Devil Makes Three

All images by Todd Cooper. Click on any image to go to a full gallery from Bloc Party Day Two.

Nick Diamond of Islands, winning the day's fashion award

4:15 pm Downtown is a ghost town.
Those are my thoughts as a friend and I pull up on our bikes and walk through the “gates” at Broadway & Willamette. Now I know why they called it a bloc party instead of a block party: the gate system really does block non-wristband-wearing folk from entering the downtown core of Broadway & Olive, making the whole scene look like a badly made post-Apocalypse flick shot in the former Soviet Union. About 50 people stand in front of the stage while another 40 or so dwell in Davis’, Jameson’s, Horsehead, the beer garden (lame idea, folks … setting up a beer garden when you’re surrounded by bars offering happy hour specials). The only things missing are a few scattered tumbleweeds and a roving anarcho-punk goon squad.

4:19 pm The first band of the early evening is Montreal’s Islands. They are competing against a number of factors. The poor acoustics of a breezy intersection. The statuesque crowd of fans. The too-loud speakers (lead singer Nick Diamond requested tissue from the nose-blowing audience so he could rig up some earplugs). But somehow they still manage to put on a rousing set of mostly songs off their new album, Arm’s Way, plus their best-known songs from Return to the Sea, including “Bones,” “Whalebone” (where a random dude from the crowd jumped up and did the rap) as well as a highly kinetic version of “Swans” that ended with Diamond laying down on the pavement in front of the stage, slowly playing his guitar while fans crowded in and snapped pictures over him because he was, like, doing something weird and in-the-moment. And that shiv deserves to be photographed like vultures circle a dying dog.

5:15 pm It's worth noting that Diamond's jokes were falling flat. At one point he said he got an anonymous text message inviting him to a post-show house party, which he presumed was sent from Eugene's mayor, who Diamond called a "he." The crowd half-heartedly corrected him.

Islands' drummer was really into it. Props!

6 pm A down-south-hippie Hunter S. Thompson impersonator befriends me on the patio at Jameson’s and says he wants to start a one-man-band with a Capuchin monkey on drums. I ask him, “Wouldn’t that be a two-mammal-band? Or a one-man-and-a-monkey-band?” He feigns amusement and we turn to watch Devil Makes Three jump up onstage and remark “Welcome! It’s nice to see your faces in the daytime!” I’ve seen DMT play a bar in Medford, and that’s where their energies are best spent.

The Devil Makes Three awake at a godawful hour of day.

6:30 pm I bike the mile back to my house to pick up a warm jacket and pants because the breeze is getting nippy. That, and I need another round of Zyrtec, eye drops and my first-ever dose of Alavert. The grass pollen is through the roof and I hear people are going to the hospital for ashthmatic attacks (even if they don't have asthma). Thanks, patriotic field burners and grass growers!

Alec Ournsworth of Clap Your Hands Say Yeah!

8 pm I get a text from Todd that they’re letting everyone into the Bloc Party for free to see Clap Your Hands Say Yeah, so I immediately relay that message to 10 of my friends, three of which will actually show up. Then I bike back downtown.

8:30 pm The gate person says that Davis’ bought up all the remaining tickets so everyone can come down and enjoy the show. How thoughtful of them! Seeing as how it would be terribly embarrassing if CYHSY showed up (who aren’t on tour at the moment and came to Eugene all the way from the East Coast all special for us) to a crowd no larger than you could squeeze into a phone booth.

8:32 pm I go to the front. It is ear-bleedingly too loud. I step back 20 paces. CYHSY are jamming out and, oddly, it does sound pretty good. They make a good jam band, if a bit repetitive. Two songs in and lead singer Alec Ounsworth asks the crowd, “Is it too loud?” And everyone tells them, “Hells yes!” Ounsworth agrees, but they only lower the sound a little bit and some people still have their fingers (or tissue) in their ears. Running the gamut of songs off their two LPs, Clap Your Hands Say Yeah and 2007’s Some Loud Thunder, CYHSY rattled off “The Skin of My Yellow Country,” “Is This Love,” “Satan Said Dance” (excellent call-and-response on this one) and even an incongruous “Clap Your Hands!” (shouldn’t that song only be played at the start of a band’s set?). And, it’s worth noting the rhythm guitar player seemed to get extra-excited whenever they played songs from their self-titled album (but not so much from SLT). It’s also worth noting that this was the first show Ounsworth played with his glasses on, and it gave him the look of wandering off the open mic poetry stage and into this rock band.

8:15 pm Since the gates are now essentially open, the downtown crazies come out for CYHSY. I’m a little worried one man is looking to either rape or lay the smack down on some dancing sorority girl but he quickly moves around the crowd before causing too much trouble. A lot of people look tipsy or just out-and-out raging drunk (as it should be) or, like me, puffy with allergies and drugged up on Zyrtec and steroidal inhalers.

Hey, look! There's DIVA!

9:40 pm CYHSY finish a song, say “Thanks, that was our last song,” and walk off the stage. But … you had 20 minutes left! Oh well... thanks for making the trek out to Eugene!

It should be noted that I think the back of my head is in this pic.

A Few Pointers (should the organizers wish to throw a block party again next year):

• Throw the party the week before school gets out and before everyone bails out of Eugene for the summer (and don’t count on grads to show up when they have a million things to be doing on their grad night).

• Get the UO to sponsor the damn thing and make it FREE. If OSU and Willamette University can do it (albeit theirs took place on campus), why can’t the UO?

• The Devil Makes Three (and groups of their folk-punk ilk) does not belong sandwiched between two indie rock supergroups. Either make an indie-folk-bluegrass block out of it, or not at all.

Props:

• For trying to start something new in downtown Eugene.

• For booking solid musical acts.

• For Davis’ seeing a situation and doing the right thing.

• For HST Impersonator: I hope you get those saw lessons from the Bad Mitten Orchestre and they don’t smash a bottle over your brow.

NOTE: I didn’t make it to Friday night’s action. Someone clue me in!