As some of you might know, last weekend I road tripped to Pittsburgh for the New American Music Union. My crew was filled with highly experienced festival goers. Combined, our resume includes Bonnaroo (‘04), Austin City Limits (‘06), the Tibetan Freedom Festival (‘98), The Clifford Ball (‘96), The Great Went (‘97). Lemonwheel (‘98), Oswego (‘99), moe. or les (‘02), Farm Aid (‘98), and Lollapalooza (‘92) just to name a few. The last festival that we
attended attempted was Coventry (‘04), but after 24 hours on the interstate, Mike Gordon told us to go home and thus we did. At least we had a RV.
So this time around we decided to do something completely different. Forget camping, forget green pastures and big blue sky, forget cooking our own meals. This time we decided to go urban, stay in a hotel, and see bands from a completely different genre than Phish. Well, that’s not entirely true. We went to the New American Music Union because it was cheap. Tickets for the 2 day festival were $50 ($25 with a student ID). You also received a T-Shirt and Water Bottle with the purchase of a ticket. In addition, there was a second stage right outside the venue on Saturday that hosted 15 college bands from across the country, each playing 25 minute sets. Add to that, I used my Starwood points for a free hotel room and it was a no-brainer.
Why was the festival so inexpensive? American Eagle Outfitters Inc. AE’s headquarters are in Pittsburgh and they essentially hosted the event, which explains the free T-Shirts too. While this made a huge (positive) impact on our wallets, it made a negative impact on the vibe. You see, the concert grounds were developed in the parking lot of
AE HQ, which is part of a squeaky clean outdoor shopping mall called
Southside Works. Imagine rocking out to The Raconteurs outside Ann Taylor Loft and that’s the 2008 New American Music Union, people.
Regardless, you can’t beat a $50 festival and we traveled 6-7 hours to experience Pittsburgh. It had treated me well in the past (Phish show in ‘96 and a bachelor party/Hokie football game in ‘03), so I knew what I was getting into. This explains why we caught a lot less of the music than I anticipated, which was fine by me. Therefore, I don’t really have a report on the first night of the festival. We caught the end of
NASA and the beginning of
The Black Keys, but not enough of either to form an opinion. We had good intentions to catch
The Roots, but the local entertainment at
Excuses was good enough for us. Another reason for an early exit on Friday night was the beer selection. The choices were Miller Lite, Miller Chill, and MGD. C’mon Pittsburgh. Where was the Yuengling? Penn Pilsner? At a minimum, there should have been I.C. Light.
Even though I’ve been praising the low prices of the festival, we didn’t travel all this way just for a cheap thrill. We came to see
The Raconteurs and
Spoon. After pre-gaming at The Cheesecake Factory (it really wasn’t that bad, but I never envisioned that going into the weekend) we caught the second half of
Gnarls Barkley set, which preceded Spoon. I wish we had caught all of it. The highlight for me was their cover of Radiohead’s “Reckoner”, my favorite track off of
In Rainbows. It was a pretty spot on with very little variation from the original.
Spoon came on around 6:30 and met my expectations. They cruised through their most popular songs backed up by a nice horn ensemble. The crowd was clearly growing during Spoon’s set and by the time The Raconteurs came on, the parking lot was full. While Spoon pleased, The Raconteurs amazed. This band knows how to take raw energy and transform it into powerful jams. When I first saw The Raconteurs perform “Blue Veins” (on YouTube), I thought of Led Zeppelin’s “Since I’ve Been Loving You”. Lucky for me, they closed with it and did not disappoint. Go see this band.
After The Raconteurs, we left. We didn’t stick around for Dylan. There wasn’t really any discussion over the matter. We knew that there was no way Bob and his band could top what we just witnessed. No disrespect to Dylan. I love Bob Dylan and caught him 13 years ago (twice), but he should not have been the festival closer. From what I read afterwards, I am glad we left for a delicious
Primanti Brothers sub. BTW, the Pitts-burger Cheese Steak #2 best seller beats the Black Angus Top Sirloin Steak & Cheese.
A few other details worth noting. The New American Music Union had the cleanest stalls at any festival I’ve been too. Good work. In addition, water coolers were provided to fill up our water bottles for free. Another nice touch. Finally, as I was surfing for some footage from the weekend, I found that the festival website has already posted a lot of video and photos from the show. The footage is great and frankly makes the festival look better than it actually was. Check out some of it:
The Raconteurs perform “Steady As She Goes” and “Top Yourself”
Spoon performs “The Underdog” and “Cherry Bomb”
What is a good mark of a festival? To me, it’s whether you’ll come back again. As we traveled back to Virginia on Sunday, the answer was no. But after watching the video footage and writing this post, I could be persuaded. Especially if they change their beer vendors and move the stage a mile or two up Carson Street among real Pittsburgh establishments.
To check out more from my weekend in Pittsbugh, click
here.
