in Atlanta. Me and the Mrs. attended this past weekend. The main attractions for us were Ryan Adams, The Record Company, and The Pixies.
If you like festivals and this one ever has a few groups you'd like to see in the future, I HIGHLY recommend it. Easy in and out. It was the most well-organized event of this type I believe I have ever attended. It was very clean and was held in a great setting, the Olympic Centennial Park. Free water stations that were easily accessible,free Coke products, MANY great food trucks that were easily accessible, reasonable beer/liquor prices for a festival. Also, a great merch tent. PLENTY of great, clean port-a-johns.
We saw:
FRIDAY(in chronological order)
Sunday
Would have liked to have caught some of The Shins or Third Eye Blind, but that would have required us to leave the Ryan Adams stage area and I wasn't going to do that. We skipped the headliner Sunday night (Phoenix, who I actually kind of like) because we didn't want to be there until the very end and it was a nice night to sit outside at the brew pub next to our hotel.
Beer geeks: if ever in ATL or Georgia: a must try beer is Orpheus Atalanta. A Plum Saison, lightly sour. Delicious.
If you like festivals and this one ever has a few groups you'd like to see in the future, I HIGHLY recommend it. Easy in and out. It was the most well-organized event of this type I believe I have ever attended. It was very clean and was held in a great setting, the Olympic Centennial Park. Free water stations that were easily accessible,free Coke products, MANY great food trucks that were easily accessible, reasonable beer/liquor prices for a festival. Also, a great merch tent. PLENTY of great, clean port-a-johns.
We saw:
FRIDAY(in chronological order)
- Frank Carter & the Rattlesnakes (horrible, saw only a bit of it)
- Zipper Club - meh
- Lo Moon - decent
- Temples - pretty good
- Car Seat Headrest - like these guys a lot; was fairly familiar with them. They rocked harder in person than what I'd heard on the XM radio
- Pinegrove - good, kind of rootsy
- Portugal The Man - good
- Cage The Elephant - GREAT to see live; the singer fancies himself a modern day Mick Jagger on stage
- Pixies - great show, disappointingly didn't do Debaser. Black Francis didn't say a single word during the entire show (no one in the band did other than singing)
- LCD Soundsystem - The main headliner for Friday. Like these guys a lot. About 2/3 of the way through they went overboard on the jam bandy stuff and light show and the stoned young folks were getting a little wild with their dancing, so we called it a night about 20 minutes from the end (it was about 11 PM and we'd been there since Noon)
- Flagship - they were first up on the main stage, The Record Company followed them so we got there early to get a good spot. Meh.
- The Record Company - these guys are my favorite new band of the last couple years. AWESOME live. Chris Vos, the front man puts a lot of energy in the show. We were on the front row for this. My wife got a guitar pick once Chris V. heard we'd come all the way from Tulsa to see them. We urged him to book a date at The Cain's
- Anderson East - not exactly my cup of tea, BUT he has a great voice and stage presence and a very good backing band and seemed like a good guy. Sort of like JD McPherson with a tinge of Harry Connick (he's from NOLA). Apparently he is also Miranda Lambert's new flame and he is also opening for Chris Stapleton at the BOK. I'd expect he'd put on a great show.
- The Revivalists - OUTSTANDING. Great singer. Did a great rendition of Hey Jude to close.
- Catfish & the Bottlemen - we watched this from a distance. Decent.
Sunday
- Quaker City Night Hawks - went to see these guys on the smallest stage based upon a tip from another Record Company fan we met. They're from Fort Worth. I liked them, a little ZZ Top/Lynyrd Skynyrd sound in the mix.
- Saint Motel - LOVE these guys, biggest discovery of the festival for us. Nice live show too
- We made our way to the 2nd stage, for which Ryan Adams would be the headliner (2nd headliner overall for Sunday) to get in good position. Saw an all girl band called Warpaint. Hated them. The music was pretty good, but every song was the same droning vocals for 5-8 minutes.
- Then saw a pop-ish band called Bleachers, who are apparently pretty popular with the younger crowd. The front man is/was also the front man for fun, who gained a lot of popularity 4-5 years ago. I forgot his name, but he is sort of a mix of Bieber/Bruno Mars with Rick Springfield and a touch of Springsteen
- Ryan Adams - AWESOME, AWESOME, AWESOME, we ended up about 8th "row" dead center
Would have liked to have caught some of The Shins or Third Eye Blind, but that would have required us to leave the Ryan Adams stage area and I wasn't going to do that. We skipped the headliner Sunday night (Phoenix, who I actually kind of like) because we didn't want to be there until the very end and it was a nice night to sit outside at the brew pub next to our hotel.
Beer geeks: if ever in ATL or Georgia: a must try beer is Orpheus Atalanta. A Plum Saison, lightly sour. Delicious.
Last edited:
