Forecastle July 11, 2010 - Minus the Bear, She & Him, Company of Thieves, Spoon

Another beautiful, but HOT, day at Forecastle.  We didn't get there until later because of the World Cup game (yay for Spain!).  Minus the Bear played a good set, but I'll have to listen to their albums before I give much of a review.  The music didn't leave much of an impression on me.

We headed down towards the stage near the end of their set to get a spot close to see Zooey Deschanel and M.Ward as She & Him.  I love her acting but so far I'm not sold on the music.  This performance didn't sell me either.  Her voice was way off, especially in the beginning.  M. Ward's voice was barely audible.  Each song was the same 4 chords and a bland melody.  She gets a little credit for switching between multiple instruments (a keyboard, an electric ukulele, and tambourine), but aside from a few jumping jacks, there was no involvement with the crowd and barely a smile on her face.  Very boring like I was expecting.  We left early and gave up our front row spot to fans more interested in her pretty blue dress and bright red lips (she did look cute, although a little bit bummed)

Eager to get away, stay awake, and hear some better music, we made our way over to the North Stage, only to catch the last song from Paper Route, which I really enjoyed.  I'll definitely have to check them out again at some point.  Then we hung around until Company of Thieves came on.

This was absolutely the find of the festival.  These guys are real musicians.  I'd never heard of them or any of their music although WPFK had been circulating them quite a bit the week before.  A lot of reviews compare her voice to Fiona Apple, and I can see where they get that from, but trust me you need to hear it yourself.  For such a tiny girl, there's a lot of power there and a lot of skill.  She slides and pulls on each word as she belts them out.  Then when the song is quiet, her voice gets a bit jazzier.  I enjoyed the band here too.  Not a jam band, by any means, they still are able to draw out the details of each song and explore them in depth as a nice compliment to Schatz's vocals. 

Althought their first album, Ordinary Riches, has been out, reissued, since 2009, everything I heard was new to me, including a few songs which Schatz introduced as forthcoming on their album to be released later this year.  She seemed excited to play them and the crows was very receptive, making this one of the few performances at the festival from not only a musicians, but an entertainer.  This is far too often lacking in real shows.  Here's a few videos of my new favorite band.

So engrossed was I in Company of Thieves, that we were late to the Spoon set. It was too crowded to get anywhere near the stage, but it was easy enough to hear everything from the back of the field.  They played a decent show with lots of sound experimentation and plenty of their better known songs and a few new ones.