Words by Sean Moeller//Illustration by Erica Parrott
By this time, a person’s already seen a couple dozen shows, logged a bunch of walking miles and is sufficiently spent. Kanye was gone. Gnarls Barkley wouldn’t have been crazy had they stuck around, they would have been delirious. Those playing the third day of a weekend-long festival are on borrowed time and attention spans are waning enough that sitting on a curb with a burger and a trough of fries while Andrew Bird finishes up his set is one of the better ideas of the day. It gets two resounding thumbs up and gives ample time to prepare for what should have been a festival highlight in The Shins’ set. A band was going to have to do something pretty super special to make us give it up today, boy were they ever. We were at our nerves’ end. The people on the train were trudging, dragging their limbs with them and looking like ragged punching bags. Catfish Haven, at a time of day that must have been quite typically foreign to them, had no problem whatsoever vanquishing the Sunday blahs just after the noon hour.

This was the same spot that OK Go played in 2005, though on the opposite end of the park, unfurling their soon-to-be Internet phenomenon, the sensational dance routine for the song “A Million Ways,” which to my knowledge is a song that they’ve never been able to actually play live because of the all-powerful force of the Internet. I remember thinking that it was a moment that felt full of life – the best parts of it. I felt like I was full of Skittles, full of syrup and fizzy soda, getting shook like a bottle of champagne after the seventh game of the World Series. Catfish Haven, the most underrated band in the country (oh, fuck yeah), pulled out all the stops as they pounded and soul-ified their stomping grounds, the city where they drink the most alcohol. They brought two big-lunged backup singers, a trumpet player, a saxophonist, a second guitarist and a keyboard player to the stage with them. The played songs off of next month’s brilliant debut full-length “Tell Me,” and it was exactly how they should sound, now and for always. They should be given a touring budget that allows them to bring the whole herd of players with them on the road, to turn dingy clubs into Apollos. They’d need a bigger van and everyone would have to be tolerant of not washing for weeks, but it can be done. If they were able to play “Crazy For Leaving” and “All I Need Is You” with the full boat, not a soul could avoid falling madly into it with them. On this day, beneath the shade of some welcome leafy overhang, George Hunter sounded like the mean streets and the make-up sex, hoarse and passionate. Bassist Miguel Castillo and drummer Ryan Farnham were their greasy firecracking selves and it would wind up being the best thing to happen here until The Hold Steady played 15 minutes later and even then, it was still a dead heat.

With a short break and a short walk completed, there was Craig Finn baring his heart with a Budweiser Select can in his right hand saying, “This is easily the most fun I’ve had before 3 p.m.” If Eric Burdon weren’t still alive, I’d swear there was some of the ferocious Animals front man in Finn, the leader of The Hold Steady, which generously played a few songs, one of which was about the fictitious Saint Barber, the patron saint of landmines. In his introduction, he equated believing in Christianity (during the Saint’s time) to having facial tattoos nowadays. Finn squinted into the sun and into the sin and found out that not only is Virginia really for lovers, but so is Chicago.

Ben Kweller was promoted to a main stage this year and he still evoked the feeling of a black leather jacket and pure rock and roll. Though he finds more inspiration in the misty water colored memories than the hard ass memories or thoughts of a Who or Zeppelin, Kweller is ever the showman and he seems to continue to improve his ways. He came out and performed three songs with just a microphone in his hand. Then it was “Sha Sha” time.

Now Andrew Bird could have been so transcendent (as I heard Broken Social Scene was later in the night), but his hour-long slot in the middle of the afternoon was summarized in the first song of his set. He played the miraculous “A Nervous Tic Motion Of The Head To The Left” and strangled all of the genius out of it by tampering with its finest parts. He’s a knowledgeable and proficient songwriter, that’s not up for argument, but his desire to unnecessarily experiment with a song that should be roped off and put behind glass as a national treasure was sucked dry and we found ourselves cheated. Bird, switching between his guitar and a violin, but still utilizing a recorded violin part underneath, was lost on us.

For everyone waiting to see The Shins, and just as patiently anticipating a new record supposedly dropping sometime late this year or early next, this was a nightmare. The band – James Mercer, Marty Crandall, Jesse Sandoval and Joe Rogan look-a-like Dave Hernandez – came onto the stage in “government”-issued green dress uniform with khakis (“Like soldiers for the youth of today,” said Crandall) and tear into “Know Your Onion.” No one could hear a word. It was as if Mercer’s guitar was unplugged. And nothing was fixed there on the shitty stage, plagued by incompetent sound men and dumb ass organizers who didn’t loft any speakers, choosing instead to have them all plopped on the ground in from of the stage obstructed by 40,000 people standing in front of them. Between songs, the entire mass of the crowd chanted, “Turn it up! Turn it up!” to no avail. It was a fruitless attempt to get anyone’s attention as the band was oblivious to the snafu and yet Mercer could be seen in the big screen wearily glancing over at the rest of his band, wondering why huge groups of the crowd stormed off fit to be tied that nothing was remedied. They weren’t going to check the Reverend Horton Heat show. A couple of the new songs sounded like they are good songs, but then again, I really only heard the bass guitar and drums.

Out near the walkways that criss-crossed 150 yards away from the stage was a girl standing with two pieces of cardboard serving as a sandwich board sign advertising “Free Hugs” before and during Wilco’s set. It felt that Jeff Tweedy was bowled over by the honor of playing the festival on the waterfront he’d known his whole life. He said, “You have no idea how freaky it is to be back home and have it be like this. This morning I woke up and I had the biggest zit in the world on my forehead. I haven’t broken out with zits since my early 30s. I’m nervous.” The band, reconfigured and solid, had the misfortune of playing on the same stage as The Shins and Built To Spill and got the same results although, Tweedy’s voice was more audible and every other instrument was subdued. He joked that Wilco was going to start a cult. The first order of business for that cult should have been to been light the mixing board and stage on fire.