I’ve already written 6,000-plus words on Boston Calling in my three fucking days of previews for this fest, and I’d gladly do it again.

What a weekend. Time to hand out some nonexistent trophies.

 

Highlights:

The Jack Johnson Award For “Best Job In The World”

WINNER: Jack Johnson

 

Where exactly does one get the official “Church of Jack Johnson” fan club pin? Do I have to fill out any more forms? I have my W2 here. Please, just let me get closer to him.

For those wondering what my new favorite JJ track is/isn’t, I don’t have an answer. What’s my favorite album? No idea (eds. note: the one with the cool yellow album art, “In Between Dreams”). I still don’t have any inclination to listen to the man’s music on my own time.

All I know is that one day, historians will trace the source of the Second Baby Boom to Jack Johnson’s 2014 Boston Calling set. And I can say I was there.

Everyone of all ages was getting their groove and hookup on. It was the seediest PG film ever, and nobody was yelling, “cut!” The crowd was impenetrable; when I surveyed it from above it was like a cult. A cult that was absolutely, positively, getting down.

It helps that JJ himself was probably created in some Beverly Hills lab to play acoustic easy-listening music. He’s perfect. He never tried; he didn’t have to. His singing is great, and he never needs to strain. Ever. The crowd hung on every (perfect) guitar lick, and every supremely confident quip he made about the weather (one of which melted half the crowd at once).

He isn’t human. He’s above us. He is Jack Johnson. And I fucking hate him for that. But goddamn, does that guy know how to put on a great show.

RUNNERS-UP: Modest Mouse’s percussionist, color-correction video techs for The Neighbourhood

The DeMarcus Cousins Award For “Boogying Down Like Nobody’s Business”

WINNER: Tigerman WOAH!

 

It’s funny how the most stereotypically swampy, good-home-down-South blues dudes on a booze cruise hail from good ol’ Lynn, Massachusetts. But there’s nothing funny about how much the foursome destroyed their early Sunday set.

From the opening twangs of “Guess So — Take Me Home” and the Chewbacca-level growls immediately after, these dudes absolutely fucking slayed everything. The only non-Jack Johnson act to inspire some serious dancing well beyond the realm of the immediate crowd, Tigerman WOAH! deserves your continued love and support.

In fact, since they’re also blessed with the honor of “Marc Finn’s Only T-Shirt Purchase Of The Festival,” these guys better not let me down in future shows. Mind you, these are shows that I’ll move mountains to go to. I have a feeling that won’t be a problem.

 

The Twin Peaks/The Frights Award For “Best Young Band”

WINNER: The Districts

In my predictions, I said:

“Much-needed onstage mustache shaving ensues if it hasn’t already; a disproportionate amount of people leave for the bathrooms; the remaining people angrily reprimand the returning bathroom-goers that they fucked up; good vibes on good vibes ensue.” 

Fortunately, only the “good vibes” part was true. A true pleasure to watch, these Philadelphia-raised young’uns were loud and sensitive, like the best IcyHot bandage ever. Considering I went back and downloaded everything they’ve ever made Sunday night, it’s safe to say they’re sticking. Please don’t be strangers, y’all.

 

The Dan Deacon Award For “Best Crowd Experience”

WINNER: Brand New

 

It quickly became obvious that I wasn’t going to make it to Bastille at the Blue Stage. Sorry, dudes.

I had been somewhere in the middle of Tegan and Sara, and it was great. But I looked around at kids at the end of “Closer” and saw them staring at the stage the same way a lioness stalks a wounded gazelle. A huge group of similarly-minded kids circled the rest of the crowd, waiting. Waiting for us to drop our guard.

Sure enough, as soon as the twins left, some of the crowd began the now-familiar plodding to the Blue Stage. But the waiting throng crashed into every single available sliver of space in something like .000002 seconds. I couldn’t leave if I wanted to, but now I definitely didn’t want to.

People yelled variations of, “OH FUCK YEAH, BRAND NEW’S UP NEXT” everywhere. For the first time all weekend, it felt like a music festival, and not an extended vacation with VIPs retreating to the shade every few minutes for free cookies (delicious, by the way).

Sweat formed in adorable little droplets on the hulking dude in front of me. People scrawled dicks on beach balls en masse. Bastille had yet to even play; we had a good hour to go until Brand New even came on, and kids were frothing at their mouths (every song from Bastille’s set, the poor lads, was about as well-received as shaving cream in the Tigerman Woah! van.)

Once they did finally come on, it was wonderful. I didn’t know a single word to the songs, not that anyone else cared. The next hour passed in a blur of bullrushes into the pit, countless pat-downs to make sure my camera wasn’t shattered, and screaming.

Brand New’s impact on so many people left its mark on me in the best way: quite literally, in the form of a huge collarbone bruise that has yet to heal. Hail Brand New. Hail festivals.

RUNNERS-UP: Frank Turner leading the entire crowd in a jumping-jacks routine; Bastille’s lead singer walking through the crowd to the sound booth and back; Alex Ebert from Edward Sharpe giving the mic to a random kid who delivered the best “Music changed my life” speech in recent history; Mayor Marty Walsh giving an impromptu speech before Jack Johnson’s set.

