The second day of the Capitol Hill Block Party ended up being a much different experience for me than what I experienced Friday. Friday I more or less spent the day band hopping, catching 15 to 25 minutes of a band and then jumping to the next band. I did this for two reasons: 1) There weren’t any bands that captured my attention enough to make me want to watch a full 45-minute set when I knew there was more music out there to see, and 2) I wanted to experience as much music as possible. This allowed me to see 15 bands in about eight hours, which was rewarding since I came across a couple of new favorites (The Pharmacy, Airborne Toxic Event), but boy was it tiring.
Saturday I took a bit of a different approach and I watched complete sets by three bands while managing to see 11 bands total. Here are my thoughts on what I saw:
3:00 The beer-soaked blues-rock of The Hands was the perfect way to kick off my Saturday. These Olympia rockers opened their set with a 20-minute suite of songs that included a stunning rendition of “The Knife,” arguably the best track on their self-titled debut. The guitarmanship (is that a word?) was definitely the most rocking of the weekend. The band’s song-carrying soaring riffs and fist-pumping, sing along hooks give Southern rock some dank and grungy Northwest flavor.
3:40 The Cave Singers, featuring Derek Fudesco, formerly of Pretty Girls Make Graves, were a great appetizer for Fleet Foxes, which took the stage a couple of hours after The Cave Singers’ set came to a close. Unfortunately, their acoustic sound was swallowed by the vastness of the outdoors. Don’t get me wrong, the band sounded good, but it’s always a bad sign when you can hear the crowd talking over the band while the band is playing. A recommendation to CHBP organizers for next year: Either turn up the amplifiers for the quieter bands on the main stage of have them play in a club and put a louder band on the main stage instead.
4:00 My friend and I made our only stop into King Cobra Saturday to see The Whore Moans and it was well worth waiting in line for a few minutes to see this band’s dual guitar, tri-vocal assault. The screaming, singing and shouting of songs was a nice mishmash of styles that make The Whore Moans come across as a ball of pure rock ‘n’ roll that blends hardcore, punk and metal all into one deliciously tasty musical morsel.
