Hangout Festival 2013

Jack White - I have to give you. But Foo? NOPE! We had The Black Keys that year, silly! Foo's fill-in for Cee-Lo was pretty epic, though.

Thanks! This was THE biggest conflict of the fest for me. I ended up going to Galatic and loving it, though.

Here's that Zeppelin cover from Galatic, btw:

www.mtv.com/videos/misc/909686/how-many-more-times-live-at-the-2013-hangout-music-festival.jhtml?xrs=playershare_fb

Forgive me, I'm not a Foo superfan and haven't been keeping up. I thought they were taking a break, but I guess he was just blowing smoke up our ass. My second point still stands though and that would be pretty lame to book them again only 3 years later.
Vampire Weekend will be bigger next year than Jack White was last year or Kings of Leon were this year. Their new album is getting praise from everyone and is currently the number one downloaded album on itunes ahead of Daft Punk.

I haven't heard much of the new record, but I still think they are a bit of a ways away from headlining Hangout or some of it's other contemporaries.

And you're right, nothing good will come of this.

Oh how I missed Hangout speculation.

*summons gophish73, mobilehangoutfan76, illbeyourbro, kenny chesney, and widespreadted*
Lets wager a ticket to Hangout on whether or not they will be headliners next year at whatever US fests they play.  
Either show us that tight d!ck, playa, or put the cheesed!ck back in your jorts.  

I have a few more recordings to upload. Will probably get Tom Petty up next, most likely on tradersden.org. I think we got a total of eight good recordings. Equipment failure screwed up Friday's tapes.

Still have St. Paul and The Broken Bones, Railroad Earth, Revivalists, Moe., Trey Anastasio to go.

Going up at about one a day.


MSTaper

Overall, I had an awesome time at Hangout this year! I saw a crapton of bands I haven't seen before:

My top 10:
1. Big Gigantic - Third time seeing them, and they NEVER disappoint. So many faces were melted during their show. Just a perfect set, I died when they dropped Knife Party. So much fun.
2. Kings of Leon - Man, these guys blew me away! Never saw them before, and I went in with low expectation. Maybe I was just unfamiliar with their older stuff. People sang along to every song too, so I guess they are a viable headliner still. They made me a fan.
3. Stevie Wonder - My most anticipated set of the weekend. Absolutely killer backing band, and Stevie tearing up was a memorable moment... especially from the rail.
4. Bassnectar - Third time seeing him. Awesome set, although I had trouble getting into it at first for some reason. Just a tad nder the level of awsomeness I was hoping for, but it wasn't his fault. I didn't care for dancing on the beach at this point since my feet were hurting.
5. Macklemore and Ryan Lewis - I was excited for this set, and they didn't disappoint. Great, high-energy set. I was glad everyone didn't just leave after his hits, since his other material is just as god, if not better.
6. Twenty-one Pilots - So much fun for an early set. I knew they would kill it, and they still surpassed my expectations.
7. Public Enemy - Rowdy and fun early set. Chuck D and Flavor Flav still have it, as they kept everyone entertained. They could have half-assed their set, and they didn't.
8. Zion I - Never listened to them before, so I figured I'd check em out. This was a great show to start off Sunday. It was a rapper and a DJ, and the flow of it was just great. I hope they find some success.
9. Bloc Party - I wish I didn't have to miss TAB, but these guys were on my bucket list for awhile. Definitely closer to a standard fare rock show, but it was still fun. Good energy and good times.
10. Yeah Yeah Yeahs - I was glad I finally got the chance to see them. They did a great job at maintaining a high level of energy throughout the whole set, as Karen O is a great frontwoman. I wish they had played Date with the Night though.

Honorable mentions:
The Revivalists - I was planning on watching all of their set, but got distracted with the water slide and catching a bit of Best Cast (who was fun). I only caught the last 20 minutes of these guys, but man they were tearing it up! You could tell they were having a lot of fun onstage. This set convinced me to skip The Lumineers at Bonnaroo for these guys. This would have been top 10 if I had been there longer.
Delta Rae - I know they get some crap on here, but this was a bunch of fun for the 15 minutes I was there. Sure,it sounds like mainstream country, but I don't mind since they are good performers. I can see them blowing up in the next year.
Reptar - When I saw them at Counterpoint, I just couldn't get into them. However, this time around, I found their style more enjoyable, and as a result, they had one of the best pre-party sets.

