For whatever reason, I mentioned that while driving to the Gorge this weekend and Eric Grandy then informed all of us that Bruce Willis also showcased his music talents in a wonderful 1986 wine cooler commercial.

Enjoy:

Sadly, Bruce Willis did not perform at Sasquatch.

The Michaels were lackluster. Showalter was "deathly ill." His set was moved back 45 minutes, he sat down for much of his performance, he looked tired, and he was sweating profusely under the hot lights. He was clearly sick. But he gave it an ol' college try, reading some old material from his laptop, including a list of music related thoughts that he published on Spin.com almost a month ago.

Best Band That Was Once Uncle Tupelo: Wilco

Worst Band That Was Once Uncle Tupelo: Sun Volt

Best Slow & Sleepy Fuck Music: Sade

Best Really Fast & Socially Conscious Fuck Music: Fugazi

He apologized for it not being the best show and the crowd still adored him anyway.

Michael Ian Black was not sick, be he wasn't well. I've seen his stand up act quite a few times now, and he's just not as funny alone as he is with other people (Stella, for example). His sarcastic humor works best when he's using it to spar against others.

By the time he took the stage, the Flight of the Conchords had just wrapped up on the mainstage, and he used that opportunity to proclaim "I could be that famous too, if I had an accent." Then he told the story about how he met the FotC at the premier for his new movie Run, Fatboy, Run, and they sorta blew him off. He introduced himself to them, said he wrote the movie they just saw, and they were like "Oh." They could've said they liked the movie, but they didn't say that. Then he walked around the stage a little bit, pretending to be hurt.

The crowd laughed, he turned pouted, then he turned towards the mainstage and flipped them off. It was a little more bitter than funny, and definitely awkward. But whatever, Michael Ian Black loves awkward.

The rest of his performance, I can't remember, because it was pretty unmemorable. And I'm a big fan, I was trying really hard to like it. But maybe I was trying too hard. I dunno.

Eugene Mirman, though, killed it. Brian Posehn is still my favorite for the weekend, but Mirman had a bunch of new material, and chatted with the crowd a lot of the time. It was a battle of wits at one point. He mentioned Ayn Rand and then a number of people watching had to prove they knew who she was by yelling out names of her books. He made fun of them, everyone laughed.

He had some new suggestions for those annoying pop-up polls on MySpace, he read aloud the letter he wrote to the gas company when they shut off his gas, he showed a video of his recent primary coverage (referring to the Liberty Bell: "It's cracked, like America's government."), and did a powerpoint presentation of some of the world's rarest animals (that he made up).

As he left the stage, he announced he'll probably be returning to Seattle in July. I can't wait.

WHEN:
Thursday, August 21, 2008
8:00 PM Show time I 7:00 PM Doors

WHERE:
INB Performing Arts Center
W. 334 Spokane Falls :: Spokane, WA

TICKETS:
ON SALE FRIDAY MAY 30 at 10AM
$29.00 Reserved Tickets

Tickets are available through ticketswest.com.

Speaking of Fleet Foxes, this is what it looks like when they play the Mainstage at Sasquatch in front of tens of thousands of people who have no idea who they are (or think they're the National).

^{Photo by Christopher Nelson}

^{Photo by Christopher Nelson}

^{Photo by Christopher Nelson}

^{Photo by Sean Pecknold}

That is all.

Also, what this video doesn't show is me smashing the bottle on the pavement outside the trailer to get the worm out. Seriously, this operation took like a half hour.

Oh god I was hung over yesterday morning. I wandered around the sprawling campsites after the Cure on Sunday until dawn, drinking and accosting and being accosted by yellow shirt mongoloid rent-a-cops. When it came time for a third day of festival I needed a god damn nap in a bad way, so I staked a flat spot on the terraced part of the hill and dozed in the sun while the main stage plugged away though the morning lineup. This semi-conscious, recuperative state was how I experienced the Hives and the first half of Built to Spill. Few conclusions were drawn from the Hives set, mostly that their guitar tone sounded weak and sometimes out of tune, and that their bratty, cocky lead singer Howlin' Pelle Almqvist is a lot like a Swedish version of These Arms Are Snakes’ Steve Snere. Like Eric said before, Built to Spill were unsurprisingly awesome, playing lots of their long, jammy songs but mixing them up with shorter numbers as well. “Traces” was flawless, and any time they play “Big Dipper” I get heart happy. They were thoroughly enjoyable but fairly unexciting, and by the end of their set my hangover had subsided to the point where I no longer felt like flinging myself into the canyon.

