it’s difficult to emphasize just how fun this set was. For starters, Absolut Vodka gave the whole crowd light up foam sticks that turned the audience into a light show, and the stage had giant inflatable hands behind and along the soundboard, making for an awesome setup. Once the beats started, the dance party never stopped. Girl Talk performed their remixes of “Swimming Pools” by Kendrick Lamar, “Mosh Pit” by Flosstradamus, “0 To 100” by Drake, “Royals” by Lorde “Move Bitch” by Ludacris, and many more. The energy generated from the stage and the audience was so powerful and everyone felt like part of the set.

Read mxdwn’s coverage of Fun Fun Fun Fest 2014 Day One