Other bands I really enjoyed: Conspirator, The Sheepdogs, Holy Ghost!, Wolfgang Gartner, Baauer, The Mowgli's, Kendrick Lamar, Umphrey's McGee

Disappointing: Brassft Punk, Grizzly Bear, and Imagine Dragons. I loved the concept, but BP was poorly executed for the most part. The drummer was the worst, he seemed like never practice at all. The rest wasn't too bad, it just wasn't captivating. GB just wasn't doing it for me. I only know the stuff on Shields, and they did a bunch of it near the beginning, so I was starting to get bored. Not that I didn't want to hear their other stuff, but since they weren't even captivating me on the songs I did know, it was getting dull. I think they need a nighttime/indoor set. With Imagine Dragons, their problem was either A) their sound guy sucked, or B) I was too far from the stage (even though I wasn't THAT far). Their songs lacked punch live, but they have on the studio tracks. You could tell they were all putting their hearts into it, hence why I don't blame them.

Also, Lotus was super boring for me. I think I just don't like their music.

Overall, I had a lot of fun at Hangout this year, as the lineup was just stellar. If it is this good again next year, I'm totally down.

Also, my realistic hope/prediction for next year: Springsteen/No Doubt/Phish/Vampire Weekend at #4

Festival was awesome, better than I expected.

So when are we starting the Hangout 2014 thread? ;-)

Headliners all killed it IMO.
Indie, jam and rock bands all did well.
Didn't catch any EDM.
Kendrick and Mackelmore were both meh IMO.
Atmosphere, layout and feel of the fest might have been be best so far.

Loving everyone's reviews. Amazing how different we all are.

Here's my 2 cents:

Favorites:
The Weeks : probably my favorite set. They brought it. Small crowd knew all the words and everybody seemed to have a great time. Met some new friends. Overall just awesome. Also, I really enjoyed the BMI stage this year. Close to frozen drinks, chairs if you want to lounge, real bathroom with a pretty fast line and you can get right up to the band.
The Mowgli's and Wild Cub: Two more BMI sets. Both these bands were really good. Mowgli's got a little touchy feely but they just seemed to be having such an awesome time up there that it transferred into the small, up close crowd. Wild Cub were just excellent musicians.
Grouplove: I've seen these guys one other time in freezing drizzle so it was super awesome to be on the beach. These guys are just meant to play live shows and they had a great crowd. Loved it.
Bloc Party: been wanting to see them for a really long time so I was super psyched for this. They rocked it hard and it's always nice to see a show on that stage when the sun is heading down and it's not soooo hot. Great show for me.

Honorable Mentions:
Public Enemy: went to this for old times sake and actually enjoyed it. They put on a great, high energy show and I loved seeing all the randoms rapping every word. Plus how could you not love being able to yell "FLAVOR FLAV" along with him?
Ellie Goulding: I'm a girl so of course I'm going. Plus I'm a fan anyway. Loved her on the beach but I could have used her mic volume up a bit more. Her voice is so cool it sucked not being able to hear it very well and we were pretty close up on the beach side.
Danced my face off to both Aoki and Wolfgang (not a dub step fan so these were my two EDM moments) and had a blast. I agree with you that Aoki just didn't sound right, but I still danced so hard my abs hurt the next day. I definitely liked Wolfgang better but I did enjoy that ridiculous cake toss. Wolfgang was way louder than Aoki and sounded much better.

Major Letdowns:
The Breeders: I used to listen to that album on repeat in my room when I was 14 so I thought it'd be cool. Didn't realize how lame my music taste was at 14. Total snorefest and way too loud for the time and place. DId get a laugh when one of them forgot the words.
Best Coast: Saw them in the same freezing drizzle as Grouplove so wanted to give them a second chance, especially on the beach. Not into it. All their songs sounded the same to me. singer seemed not into it and she was sort of annoying how she kept calling everything "tight". Lost interest, got a falafal and headed to Grouplove.
Petty: Sorry guys but this sucked. SO BORING. I'm not a huge Petty fan to begin with, but we all figured we'd know all the songs and it would be a nice sing along to close out Saturday night. Made it until "Friend of the Devil" before we bailed. Seemed like A LOT of others were bailing too. I felt like someone had left PBS on an old episode of Austin City Limits from the early 90s. No bueno.
Kendrick Lamar: On top of being 30 min late and making us suffer through Sway bringing up "MCs" from the audience, the sound was too low, energy was low (especially compared to Public Enemy earlier in the day). Just all around lame.


