Music Fest Northwest 9-3/4/5/6-08

Various Venues · Portland, OR

BY JASON SIMMS

At a festival like Portland's Music Fest Northwest (a smaller, cheaper, less industry-focused version of SXSW), you can see a lot of bands. But, because of the large crowds, you often don't see the performers' feet. But feet say a lot about a person, or a band.

Take the Old '97s, for instance, who played the first night of the festival, Wednesday, September 3. These once-major label country rockers put on one hell of a party at Berbati's Pan, but it was a civilized party. Everyone was drunk but nothing was thrown, except for an odd devil horns as frontman Rhett Miller threw in the occasional fore-arm-only windmill during his nearly 2-hour set. Like his pants and shoes, the performance was both classy and rock n' roll--and it bore a slight '90s cheeseball edge.

The following night, Thursday, September 4, things kicked off at the Crystal Ballroom with a young Portland band called Eskimo and Sons playing both the biggest show of their career (opening for M. Ward and Calvin Johnson) and their last all ages show. A dozen or so teens played really musical music (harmonies, tambourines). Wholesome, like the socks and wingtips of Dhani Rosa.

Calvin Johnson nonchalantly walked onstage and started playing guitar and singing. Much of the 1400-person crowd seemed confused about whether this was a soundcheck or an indie legend. Johnson performed like a drama professor, pompous, inspiring, clean cut and sexy. He actually managed to pull off jazz hands.

Then, with the house lights on at the Roseland Theater, the half-full crowd was surprisingly receptive to Bukue One, a relative unknown who performed unannounced and warmed up the crowd for Del the Funky Homosapien. His big tongue skate shoes suggest his confidence.

Del's New Balances are certainly among the squarest shoes at the festival, but they are comfortable and modest like his set list, which made sure to hit all of his various projects throughout the years.

"If you reunite with your old punk band after 11 years," Scared of Chaka bassist, Dameon Waggoner, told the packed house at the Ash St. Saloon, "don't wear cowboy boots." As the crowd stage dived and threw pint glasses, he felt his movement restricted, so he went barefoot.

BONUS FEET: Martin Lesley Crandall and Jesse Sandoval turned out to cheer on their bandmate, Shins bassist and Scared of Chaka frontman, Dave Hernandez.

The long, long legs of Danny Seim started the next day, Friday, September 5 at the Crystal Ballroom for the Menomena drummer's solo act, Lackthereof. The generally gentle songs written in a basement were given surprising fury as Seim sweat and threw his guitar to the floor before a four-man drum outro.

The small, all-ages Backspace at 9 pm seemed like a 2 am bar scene as local 20-year-olds Typhoon satiated the drooling, sweaty audience with their heavy folk. One of three drummers simply beat his kit with hands, and the four guitar players disappeared into the audience freely.

In order to become as skilled a guitarist as Kazutaka Nomura, aka PWRFL POWER, you have to be really meticulous. You have to be someone who wears white socks, brown loafers and high-water jeans. But for Nomura, it's all about creating his child(prodigy)-like image--with looks, lyrics and voice--in order to mock it with guitar dissonance and Elvis points to his sparse but attentive crowd at Holocene.

And Truckasaurus, a four-man-strong Seattle DJ crew, coerced the growing Holocene crowd into a dance party, and then stood in a row and watched their accomplishment.

On the festival's final night, Saturday, September 6, Obituaries vocalist Monica Nelson performed songs from her whole catalogue at Backspace with a band featuring a simple Yamaha keyboard that lent the songs an '80s-ballad quality, making it easy to pit the singer's killer pipes against, say Whitney Houston. Nelson pulled ahead of Houston as the always modest and reserved singer got emotional with her closing tribute to George Tabb.

Only a few festival goers discovered New York's Looker, an all-female-but-the-drummer power pop band that played to a near-empty Dante's. The few in attendance grinned uncontrollably as Looker managed to power through and bring their charm.

Tom Glose, vocalist for horror prog outfit Black Elk, seems pretty normal in his suede mocks. In his late 30s, he could be a professor or a postman, But onstage at Berbati's Pan he went completely ape shit, opening a beer on someone's head, thrashing around and foaming.

Danny Seim returned to Crystal Ballroom to drum for Menomena in front of a steaming audience of dancers.

And Seaweed, a second-rate Sub Pop band from the early ‘90s, finished the fest off at Dante's with songs dearly remembered by a full house of diehards. Like the indoor soccer shoe, their sound's a classic and could be belong to a pop punk band today. The fest appropriately ended where it began--at a rock n roll party with a bit of a '90s cheese ball edge.