Summerfest hasn't released its 2010 attendance figures yet, but I'll be surprised if the final numbers aren't strong. The music festival was blessed with 11 days of near-perfect weather and, perhaps as importantly, seemed to enjoy a renewed air of excitement surrounding its schedule. After years of courting baby boomers, sometimes to the exclusion of younger audiences, Summerfest organizers seem to have made a deliberate effort to freshen the festival's lineup this year, so here's hoping the 2010 attendance figures reward that decision, offering Summerfest incentive to continue down this path next year.
The crowds certainly appeared thicker this year, though less so last night, likely because of the holiday or the threat of rain. Thankfully, Sunday's predicted downpours never materialized. The worst mother nature could muster was a light, pleasant drizzle, an almost welcome break from the day's heat and humidity. The scattered rain drops also offered some moody ambiance for the night's headliners, particularly the Silversun Pickups, whose heady, tensely lit rock show at the U.S. Cellular Connection Stage offered plenty of dramatics even without the wind whipping in from over the lake.
Devo, playing a few stages down from the Silversun Pickups at the Miller Lite Oasis, couldn't help but seem stiff by comparisoneven in their youth, they were never exactly limber and impassionedthough the band did deliver their promised weirdness. Pudgy and adorned in silver costumes that matched their hair, the group performed in front of a towering video screen that flashed bright animations with blunt commentary about consumer culture.
The crowd was packed far tighter at the Miller Lite Oasis for Friday night's headlining set from N.E.R.D., who brought the party, albeit gracelessly. As a producer, Pharrell Williams crafts odd, minimalist beats from incidental percussion, warped synths and sonic irregularities. He lends some of this attention to detail to his records with N.E.R.D., but brought none of it to the rap-funk band's cumbersome live show, where nearly every song was subsumed by the same lumbering, muddled groove. (Williams' Neptunes co-producer and N.E.R.D. bandmate Chad Hugo was inexplicably absent Friday, which was perhaps part of the problem.)
|
|
Live rap bands needn't sound so monotonous, demonstrated Milwaukee rapper Prophetic in a precise set opening for N.E.R.D. Prophetic filled the stage with guitarists, keyboardists, guest rappers and a trio of backing vocalist, yet his sound was crisp and uncluttered, with jazz and soul flourishes coming across cleanly even on the heaviest numbers. Prophetic's backing band was Cigarette Break, the seasoned group that used to play with Black Elephant as they opened for so many rap acts at Summerfest. Black Elephant's rapper Dameon Ellzey was there Friday night, too, this time playing hypeman for Prophetic, which made the set feel even more like a symbolic passing of the torch.
