Summer Meltdown 08' - Part 1

I had the pleasure of coming out to Darrington, WA for Flowmotion's Summer Meltdown 2008, which is a large northwestern festival crammed full of great musical acts from all over, especially drawing from the Northwest and West Coast rock/folk/jazz/jam band/world music scenes.

Unfortunately I wasn't able to get into Darrington until mid Saturday Afternoon (so I regrettably missed some of the great acts which the festival had on Friday including, McTuff, Tea Leaf Green, That 1 Guy, and Blake Lewis.) After my band had played I enjoyed the laid back set of multi-instrumentalist Dave Brogan, the drummer/occasional lead singer for Animal Liberation Orchestra (ALO) signed to the Indie Label Brushfire Records - Jack Johnson's label. He mostly sang lead vocals and played guitar during the entire set -- and it was nice and relaxing. To be honest, not a lot of it stood out to me though based on preliminary impressions- nothing against Dave Brogan, but his style of music, the 'jam bandy', Phish style, takes more than just a single listen to really appreciate, and it also can get pretty boring since it all starts sounding the same after 3-4 songs. I would recommend the ALO releases on Brushfire for sure, I just recently picked them up after coming home.

Moving onward, I caught only a part of the next band's set, Delta Nove, but was instantly impressed. With a combination of funk and World music, they got a hold of the audiences attention- unfortunately as I had mentioned earlier, I was unable to catch their whole set- and had to run set up my tent for the evening. In retrospect, and after having reviewed more of their music online, they are worth the listen! They have a huge roster of major bands they have opened for and have shared the stage with such acts as Michael Franti and Spearhead, G. Love and Special Sauce, Trey Anastasio (Phish), and a veritable who's who in the Jam Band scene around the country.

One of the main acts which I was really excited to see was Buckethead. The Man, The Myth, and the Chicken Coop. Interesting thing about Buckethead is that he has the most amazing chops when it comes to psychedelic 80's shredder guitar, but he has the most backwater, bizarre presentation on the stage and publicly. For those who don't know, Buckethead comes out on stage wearing a white porcelain looking mask and a KFC bucket - hence Buckethead. On his website he has some clandestine story about being raised by chickens in a coop etc. and he never speaks in interviews, except through a rubber hand puppet. I feel that all the eccentric presentation is unnecessary, and trivial, but then again it makes him completely memorable in the end.

His set, regardless of my impressions about his presentation and his image, was amazing! He came out and played solo on his guitar along with a band sampler which included pre-recorded bass and drum arrangements for his songs. Buckethead is undoubtedly one of the best 80's guitar shredders out there, and his live performance was fun to watch, even though a bit weird at times. At one point, he had an interlude where he did a nun chucks and robot dance routine for the audience... like I said, his sets are unconventional. However his skill is unquestioned with his face melting guitar riffs- even Guitar One voted him number 8 on a list of the "Top 10 Greatest Guitar Shredders of All Time". If you've ever seen him live, you'll know why!

After Buckethead's set, the weather had turned for the worse, and the whole Whitehorse Mountain Amphitheatre was drenched in rain. Jason Webley, a local folk-punk artist out of Seattle, kept the energy high and grabbed the attention of Buckethead's departing audience. Webley's set was choked full of accordion, gypsy craze, and plenty of crowd participation. I would have to say that Jason Webley, over the whole weekend was the king of crowd participation and keeping the audience involved with his onstage antics. At one point, he threw out bags of plastic bottles full of pocket change, which became rattles and shakers for everyone there. The staff at the Meltdown were probably having a freak out about all the plastic bottles, and having to clean up after the show -- but that didn't stop Webley. With the shakers rattling he got everyone to chat out, "TOMATO!" over and over -- and at the peak of this pseudo religious fervor a giant paper machee tomato was brought out into the crowd as an icon to stop the down pour. Funny thing, it actually worked for about ten minutes!

My favorite moment of the night with Webley was when he did his song 'Ways to Love,' when he got everyone to become his 'vocalized orchestra.' I've seen him perform once before Summer Meltdown, and as I mentioned before he doesn't cease to amaze me at how well he can get any room riled up with excitement and make them into his musical puppets. Always a good time. I haven't been able to hear his studio albums yet, but I'm looking forward to reviewing them in the near future.