Once again,
Rock the Garden (organized by the
Walker Art Center,
89.3 The Current, and
Minnesota Public Radio) proved to be one of the best music festivals in the Twin Cities. Held at the Walker Art Sculpture Garden, the 21 year old festival have brought some of the biggest and best and most diverse musical acts to the area.
This year they surprised us with a couple of new amenities, including the
American Sign Language interpreters in the front of the stage to make lyrics accessible to those that needed it, and free Wi-Fi access and power-charging stations from
Atomic Data. I hope these services will be offered again in future Rock the Garden shows, because we heavily relied on the Wi-Fi and charging stations! It’s these little things that makes RTG so enjoyable.
We’ll break the recap between the two stages:
GARDEN STAGE
Chicago Tribune called
The Beths, one of the “best up-and-coming bands”, so we were really eager to catch this young New Zealand trio (Elizabeth Stokes, Jonathan Pearce and Benjamin Sinclair) on tour. This is also partly because they are one of those few bands that we haven’t covered and was excited to see their first time in the area.
According to guitarist/vocalist Jonathan Pearce, the band have been on a co-headlining tour with Bad Bad Hats since February 2019, so they were pretty happy to share the stage once again with the local band.
The band basically played their debut
Future Me Hates Me, available now from Carpark Records.
Nashville’s
Adia Victoria was next on the Garden Stage. We caught Victoria when she was touring for her debut record in
June 2016 and noted, “Adia Victoria must love to play live, you can just tell by her exaggerated movements and singing songs from Beyond The Bloodhounds. Victoria seemed really happy to play the 7th Street Entry (which is the smaller room for the historic First Avenue), as she is a big Prince fan.”
What a difference a few years make, as her new record
Silences (Canvasback Records) is strongly supported by The Current (according to the introduction by Mark Wheat) and Victoria was recently won the 2019 Songwriters Hall of Fame Holly Prize.
Victoria thanked Aaron Dessner (from The National) by name and mentioned that he produced her
Silences album.
Minneapolis’
Bad Bad Hats (Kerry Alexander, Chris Hoge, Connor Davison) closed out the Garden Stage. This was the group’s first time playing at Rock the Garden, and they were both excited and seemingly nervous…. Especially, when Alexander was trying to explain/dedicate their new song “Wide Right” to the sports team Buffalo Bills.
The last time we saw BBH, in
September 2015, we suggested: “There was a strong turnout and buzz for local favorites Bad Bad Hats, who recently appeared on Stereogum and local station The Current.”
Bad Bad Hat’s latest release is
Wide Right EP, available now on Afternoon Records.
MAIN STAGE
Rhymesayers’
Dem Atlas, stylized as
deM atlaS, officially started the Rock the Garden 2019 show. He’s joined on stage by drummer L.A. and
DJ Keezy.
The singer launched into many of his hits, including “Tomorrow Party”, “Never Belonged”, and set closer “Gratitude”… but we have to say the highlight of his set was bringing on
Lady Midnight to help him sing “Music Man”. Lady Midnight would outro the song to
Lauryn Hill’s “Doo-Wop (That Thing)”. Dem Atlas then declared Lady Midnight as “the best artist in the Twin Cities!”
Dem Atlas’ latest album
Bad Actress is out now on Rhymesayers Records.
Personally speaking, Minneapolis/Austin’s
Heart Bones was really our favorite of all the RTG 2019 bands. This band is fun and silly, and it’s what we love about this new project from
Har Mar Superstar and
Sabrina Ellis.
A little history about the group, the two met on tour in 2016 and would often invade each other’s shows. For example, at
Sweet Spirit’s show in
April 2017, Har Mar showed up to sing a cover of
Pulp’s “Common People”. Watching them on stage, you can tell the two shared this wonderful chemistry.
Heart Bones formed around
November 2018 as a cover-lover group, performing the
Dirty Dancing soundtrack… but based on what we’ve heard at RTG, it seems like the pop/synth group wants to play more original songs.
They have recorded a debut album (or perhaps putting on the finishing touches), so all the songs we heard were new to us. However, when Ellis noticed someone singing along to their songs, Har Mar jokingly concluded that, “the album’s been leaked!”
We have a guessing title setlist, but the song titles would like be different or changed when their debut comes out. The only song for certain we can tell you they played is a cover of
Eric Carmen’s “Hungry Eyes”.
Heart Bones is heading out on tour starting July 3rd with
Good F*** (they should change their name to Good Food, since we can’t print their name without censoring).
If you asked me, all the older fans were very eager to have Los Angeles’
X back in town. As we previously mentioned, the band’s name is impossible to search for in the Google-age. Still, the first wave punk band, featuring original members of vocalist Exene Cervenka, vocalist/bassist John Doe, guitarist Billy Zoom and drummer D. J. Bonebrake, proudly played through their decade plus of music.