^{photo by Christopher Nelson}

I’d heard good things about Rodrigo y Gabriela but didn’t get a chance to see them at Bumbershoot last year. They were without a doubt the best act I saw on the main stage this year, blowing the minds of the entire audience with lighting fast acoustic flamenco/metal. If you’ve never heard, Gabriela plays actual rhythms with her flailing outstretched hand that sound like a drum set while Rodrigo absolutely shreds up and down the fret board. When Gabriela’s guitar broke, she walked off stage leaving Rodrigo to entertain the audience by ripping through Metallica and Jimi Hendrix riffs. His solos were so intense they caused the entire audience to explode in applause every couple minutes. As he stood on stage in front of a beautiful canyon, thousands of people in awe of his skill, I could just imagine him bellowing in triumph, “I am the greatest guitarist in the WORLD!” Respect.

Following that up with Battles, who is in my opinion pretty much the best live band in the world right now, was pretty incredible. Watching total bros lose their inhibitions and start dancing like hippies during “Atlas” was like a miniature “Hands Around the World.” It might have been how high I was, but I’m pretty sure I saw two Lost Boys walk past me and disappear into the dance pit with evil grins on their faces. Drummer John Stanier looked like he was going to pop a brain vein. I actually felt sorry for him, like, “Those guitarists are working that poor drummer to death! Somebody help him!” As remarkable as he is at being a high-speed human metronome, I can’t imagine playing like that every night would be very much fun.

The headliners of the night, Mars Volta and the Flaming Lips, are opposite sides of a mushroom trip. The Flaming Lips are the sheer joy of psychedelics, their set being the rainbow confetti cumshot perfect for concluding a long, drugged-out music weekend. The visuals were great, everybody sang and had fun, and it didn’t even matter that the Lips are still basically doing the same thing they’ve been doing for years now with but with more expensive props.

The Mars Volta are the other side of the hallucinogenic spectrum, the exhilarating, frightening, self-introspective part of the trip. They didn’t start with a song but rather an explosion, five straight minutes of guitar solo, drum fill and driving bass, while singer Cedric Bixler flung himself around stage, jumped off amps, and chucked a symbol and stand and a jumbotron camera into the audience. They played tracks from their albums, but each drifted into strange, evil improv jazz sessions. There were so many intricate parts fighting for attention that a lot of it was lost through the sound system - I found myself often straining to hear what certain members were playing. Their sound was loud and abrasive, and it drove people away in streams – there were definitely more people walking away from the Mars Volta than towards them. Then shit got really weird.

^{photo by Christopher Nelson}

During “Goliath” they went into a long, discordant saxophone solo, then a back and forth of unpleasant noises between the sax and the guitar. There is no denying each member of the Volta is an incredible musician, and the dark, avant-jazz they’ve created is fascinating, but I found myself asking throughout the set, “This is definitely original, but is it good?” On the whole, yes. The sound they are experimenting with is often unpleasant, but it is also a step in a whole new direction following neither the path of rock, jazz, or prog music. They are a band focused on being musicians and pushing limits, not on writing hit songs. The reaction to them seemed a straight mix between pure respect and utter disgust. I overheard the people sitting behind me say their friend left during the set because she got scared. “Yeah, that band was scary,” her friend replied. Walking to the parking lot at the end of the night, someone yelled, “Who loves the Mars Volta?” There were scattered yeahs, followed by equal boos, and someone saying over and over, “Not so much, not so much.”

I heard there were some acid sugar cubes floating around, but this just got ridiculous.

Say Hi were a pleasant surprise. I'm not always in the mood for Buffy-ready power pop ("This is a song about vampires," was the first thing I heard of their set), but Eric Elbogen was charming and fun and cute. He reminded me a little of Hefner and Figurine, although he doesn't really sound a lot like either of those bands. I know that's not terribly helpful, but my synapses may have been a little misconnected by this point in the weekend.

Built to Spill weren't surprising. They aren't really a surprising band at this point in their career. What they are is reliably awesome, and perfectly suited to the summer festival scene, equal parts oddly poppy and classically jammy. You cannot fuck with songs like "Dystopian Dream Girl," "Big Dipper," and "Nowhere Nothing Fuckup," whose closing refrain of "In America / every puddle / a gasoline rainbow" seemed especially poignant. At one point, the Jumbotron caught Doug Martsch, mid instrumental solo, playing guitar, eyes closed, beads of sweat on his brow, just looking totally beatific. I overheard some guy say of them, "They're no Hives, but that was good."

The most giddy, satisfying set of the day (maybe the whole fest) came from Battles on Monday evening. To borrow from a friend: The band really does speak their own language, both in terms of incomprehensible elf vocals and in terms of their tightly shifting fourth dimensional instrumental rock; for much of their set, they seemed content just speaking to each other even if it went over everyone else’s heads. But the epic, unfurling “Tonto” and the mad, marching stomp of “Atlas” were understandable and crowd-pleasing enough, inspiring wordless sing-alongs and swirling pockets of dancing. The only intelligible words: a loop of the word “Battles” on the opening song, and the minimal between song banter of, “Oh boy, Sasquatch.”

