After its fourth incarnation came to an end this past weekend, the secret is definitely out about Wilco’s Solid Sound festival being a unique, one of a kind experience. Held every other year in North Adams, Massachusetts (the home of the Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art), Solid Sound has created a festival that stands out among the rest of the country’s overdone, inflated, monstrous corporate music festivals. First and foremost, it’s clear upon arrival that the real headliner of Solid Sound is MassMoca itself. The layout of the grounds, an old mill factory complex converted into art space used for giant installations, captures your eyes long before you hear any of the first notes from the bands. This, combined with the fact that there is literally zero to complain about or critique about the way the festival is organized and run, makes it one of the most chill atmospheres of any festival I’ve ever been to.
It only makes sense that a band so devoted to being artistic and creative like Wilco would find a place like MassMoca to do a one off show and eventually give birth to the idea that they should throw a festival there. I’m not sure there is any other act that would have the draw, know how, or simply common characteristics to match the environment MassMoca tries to create with music. In essence, MassMoca and Wilco are a match made in heaven. With that being said, Wilco’s responsibility of curating talent, whether that be of their own side projects (Tweedy, Autumn Defense) or rising young indie breakout acts (Real Estate, Mac DeMarco, Parquet Courts) alongside their influences (Richard Thompson, Bill Frisell) can be open to some discussion and critique.
With that being said, we give you a run-down of all the things that made this year’s Solid Sound Festival another memorable one.
1. It’s super kid-friendly.
This can either be on the best part or worst part of your Solid Sound experience. As a single man in his early thirties whose social media pages are constantly bombarded with pictures of newborns or of [enter your pretentious white kid’s name here]’s first day at the beach, I couldn’t have been more annoyed by it. It’s certainly cultivated and well-advertised to be a family friendly festival, but when it comes down to it, I never really knew what that truly meant before Solid Sound. Between face painting, a kids art space, and circus performances, there was certainly enough to keep your kid entertained. At the same time though, let’s remember that this is still a music festival and, judging by the amount of sleeping or staring babies in their parents arms I saw during the sets, I’d still cast my vote for the fact that music festivals (even if they can enforce family friendly rules) are still not meant for children. Perhaps you can caudle a newborn for an afternoon (there was an overwhelming amount of public breastfeeding), or, if youre a really hip dad, bring your fifteen year old and her friend for a day, but the amount of elementary age students scurrying around my feet causing me to trip or dodge a poorly thrown frisbee was a little overwhelming.
2. Art is Everywhere. Everything is Art.
Having Solid Sound at MassMoca makes for the one of the most ideal and interesting festival settings I have ever seen. From the very minute you step off the shuttle bus, you’re exposed to the creative environment that MassMoca hosts, much of which will have you guessing, “is it art?” Essentially, MassMoca is a Willy Wonka factory of art converted from old mills. The entire complex has been transformed for contemporary artists, contemporary meaning that you won’t find galleries of portrait landscapes, or watercolors, but instead every offbeat interpretation of what is, can be, could be, should be or might be art. There are trees hanging upside down in the opening corridor, chime like instruments that ring out upon every flush of a urinal, some sort of water tank covered with mirrored bulbs right in the center of the main stage field. The endless exploration of the artspace certainly gave you enough to explore in between the music sets and there was enough of it that you kept hearing about “must see” exhibitions throughout the weekend. One of these must sees was a bus suspended on industrial scaffolding above the festival. Inside was a wonderous collection of knick-knack industrious art tool pieces that looked like they came straight out of a Tim Burton film.
3. The Mac and Friends Buzz
Mac DeMarco’s set itself hasn’t changed much since the first time I saw him back in 2013. His fanbase however has hit a fever pitch of popularity making his presence alone at the festival have a sort of buzzing effect as you frequently saw him poking around the festival grounds. The wake of this popularity has given birth to a new breed of hipster slacker punk fanboy that emerged at Solid Sound in numbers and was clearly identified by flat brimmed, full bottoned Pac-Sun attire that probably wouldn’t have made it out to Western Mass if it wasn’t for Mac, and okay, maybe Real Estate’s booking. Despite my pigeonholing of this new type of hipster kid, Mac’s bandmates seemed to certainly steal his show at the Joe’s Field Stage Saturday evening. Mac’s usual introductory narrative banter started the show out calmly as audience anxiously bracing for rain was confidently told by DeMarco that it would “piss off.” From there on the rain did hold off and his bandmates banter, mostly from guitarist Andy White dominated any time in between songs time they had. Bassist Pierce McGarry certainly joined in on the fun, and at one point the band coerced drummer Joe McMurray to take his shirt off, all adding to a sort of gimmicky hipster goofball charm that certainly seemed to enthrall the fanboys and girls with melted hearts as they watched his set unfold. I’ve never been completely sold on DeMarco as a live performer because the whole slacker mystique that he can do no wrong just doesn’t translate to a live show all that well. They did however prove their musical talents when they spoofed a Steely Dan/Grateful Dead jam which was presumed to the be a “Reeling in the Years” or “The Other One” cover complete with dueling guitar solos, pounding drums and bass-lines for about a six or seven minutes long. Overall, their set was still one of the most fun of the weekend even though I’d love hear them with tuned guitars and fuller sound and that I found his band mates act balancing the thin line between comedic and obnoxious.