Like many bands, they did take a long hiatus, but reformed in the early 2000’s. We caught the group in
Aug 2015,
July 2017 (Exene and John Doe only), and
Sep 2017 and mentioned, “In typical X-fashion, the band’s set changes from night to night, so if there were truly hardcore fans following them night after night, it was a treat to see what songs made it on their set. A couple of covers were played, Jerry Lee Lewis’ ‘Breathless’ and The Doors’ ‘Soul Kitchen’. ‘Soul Kitchen’ was a special song that appeared on their debut album Los Angeles, and it closed out their set.”
Returning to the Rock the Garden stage for the second time was
Courtney Barnett, looking good and ready to rock. As previously written, we’ve been covering Barnett before she came to the USA, praising her debut two Eps
in 2013. We saw her in
Chicago in February 2014 (sold out),
Varsity Theater in June 2014 (Sold Out),
Rock the Garden in June 2015,
Desert Daze in October 2017,
Courtney Barnett & Kurt Vile in October 2017 (Sold Out), and
Surly Brewing Festival in July 2018.
So yes, we love her and her wonderful little stories made into songs. In contrast to X’s older audience, Barnett’s fanbase are a little younger and they had an absolute blast singing along to most (if not all) of Barnett’s songs.
With an hour set, Barnett decided to “
chuck in an extra song” on her set. She gave us the option between “History Eraser” or “Nobody Really Cares If You Don't Go to the Party”. She opted to play the latter song.
I’m not sure how the ASL interpreters did, as they were provided with lyric sheets … and “Nobody Really Cares…” was probably not provided to them.
Walker Art Center’s Senior Curator, Philip Bither, mentioned how they’ve always wanted
The National to close out
Rock the Garden, so it’s a dream come true to have the beloved Cincinnati band finally appear to make it possible.
Though their audience has swelled locally, the last time the group actually played in the metro was six years ago, in August 2013, though they had also appeared several times at the co-curated
Eaux Claires Festival in nearby Wisconsin.
The band features singer/band leader Matt Berninger, guitarist/keys Aaron Dessner, guitarist/keys Bryce Dessner, bassist Scott Devendorf and drummer Bryan Devendorf and their latest,
I Am Easy to Find (4AD Records), is a little different than their previous albums, as it features numerous guest female vocalists, including
Lisa Hannigan, Sharon Van Etten, Mina Tindle, Gail Ann Dorsey, Kate Stables, etc.
Berninger addressed the vocals, saying it was necessary, “Yes, there are a lot of women singing on this, but it wasn't because, ‘Oh, let's have more women's voices… It was more, ‘Let's have more of a fabric of people’s identities.’ It would have been better to have had other male singers, but my ego wouldn't let that happen.”
For their seventy-seven minute headlining performance, the band added brass in the form of longtime trombonist Ben Lanz and trumpeter Kyle Resnick, and vocalists Zoe Randell (from Aussie band
Luluc) and Mina Tindle (Bryce Dessner’s wife) , dedicating their entire set to middle-distance runner
Gabe Grunewald, who recently passed away from a rare form of cancer, “I only met her once, but she changed me forever”, Berninger said.
Opening the lead two tracks from the new album, the band is justifiably proud of the new work with vocalist Berninger commenting before the new ‘Hey Rosey’, “it’s about me- my wife wrote it… it’s pretty scathing”, he half-joked. The straight-ahead rock of 2013’s ‘Don’t Swallow the Cap’ got an early rise out of the crowd and 2010’s ‘Bloodbuzz Ohio’ is about as political as the band will go,
“I still owe money, to the money to the money I owe, the floors are falling out from everybody I know” about the gap between rich and poor and trying to eek a simple living in middle America.
The childlike questions of female vocalists Randell and Tindle, counterbalanced by Berninger’s phrases of self-doubt made for even more lyrical tension live on the new ‘Where is Her Head’ and the one-two musical punch of ‘The System Only Dreams in Total Darkness’ and ‘Graceless’ was an impactful mid-set highlight with Berninger repeating on the latter, “
there’s a science in walking through windows”. There’s a science in walking through a crowd trailing a wired microphone as well, as Berninger jumped into the audience a few different times as the long cord whipped behind him, making him not so
easy to find.
‘Rylan’ from the new record, has been a track that band has played live for almost the last decade, and seemed appropriate after a bright and humid day with Berninger imploring ‘
You should try and get some sun” which all 11,000 in the crowd already did plenty of, with the song paused near the end after Berninger noticed someone overcome in the crowd by the continuing heat.
Berninger made his way through the crowd to the back soundboard during a crushing ‘Mr November’ then sensing time was short, yelled an audible to his bandmates on stage to end things with ‘Terrible Love’ from 2010’s
High Violet, making his way slowly back through the crowd back to the stage.
“
It takes an ocean not to break” the crowd sang in unison with Berninger as
The National capped a warm and humid but musically satisfying day at the
Walker Art Center – consider the
garden properly
rocked again for another year.
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