Summer Camp, Post #23: The New Pornographers
This booking was a poor choice on Jay Goldberg Events & Entertainment’s part. The New Pornographers are one of the best rock bands going these days, but a jam band/psychedelic/anything the majority of the festival crowd would be interested in they are not. The audience was, while dedicated, a very small one. Where Girl Talk converted a lot of people through his high-energy show, The New Pornographers did what they do: played their songs, played them well, and left. It didn’t lead to many new converts.
Still, the band was on for most of the set. They opened their set with “All the Things That Go to Make Heaven and Earth” from their latest album, Challengers, and from there they just kept going. Between songs, the band continually goofed around, playing snippets of The Violent Femmes’ “Blister in the Sun,” Crosby, Stills & Nash’s “Suite: Judy Blue Eyes” and Led Zeppelin’s “Dazed and Confused.”
That was the problem though. For about a third of the show, the band was just not playing the show like it needed to be: big. The songs were played well, but they were unfocused. Lead singer/guitarist Carl Newman would continually flub lyrics or parts, and would laugh it off. He didn’t seem like he was concentrating, and was just goofing off. That’s all well and good, but for that reason, something didn’t click for a while.
The band did pick it up though, and versions of Twin Cinema’s “Sing Me Spanish Techno” and “The Bleeding Heart Show” were played to reach across the three-fourths empty field. They played as if it was full, which was exactly the kick in the pants they had to have if the set wasn’t going to peter out.
The New Pornos closed their set with a cover of ELO’s “Don’t Bring Me Down” and left the stage. They came back for one encore, a very fast, very energetic “Letters from an Occupant,” sang by keyboardist Kathryn Calder. They left the small audience wanting more, but they closed the set 10 minutes early, presumably to allow the audience to get over to the Moonshine Stage to watch moe.’s final set of the night. Good show though.