ALL TOMORROW'S PARTIES: PART THREE (Sunday)

Alright, finally wrapping up this tedious and boringly written review.

This was the day of the festival I had been really holding out for. A bunch of legendary bands doing legendary things, all in the same building, and things kicked off with Japan's almighty Boredoms. Let's just get this out of the way right now: the festival could've ended right after their set and I'd've been 110% content. The building could've caved in (sure felt like it was going to). I could've suffered from post-infant death syndrome. Heart failure. Spontaneous combustion. Anything. For the 70 minutes that the Boredoms were on stage, there was 70 minutes of the most hypnotizing, enthralling, exciting music I've had the privilege to see in person. Nine drummers in perfect unison, Yamantaka Eye in the centre with his seven-necked guitar, beating, jumping, wailing, crooning, calling, beckoning, yodeling, screaming, thrashing... screw words, this was positively transcendent. Someone posted the whole set on Youtube, so get on that.

Not to be outdone by ridiculous stage-setting, the Caribou Vibration Ensemble followed, with a huge line-up of 15 if I recall correctly. Three drummers, auxiliary percussion, guitars, brass, woodwinds, and electronic fuckery courtesy of Four Tet. Very cool idea, great execution, but almost every song had the same climactic "last song" explosion feeling, kinda of dampening all the following climaxes (insert your own joke here.)

Proving that Japan is the leader of eclectic vaguely-heavy nuttery (sorry, Netherlands), Boris handily cranked out another festival highlight by playing Feedbacker in its entire slow-burning, cataclysmic glory. Flawless, really, which makes it hard to talk about. But how fucking cool is a double-necked guitar in a red-light stage fog? Yeah, thought so.

Crystal Castles are right up there with Animal Collective in the "admittedly hipster-friendly faux-indie that is enjoyable on record but atrocious live" category. Painfully loud throbbing bass combined with Alice Glass's off-key and off-time shrieks and squawks were thoroughly difficult enjoyable. Which is a shame, because I want to dig this band more than I do, really. Danceable but not obnoxiously so, and a vaguely punk aesthetic should make for a good time; then again, maybe it's more punk to go on stage drunk and kick out some half-assed jamz? Let's not talk about punk, actually. We all know where that goes.

Arguably the most legendary of the day's line-up was Bob Mould (if you are Googling this name right now I swear I will kill you) playing Husker Du songs with No Age, which is the closest many of us youngin's will get to seeing Husker Du live. What I admired most about the set was how No Age wasn't just Mould's house band for the hour. Rather, they played together, trading off vocal parts, gelling very well and playing extremely tightly. And closing with "New Day Rising"? Pants = officially soiled.

Now, here's where I lose you: I don't really care for The Flaming Lips. I don't hate them, I'm just terribly indifferent. So when my options were "watch them play until 1" or "get a decent sleep for an early departure tomorrow", my girlfriend and I leaned towards the latter. That being said, the 10 minutes we caught seemed to be the wildly entertaining live show the Lips are known for: costumes, confetti, balloons, the whole 9. Fun time, to be sure.

Ah, I really can't wrap this up eloquently. I didn't enjoy writing this. I'm sure it was awful to read too. Sorry folks, things'll pick up from here.