the shaky hands

Let's face it, MFNW is primarily a sport of boozing, schmoozing and bands getting hooked up with free corporate shwag. Not that there's anything wrong with that. I mean, it's a great time to be had, probably the best I've had in Portland since my best friend's mom took us all to see Disney on Ice circa 1992 at the Memorial Coliseum for my friend's birthday, and even bought us a McDonald's super value meal beforehand. That was something special. And MFNW sits up there near that experience.

It would be foolish to believe this "music festival" has anything to do with dispensing music to the widest audience possible. I saw roughly 15 bands over the course of three days and I had a friggin' ghost pass that let me in through the doors even when the line snaked for miles around the block. Think about that for a second. Over 200 bands and I saw 15 of them. That's only 7.5 percent of the Musicfest lineup Granted, I saw and heard some great stuff, but really, giving bands a set playtime of as much as an hour and a half (for major headlining acts) to as little as 20 minutes (at Rontoms) means you've got quantity trumping quality. And when half your time at MFNW is spent being hassled for spare change as you check your cell phone for the zillionth time while waiting to get into a venue
to see some band you're not even sure is still playing? That's called uncertain return on the investment. My only hope and prayer to next year's MFNW organizers: Please trim the thing down to just 100 bands, give each band a longer set and consolidate the venues to just the ones along Burnside (sorry
Wonder and Holocene! You're great, just inaccessible for most people who'd rather plunk down for cab fare than put the pedal to the power). With that said, thanks for putting on a premium music event in a city that's steadily
proclaiming itself the locale for premium music.

Without further ado ... SATURDAY

The Kill Rock Stars showcase at Holocene could've been
renamed "Willamette Week's Best New Bands: 2006-08." Sure, Horse Feathers and Shaky Hands have rightfully held the crown in years past, but Thao and the Get Down Stay Down could've qualified this year, despite not being
officially a Portland band (they're actually from Washington D.C./San Francisco, however that works out). Panther: Sorry, I skipped you for WW's Best
New Band 2009: Blind Pilot.

HORSE FEATHERS (9 pm, Holocene)

This band takes the stage as a trio of violinist (Peter
Broderick), cellist/backing vocalist (Heather Broderick) and an acoustic guitar/vocalist (Justin Ringle). The crowd is on their first drink, so they are patient and quiet and attentive as Ringle barely whispers into the mic, as if actually hearing his voice would be antiethical to HF's cause. Thus, the venue has the amp mic'd for good measure, as HF is a band you need to pay close attention to. Their last album, Words Are Dead, brought bedroom-folk to the masses and their newest album, House With No Home, which HF mostly played this eve, definitely caters to those who like gently falling into sleep with a CD spinning on the stereo. It's tender, sometimes poppy stuff that can drown out most worries of the day without making you feel like a total wuss for listening to it. The Feathers end their set at precisely the 9:40 pm mark, leaving us exactly 20 minutes to bike up to Burnside, take the Burnside Bridge
into downtown Portland, up Couch (pronounced "koo-tch") Street to 11th and over to the Fez Ballroom. We arrive just as they start cutting people off at the door.

BLIND PILOT (10:30 pm, Fez Ballroom)

I'm a little surprised there isn't a line stretching down
the street for Blind Pilot. I mean, the folk-pop outfit are opening for Sir-Mix-A lot. But they're definitely importing a large chunk of folks from the suburbs. Someone gives a shout-out to Sir-Mix-A lot (for no apparent reason) and a man probably in his mid-50s yells out, "You are the BEST band at Music Fest!" Other odd things keep happening, like:

1)
Israel Nebeker doesn't break a string until at least five
songs into their set.

2)
There is a huge roar from the crowd when the trumpeter does
his part. This makes him shy and the other band members smile.

3)
It takes nearly a half hour to do a full sound check and
nobody throws a beer bottle at the stage.

I really want to see Eskimo & Sons final show for a long
time, but figure I've seen them once at MFNW, might as well check out stuff I haven't seen. So I hop on my bike and cruise quite quickly all the way back to
Holocene.

THE SHAKY HANDS (11:30 pm, Holocene)

I hear very little of the Hands set after getting through
the door. Mostly I hear two songs and they both sound stellar. Their new album,Lunglight, is par excellence.

THAO WITH THE GET DOWN STAY DOWN (Midnight, Holocene)

Let's get this out of the way: While strumming her guitar,
Thao Nguyen looks like a Muppet. There, I said it. It's true. Just see for yourself. It's not a bad thing; it doesn't detract from her rock star onstage persona. In fact, to this Muppet fan, it made the evening extra special.

I heard of Thao back last spring, but didn't actively search out her music until recently. I wasn't too impressed. Not the kind of music I'd listen to over and over to while sitting at work. But Thao's live act is not to be missed. Boozed up on whiskey, she's a firecracker who doesn't miss a bang or a beat. Even the Holocene squatters, who normally like to have a contest to see who can stand the most statuesque, are moving a little bit. That says a lot. A real lot. Thao played a new song that Thao said was "for Portland." It was quite good. I'll have to give her full album another try sometime.
There's something that I'm missing, maybe.

Oh yeah, it's called the "live experience."

Thank you, MFNW. You made me a believer in real good live music. Now if only we could export that concept a little bit further south
… that'd be real nice.