The second annual Popped! Music Festival was a sunny second day of summer in University City, a Saturday afternoon slate of eight bands bookended by two of the bigger buzz acts of the past year in Afro indie pop band Vampire Weekend and banging Brit duo The Ting Tings.
Vampire Weekend and the Ting Tings are two prime examples of new-model audience-building in the ever shifting nuevo music industry. VW got where they are - which, on Saturday, was at 33rd and Arch Streets, playing a set of breezy, bouncy set of crisp pop songs just as night was falling on the Drexel University campus - by setting off a blogging frenzy last summer, and then withstanding the inevitable who-do-these-Ivy League-twits-think-they-are? backlash after their debut album came out in January.
The Ting Tings were first up because their slot was booked back in March, before they snagged an iPod commercial with "Shut Up And Let Me Go," a shot of neo-New Wave, juiced with a dash of disco. Drummer Jules De Martino and singer-guitarist Katie White kicked off Popped! - which had actually had an opening night party the evening before, with rapper Slick Rick - with an exclamation point. Their songs are all springy shards of
rhythm, with percussive guitars, bass lines triggered by foot pedals, and White shaking her blond hair about and banging on a bass drum, or a cowbell, Will Ferrell style.
The Brits were followed by the two local acts on the bill, on both sides of the Popped! fence. First, raucous acoustic hillbilly gospel hellraisers Hoots & Hellmouth. There was enough hair waging going on to think you were watching a metal band. Next, alt-rapper Mr. Lif, the dreadlocked MC who wove together dense rhymescapes with the assistance of his DJ, Sonny James, and New York guest rapper Metro.
Baltimore electronic music party starter Dan Deacon was next, breaking through the fourth wall from the get go. He set up his Casio keyboard sound system at the foot of the stage, went straight into the crowd, and turned Popped! into his own personal indie geek pep rally. Not much too look at if you were standing towards the back, but a fine frenzy if you were in the middle of it.
The bigger crowd would gather later for Vampire Weekend, who impressed with a clutch of new songs, including one that featured singer Ezra Koenig cooing like a cockatoo. But the day's true crowd slayers were Gogol Bordello, the gypsy punk yo-ho-ho-and-a-bottle-of-wine marauders fronted by mustachioed mad man Eugene Hutz. Shirtless in skin tight lime green trousers, the Ukrainian bandleader had a bit of Joe Strummer in his voice and the words "Drum Machines Have No Soul" scrolled on his acoustic guitar.
His multi-generational, multi-ethnic band features an Ethiopian bassist and Russian violin and accordion players; an Ecuadoran percussionist, and Thai and Chinese backup singers, along with a white guy in a Bad Brains t-shirt playing drums. Hutz, who stars in Madonna's new movie Filth & Wisdom, tore up the place with his band's raging two-step polyglot rhythm, and declared himself the "Wonderlust King" before the band finished their set, and jumped on a bus to catch a plane to a gig in Turkey, leaving the Popped! crowd wondering what hit them.
After that, the chilly electronica of Crystal Castles seemed pleasant but inconsequential. Sorry, Mates of State, but I took a dinner break and missed your set. Vampire Weekend was worth coming back for, though, and closed an impressively programmed day in style.
I took all kinds of photo all day long, but for reasons beyond my control - or at least, my feeble technological understanding - I haven't been able to upload them here. Arrgh. Hopefully, that'll get corrected tomorrow. Meanwhile, here's a Gogol Bordello video.
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