Music

PHOTOS: Solid Sound 2015

by Adria Young

Last weekend, I drove to North Adams, Massachusetts for Wilco’s biennial Solid Sound festival. It takes place at the Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art, a 13-acre former textile factory in a colonial town that’s fast becoming one of America’s finest art centres. Jeff Tweedy’s pain-soaked Chicago rock band circa 1994 collaborates with MASS MoCA for a three-day immersive art experience that features exhibits and projections, several stages, local food and beer, and artist signings courtesy of Euclid Records.

Now in its fourth installation, Wilco headlines each night of the festival, and the schedule is filled with their side-projects and affiliates, like Nels Cline’s Stained Radiance, The Spirit of Akasha and Wilco’s keyboard/melodica player Mikael Jorgensen. This year, Tweedy and friends invited the following acts that blew my mind: Canada’s very own Mac DeMarco, recently reunited NYC electronic pop act Cibo Matto, legendary jazz guitarist Bill Frisell, Miami blues quartet (and The Simpsons house band) NRBQ, indie rockers Speedy Ortiz, Brooklyn’s Parquet Courts, comics Paul F. Tompkins and Tig Notaro, NASA-approved electronica project Quindar, and many more diverse and truly interesting acts.

All three of Wilco’s two-hour-plus performances felt intimate even though 9,000 people were there. The first set on Friday was all acoustic and they played the best of Yankee Hotel Foxtrot and A Ghost is Born; the second day was all electric but I missed most of it because I was goofing around backstage; and Sunday evening’s festival closer featured Tweedy & Friends with his son Spencer on drums, a cover of “Get Into The Groove” with Cibo Matto, Tweedy’s Uncle Tupelo songs and solo ballads like “Nobody Dies Anymore,” by which point I was crying into my mojito and the man himself winked at me.

Tweedy covered John Lennon’s “God,” and with Sub Pop’s Luluc, Neil Young’s “Harvest Moon.” Then he brought out the rest of Wilco and whoever was kicking around backstage for “California Stars.” Live, it’s so obvious that Tweedy is a master songwriter; his addiction-riddled history makes for something overwhelming, raw and beautiful. He sang most songs for his wife, Sue Miller, whose love is his main inspiration.

Other festival highlights included DeMarco’s jam-band cover of “Reeling in the Years,” which was sick, and hot tracks from Mac DeMarco 2 and Salad Days, which were also sick. He ended with “Still Together,” dedicated to his girlfriend, Kira, who stood side-stage. Joining DeMarco was Tonstartssbandht’s Andy Boay, who played into the cultish goofiness. The number of American teenagers in denim overalls and DeMarco shirts was notable; I called the hype around him “MarcoMania.”

There was a late-night dance party by Chicago NPR star DJ Michael Slaboch, and the massive exhibit Entertaining Doubts by cultural artist Jim Shaw was a surrealist satire on religion and politics in America. Speedy Ortiz hung a jersey from their amp with the words “GENDER IS OVER”, which ruled.

If only all of my favourite bands had their own festival.