4. Team Spirit
The collaboration between the town of North Adams, the staff and management of MassMoca and Wilco’s management (based out of nearby Northampton, MA) certainly gave off an attitude of team spirit. The accessibility of the festival grounds in North Adams is truly a work of art in itself. Between the Mass Moca staff and the local fairground volunteers that graciously opened up a barn and pavilion as storm shelter to the campers like myself caught in Saturday nights monsoon, the staff couldn’t have been more accommodating and gracious. The effective, easy and quick shuttle transportation run by local bus-drivers made getting to and from Solid Sound festival grounds everyday truly stress free and void of any groans, or eye rolling you can’t help but do sometimes do at larger more commercialized festivals. There was utterly no local traffic. There was also relatively no waiting in lines to get on a shuttle back to your campgrounds, and the ride was quick too. The staff, presumably of art students were super chill. They did enforce their no smoking on the festival grounds policy with some vigor but we we’re able to find some spots that they turned a blind eye to, so it wasn’t really a big deal at all for smokers to be courteous when it came to not passing on their smoke second hand.
5. Wilco Acoustic cool, Wilco unplugged not cool.
Friday night was obviously headlined by the band running the festival. Tweedy and co. decided to play a full two plus hour acoustic set. Sounds great right? Not so much. The band not only went acoustic but unplugged in front of a baseball sized field of probably four thousand people. Maybe it was an art statement or an attempt to silence the crowd and perk up their ears instead of conversing with each other during the music, but either way a juiced up Friday night audience that traveled from near and far to see the band whose festival they hosted could hardly hear them. Tweedy promised an electric set the next night, truth is, I would have been pumped to hear Wilco acoustic, “hear” being the key word. I like to think they made up for it the second night with a 2.5 hour monster set of Wilco’s greatest hits, but for some reason I couldn’t help but feel a bit robbed by the lackluster Friday night acoustic set.
6. Harmonium Mountain Jams
Each night was capped off post Wilco by an improvisational jam in the courtyard stage in conjunction with Harmonium Mountain, a multi-screen art installation bringing photographic images to 3d life. The first night was musically hosted by reluctant to be called “jammers” Real Estate and the second by Cibo Matto. These sets seemed to be completely improvised and I guess from the blank stares of Courtney Martin and Alex Bleeker at the visually imaged artwork projected on screens hung out on the mill walls, influenced by the changing psychedelic media. Also, the sets were late enough to give festival goers a break from the little ankle bitters rummaging around your feet all day. I think I even saw some people openly smoking during these sets, and nobody reprimanded them.
7. Breakout sets by Ryley Walker and Cibo Matto
Fellow Chicagoan Ryley Walker kicked off Saturday morning at a courtyard stage right in the middle of the festival grounds where there is clearly the most passerby foot traffic, and I’d have to say he stopped most people in their tracks with not only his David Crosby/Robert Plant esque vocals, but some quality stool sitting jamming reminiscent of early seventies Dead. Later in the afternoon, what was seemingly a lull in energy from sets from Sam Amidon, and Jessica Pratt was lifted by Brooklyn based, Japanese pop-rockers Cibo Matto, whose guitarist is Wilco’s very own Nels Cline. Thankfully, they brought a set full of energy as lead front-woman Miho Hatori sang and delivered sort of spoken word raps through their fifty minute set.
8. Rain, always a game changer.
No matter how well run or booked a festival, rain will always put a damper on things and is always a game changer. In this case it caused a schedule change that bumped all acts on the main Joe’s Field stage to be pushed up an hour, causing the only overlapping set dilemma of the weekend. Hugely anticipated Parquet Courts would now leak into Mac DeMarco’s set having them almost start at the same time. Parquet Courts began first and I was easily able to make my way up to the front of the stage, something I rarely did all weekend. Their set was raw, emotive, and unadulterated three chord punk rock with tons of feedback, screams and melancholic vocals. Fortunately for me, after about six songs I think I saw all I needed to see of Parquet Courts and decided that catching the full Mac DeMarco main stage set was a priority. Nonetheless, the rain held off for almost all of Saturday’s festivities until the very end when people’s iPhones started delivering the “emergency storm warnings” which means its time to get the fuck up and go. Of course when you’re tenting anyways this doesn’t mean much more than the beginning of a wet and soggy night.
9. Things We Missed:
Unlike most festivals where it is inevitable that you’re going to miss some artists you could or can indeed see them all at Solid Sound. However there were still some things we missed for whatever reason and wished he hadn’t after hearing about them. Those are not limited to but include
- Speedy Ortiz’s opening set (we we’re still setting up camp and missed the 6:00 p.m. shuttle
- Autumn Defense’s pop up set in Building #5
- John Hodgman’s comedy show in the Hunter Center (limited capacity left us out)
- William Tyler’s much anticipated Sunday set (and all of Sunday)
In the end, Wilco has figured out how to put on a festival that aligns itself with everything that the band is about. Music isn’t necessarily the focal point, but creativity is. Their ability to twist your expectations on what a festival experience is and should be, or even could be is exactly what they’ve always tried to do as a band. That kind of deconstruction of expectations is what has created such a devoted fanbase that is aging right along with them. Whether that brands them as dad-rock, or art-rock, or just the indie rock juggernaut that they are, their legacy continues to be solidified as a band that essentially created a new brand of independent music just off center enough music that it is palatable to a large audience of people who desire a little something different out of their lives, something that pushes the envelope of what is expected and is open to interpretation just like any piece of art on display at MassMoca year round.