^{Flight of the Conchords photo by Christopher Nelson}

From up on the hill, Flight of the Conchords were all but drowned out by Kinski rocking the neighboring Yeti Stage. (Can't someone from Sub Pop sort this stuff out?) Battles conflicted with most of the Conchords' set, but I managed to get there just in time to hear them announce, "We're a Christian band. It's not just me and Jemaine up here. It's me and Jemaine and Jesus." Then they played a hilarious, brilliant (like all their songs) number about angels "doing it" in heaven that included lines about how "no one knows what goes on under those robes" and angels "making it rain." Making it rain! Jesus, that is one funny motherfucking band.

Futurist soul crooner Jamie Lidell was the last set for which I still had any stamina, but when the late set finally started it was worth it. Lidell, sporting vertically striped pants and a gold jacket, played with a full backing band—drummer, keyboardist, guitarist, and a berobed, Jesus-y looking figure playing two saxophones plus some kind of vocoder flute. The first two songs were pretty straight live numbers, and they made Lidell's soul singer schtick seem more serious than ever, although, I suppose it's always been simultaneously serious and silly. Lidell is for real; he's also a funny motherfucking freak.

^{photo by Piper Carr}

For "When I Come Back Around" and "Little Bit More" Lidell worked the live sampling/looping/beatboxing/scatting magic that made his Bumbershoot set two years ago such a revelation. This time though, instead of just sampling himself, Lidell had his whole band to work off of, stealing loops from different instruments and remixing/effecting them on the fly, pointing what looked like a super-8 camera prop at the source to be sampled, like some kind of music-sucking ray gun. His banter is, of course, great. He asked the crowd who had heard the new record, who had paid for it, who had downloaded it for free (saying, "music is free; you know that"), replying to each round of applause with a genial, adorably British-accented, "Sweet as candy." He asked the crowd to picture a piano keyboard, full of notes, and think of a note, any note, then, on the count of three, hold that note. He described the result as "some kind of amazing chord," noting that a crowd in Holland hadn't been able to come together quite so harmoniously, possibly due to phlegm. They played the new single, "Little Bit of Feel Good," and it really did sound sweet as candy.

Further, unrelated (?) weirdness during Reggie's set: a man wearing only a pair of hibiscus-print board shorts who knelt in front of a low-lying air conditioning unit and played ecstatic air guitar, his long curly blond hair flowing back in the artificial wind. He was sunburned and sweaty; no one's ever been happier to locate an air conditioner. He was silent (as befits air guitar) except for one sudden, wordless bellow.

As for Reggie, he's achieving the kind of escape trajectory from the conventions of comedy that is rare. He's absurd and foul and fantastical and compelling; what he does feels like a crucial form of entertainment that he alone has struck upon and he alone is capable of. (Guitar is not involved.) The woman in front of me who kept turning to her guy-person to look pointedly appalled during Reggie's song about a shit-fuck stack only made it funnier (as did the guy's refusal to do anything but look highly amused). Note to the guy: Break up with her now. If she cannot grasp the genius of Reggie Watts, she's only going to drag you down.

^{Mr. Watts onstage at Sasquatch (photo by Victoria Lahti)}

"I just interviewed Robin Pecknold and all my questions were too sarcastic. He's a really nice guy. Probably too nice."

^{Fleet Foxes photo by Piper Carr}

"We came all the way out here for The Scholars and Cancer Rise. They both killed it. You know, I really don't give a sh*t about the rest of this."

^{Blue Scholars photo by Christopher Nelson / Cancer Rising by Sean Pecknold}

QUESTION: "Is the dude from The Presidents related to Michael Stipe?"

^{The Presidents of the United States of America photo by Piper Carr}

ANSWER: No. (But he may be related to the dude from The Cure?")

"Can you buy this band at Urban Outfitters?"

^{Rogue Wave photo by Piper Carr}

"THAT was the only band I even danced to..."

^{Truckasaurus photo by Kelly O}

"C'mon. Don't go watch The Kooks, let's go back to the tent and get mushrooms."

^{The Kooks photo by Piper Carr}

"Wait a minute, is that Mike Patton? How many f*cking bands is that guy in?"

^{Crudo photo by Christopher Nelson}

"I'm actually excited to see Modest Mouse. There, are you happy? I said it."

^{photo by Christopher Nelson}

"I give up. I tried three different spots, and still couldn't see M.I.A. She's really short and I think she's wearing all black."

^{photo by Christopher Nelson}

"I'm telling you these guys are gonna be huge."

^{Dyme Def photo by Sean Pecknold}

"Ben Gibbard has a giant head now. GIANT."

^{Death Cab for Cutie photo by Sean Pecknold}

"The Cure is the only reason we came. We've been out in the car playing cards all day because the rest of today's lineup kinda sucked."

^{The Cure photo by Kelly O}

Photos after the jump...

That, or... um, the Cure? You need to cheer the fuck up. Seriously. Cheer the fuck up. It's been 30 years. The world has been good to you.