Could have been better: Brassft Punk was disappointing. We decided they should just partner with Space Capone then that would be a good show.
Stevie was better than Petty but still not as good as I thought it would be. The random ramblings, interruptions and audience sing a longs really broke it up and made it hard to stay with him. Plus I was expecting fireworks to go off during Superstition not 5 minutes after that weird "encore". Probably should have been much drunker for that show and it would have been more fun.


Saw Lissie and The Sheepdogs too and enjoyed them as well.

LOVED all the new water stations. Plus the water tasted way better. Ah the magic of filters. Seemed less crowded this year and that haze on Sunday was a great relief from the hard sun. I really had no problems with the crowd of any age, everyone seemed pretty chill to me and just happy to be there. One guy threw a fit though when they asked him to fill in his address to go down the slide. Pretty funny. Bro, chill out it's just a free water slide!


I also want to agree with Jack White and Foo Fighters being awesome headliners. THEY.ROCKED.HARD. Maybe that's why Petty was such a snooze for me. (We didn't even attempt KoL, caught a few Shins songs and then headed back to the house.)

OVERALL I HAD AN AWESOME TIME AND I PLAN TO KEEP GOING BACK.

Here are my first-timer impressions:

- For one: I never had any issues with the makeup of the crowd, nor did my 45-year-old wife. Whether young or old, hippie or college frat boy or girl, etc. no one was rude or annoying to me or her or any of our six-person group. Zero issues, and while we went VIP we floated around a lot into the GA areas because I hate being bogged down to one area.
- As for VIP, it was a total deal. It was worth it for the free beer and liquor alone, but add in the pools near the main stage and it was my favorite VIP experience anywhere. I literally danced in a pool for all of Stevie Wonder's set; that will go down as one of my all-time favorite festival experiences. The short lines into the festival also were ideal, as was the centralized VIP area, where you could get snacks, enjoy air conditioned restrooms, set in the shade or play ping pong.
- The po po presence. Again, no issues, and we're not staid, laid-back types. Our group rages it hard. Yes, I saw people getting arrested, but one of them was a kid who, as he was walking out of the festival, starting pouring a bottle of something or other all over random people. Getting arrested might have been better than getting his face kicked in, which I've witnessed happen at All Good. I've seen articles pointing to the low arrest numbers, so I don't see how people can complain about this supposed issue. Unless you were really open or just flat-out unlucky, the LO presence at Hangout seemed like a lot of other city fests to me, as compared to the small, in the middle of nowhere fests.
- The setting itself was beyond ideal. The white sand, seafood (I had 18 raw oysters, a gazillion shrimp, all within the festival), was unlike anything I'd ever experienced at a festival. We had a nearby condo, and I went boogie boarding everyday, and I stood in the surf one day and could hear Grouplove clearly. The late night parties on the beach also rocked. We met plenty of cool people, danced it up in the sand and occasionally jumped in the inky surf. I had so much fun at the LN's I missed one of my must sees: PE. Still, no regrets here.
My festival highlights included:
- The Roots (Capt. Kirk killed it)
- Stevie Wonder (Yes, he might have talked to much, but even I got chocked up when he started talking about his mother and thanking us).
- YYY's.
- Tom Petty (Loved the GD cover. Very unexpected, and Mike Campbell hasn't lost a thing).
- Mule (Warren, 'nuff said.
- Trey (see above, with an extra shout out to Jennifer H.)
- The Shins. First time seeing them, and I thought they were great.
- Black Crowes.
- Passion Pit
- Bassnectar
We are already talking about going back and possibly staying a whole week, as opposed to the five days we stayed. It was no doubt pricey and the drive from Ohio was crazy long, but none of us had any complaints.

Well that was one of the best weekends of my life. Wow.


I'm looking for some recordings now, and I see you guys are already on it! I've found the 3 on bt.etree.org but I can't seem to find any on The Trader's Den. Are there any on there yet, or have you not put them up yet? No push to hurry, just curious if I'm doing something wrong on the site looking for them. And does anyone have the Stevie show? That was my favorite set of the weekend- I liked it a hundred times more than his Roo set, which I already loved. Anyway, thanks for the taping, and see you guys in 2014!

Thanks man!! I have enjoyed so many of your recordings. I owe you a beer or 12. I am a huge DBT fan and your Soul Kitchen shows are some of their best live recordings. The Crowes recording from this fest is amazing!! Great work!!