"Screw You, Festivals"

Or at least it seemed like that's what the Decemberists and Animal Collective said when deciding their set-lists. Not that there's anything wrong with that.


The Decemberists played The Hazards of Love straight through on Friday, as they have been doing their whole tour. They've been doing one set of Hazards of Love, and then one set with old Decemberists songs. It was great hearing Hazards of Love, but I will say that it made me wish I had gone to the Metro show the night before, which was all fan requests. I think it made me like The Hazards of Love a bit more. On first listen I'll say that I really liked it, but I haven't had the inclination to listen to it since. I still think Side C is really strong, and I've gone back to listen to that side, but I haven't sat down and listened to the full album again. Maybe seeing them perform this will get me to do it. Knowing that the just announce Riviera show in October will be a Hazards of Love show will likely keep me away, but you never know.


Animal Collective then comes up on Saturday and they play their more slower, loopy, yelpy, pieces (setlist here). For the first half of the set, in the sunlight, they mostly stuck to that. For the second half they pulled out "Fireworks" and "Brothersport" to close their set, and the last 25 minutes were nothing short of incredible.

I'm hesistant to say that Animal Collective and the Decemberists are festival bands. In fact, I think I would say that they're incredibly not festival bands. Some bands are festival bands (probably Phish), but not these bands.

These set lists were very "we'll do what we want," and I can definitely appreciate that (especially from these guys moreso than, say, Billy Corgan). Sure, people didn't get to sing along at the top of their lungs to "Sixteen Military Wives" or "Summertime Clothes," and maybe sometimes that's for the best. Maybe, though, it would've been nice. Maybe.