The Death Grips Award For “Loudest Closing Act”

Winner: Modest Mouse

Not much more needs to be said. They were really, really loud. Also, my predictions were dead-on, and Isacc Brock nailed everything. But goddamn, these guys were loud.

RUNNER-UP: Death Cab for Cutie

 

The Jackson 5 Award For “Were These Siblings Forced Into This Lifestyle? Doesn’t Matter, They’re Great”

WINNER: Tegan and Sara

Blessed with an amazing ability to field poorly-made signs from the crowd into heartwarming quips about American culture, these sisters came out and delivered a clinic on live pop performances. An extremely capable live band backed them up, and it seemed like they had no problems blistering through hit after hit.

Also, behold my predictions:

“Keyboard switching outnumbers instrument switching 3:1; hand go up when they’re supposed to, dammit; the backing musicians don’t smile once; the band goes over time just a little bit, but not enough to make a fuss.”

100 percent. Perfect score. Everything. I love this band.

 

The New Order Award For “Best Performance Sans Important Member” 

WINNER: Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros

When everyone came out, the crowd seemed extremely disappointed to see that beloved singer Jade Castrinos was not amongst the collective. When the closest thing that modern music has to Ang Lee’s Taking Woodstock is missing a member, it shows. But despite that, Alex Ebert and Co. blew through a peppy set, though one marked by horrible bass (see below) and even worse crowd singing. Save for the kid who screamed my favorite monologue of 2014, the crowd was pretty terrible in regards to performance. 

Fortunately, none of that hindered the group from putting on a great set. An “acoustic” rendition of “Home” made me like that song again single-handedly, too.

RUNNER-UP: Walk Off The Earth, for bravely putting on a show despite, incredibly, not having all of Gotye onstage with them.

 

The Cities Aviv Award For “Most Underrated Performance”

WINNER: The Head and the Heart

I watched these dudes from the crowd waiting for The Decemberists, and I immediately knew I made a mistake. Their set was way, WAY more pumped-up than the preview suggested. From the drummer’s Old Navy shirt to the fantastic organ antics, these guys were like a poor man’s Grouplove, but at least with some pretense of adulthood. Killer singing, killer hooks, and a fantastic stage presence made for one foolish press member. I’m not going to make this mistake again.

RUNNERS-UP: Warpaint, The Districts

 

The Solange Knowles Award For “Coolest Potential Relative” 

WINNER: Jenny Lewis

Good lord, Jenny. Just come to my family reunion and say things. Also, sing them. Because you do that pretty well.

RUNNER-UP: Mayor Marty Walsh

 

 

Lowlights:

The Van Halen M&M’s Award For “Worst Media Relations”

WINNER: The Neighbourhood

Apparently, photographers are not allowed to publish anything in color from The Neighbourhood.

OK.

Also, Neighbourhood, I didn’t like your set at all (and as someone from California, I can tell you right now that repeatedly stating you’re from California does nothing positive or negative. Nobody cares.)

RUNNER-UP: Jack Johnson’s refusal to allow paper maps at the festival (only because it’s a great idea, and it proves yet again that Jack Johnson is better than us).

 

The French Talk Show Sound Guy Award For “Worst Sound Technician”

WINNER: Whoever worked the Blue Stage during Edward Sharpe on Day 1.

Look, I get it. Given the (relatively) small size of Boston Calling compared to other fests, most of which have enough room to spread their stages out and thus juggle multiple performances at the same time, staggered speaker systems won’t work. You know what I’m talking about: speakers staggered in succession away from the stage to provide adequate volume for the back of the crowd. Without those, the sound techs had to work with the stage speakers only, and blast the hell out of them to give the back rows some love.

Again, I get it. But even though Edward Sharpe is, to my knowledge, not an EDM act, that didn’t stop the sound techs from boosting the bass so loud that I struggled to hear the rest of the band. And I’m talking struggled. The “ooooohhhh-YAH-OOHHH-Ohhhhh”s from “Man on Fire” that I had been looking forward to in the previews were completely inaudible. My ears (I had earplugs) were struggling past the third song. It’s a wonder that the band was still good enough despite these sound miscues (plus Jade’s absence) to earn a positive award.

To their credit, the extreme bass-boosting seemed like less of a factor on Days 2 and 3. But that shouldn’t have happened, and it should have been fixed.

 

The Fenway Park Grounds Crew Award For “Benefitting From Weather” 

WINNER: The Decemberists

Look, I thought these guys were fine. Passable. Not even close to the “life changing” live set that, according to at least two friends, I was promised. But all-in-all, pretty good.

That said, the absolute downpour during their set made every single goddamn word and every single goddamn guitar strum 1,000 times better. These guys use rain like Kobe Bryant uses German “blood patella infusions.”

So, if it made it better, why are the Decemberists in the “lowlights” part? Because without that rain, I don’t think I would have cared too much about the set. It’s true.

More Photos:

 

Be sure to check and see if you made it onto our People of Boston Calling feature.

Finally, thank you all for reading, taking photos, and letting me write a goddamn thesis on the Boston Calling May fest. I’m gonna go take a nice, long — wait, what? There’s a September one, too?

Be sure to keep an eye on the September fest , featuring The National, Lorde, Nas, The Replacements, and many more.