Molly Bergen on August 24th, 2015

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Featuring: Thee Oh Sees, Belle & Sebastian, Solange, HEALTH, Flume, Toro Y Moi, Laura Marling, Unknown Mortal Orchestra, Tobias Jesso Jr., Girlpool, Mac DeMarco

Day 2 of FYF Fest 2015 offered a smorgasbord of options. You wanted punk rock? Thee Oh Sees were there to deliver. You wanted soul? No problem, D’Angelo and the Vanguard were there to be the “Black Messiah.” You wanted folk? Laura Marling was happy to oblige. You wanted a hip dance party? Flume was there to make it happen. Or were you craving having your head blown off? HEALTH was at the ready.

With the weather obliging, the lines flowing, and the water taps working, FYF may have just become the festival fans dreamed it could be. Really.

||| Photos by Zane Roessell

||| Also: Sunday, Part I, by Andrew Veeder; Saturday, Part I and Part II

Around Day 2 in a flash:

2:38 p.m. — In the warm sunlight two ladies, one redhead and one bluehead took the stage. Girlpool, armed with only a bass and a guitar, unburdened their souls to the crowd. “My mind is almost 19. And I still feel angry,” they harmonized. It was like attending a riot grrrl journal reading with musical accompaniment. Unvarnished. Unapologetic. Uninhibited. It was really refreshing. They’re not trying to be anyone but themselves, and it really resonated with the primarily teenaged crowd, which is good because if there’s one thing teenagers hate, it’s posers.

3:15 p.m. — Formed a group. FYF Shade Chasers 2015: There is no patch of dirt filthy enough to dissuade us from sitting. No position too awkward to twist into to avoid the sun’s rays. We will not get burnt! We will not!

3:45 p.m. — A middle-aged aged man in an Ex Hex shirt muttered behind me, “Some bands are just not festival bands,” as Tobias Jesso Jr. began his set. He was wrong ,of course. Every band can be a festival band with the right attitude. Jesso’s melodic set was punctuated with bright horns and a violin, which made the crowd nod their heads in pleasure. The back up band itself is called Duck. Sure there was no moshing, but a little lovely, piano driven rock appeals to most people in the early afternoon. You don’t need flashy lights or backup dancers sometimes. His early hit, “How Could You Babe” was especially impressive. Jesso let out a wild yell that made the crowd scream in response.

3:52 p.m. — Jesso is refusing to start the next song unless the drummer takes his shirt off. Drummer protests and says he’s got herpes of the chest. He’s asking for a doctor to verify.

4:23 p.m. — Enthralled by a circle of teenagers trying to roll a joint for the first time. They’re sitting in a circle like it was a bonding exercise at camp. It took them fifteen minutes to get it together. Only half of them seem able to keep any smoke down. Oh good, now they’re taking selfies with it.

4:49 p.m. — Unknown Mortal Orchestra has embraced neo-funk in a way that has surprised all the people who bought their first album and thought they were going to be a rock band. But the people have spoken and the crowd really craves the funk. They stretched out like an ocean in front of the stage. However, Unknown Mortal Orchesta might have taken this reinvention a bit too far when they reworked their first album to sound more like their more recent one. Their first single “How Can You Love Me?” was put through the funk machine and changed to match the rest of the set. You don’t need to rewrite history, fellas.

4:56 p.m. — When “So Good At Being in Trouble” started a number of young ladies climbed on top of garbage cans and danced on them precariously, balancing their boots on either side of the rim. It’s unclear whether they wanted to illustrate the song or if they were just swept away by passion, but it sure fit the mood.

5:14 p.m. — Who knew it was possible to crowd surf to “Multi-Love”?

5:36 p.m. — There is nothing more perfect than a mango popsicle on a hot summer day. Except maybe sitting on a bench in the shade listening to high schoolers debate whether love is real. Here’s a sample of their conversation:

“She really gets me.”
“You’re just sleeping with her. She’s just a junior. You’re going to graduate this year.”
“Believe in love, Ali! Believe in love!”

6:03 p.m. — The crowd for Laura Marling was tiny, but concentrated like a shot of whiskey. The English songwriter got applause at almost every declaration. “I am not a victim of romance!” she sang in a clear strong voice, “I am not a victim of circumstance!” Her verses were complicated and unafraid to dig into dark stories of love and betrayal. At 25, Marling weaves reflective stories with a wisdom that should belong to a woman twice her age.

6:29 p.m. — So much weed at Toro Y Moi. So much weed. The blue haze was working for folks, though. Everyone was really grooving to Toro Y Moi’s reinvention of himself as a rock star. No more chill wave for this guy. All funk. It’s clear that he really enjoys holding a guitar in his hands.

6:48 p.m. — Just discovered there are free paletas in the VIP section. Kicking myself for not checking out that place earlier. Can a person survive on popsicles alone? One women’s quest to find out …

7:34 p.m. — The sun is down and the crowd is ready to dance. The parking lot in front of the main stage is flooded for Flume. The Australian DJ brings out Andrew Wyatt from Miike Snow on his first song “Some Minds.” Electric rainbow cityscapes and vibrant lava explode on the screen as the crowd gives in to his cinematic dance party. Lorde makes an appearance. The party gets heartier.

7:45 p.m. — That horrible realization when you discover that it is not a weird patterned legging that is wiggling at you. It’s someone’s bare ass covered in glitter and dead grass.

7:57 p.m. — Watching two middleaged security guards head bang to HEALTH’s “Stonefist” is almost as fun as watching HEALTH. Almost. Caught five minutes of their set on the way to Solange. It was like being in the clouds during a thunderstorm. Ferocious stuff. You can feel your eardrums being seared off of your head. In a good way.

8:20 p.m. — Solange is 10 minutes late, and counting. They seem to be sound checking. Left a badass Health set for this?

8:31 p.m. — Chants of “We want Solange” ring out. The guy behind me thinks it’s prerecorded. He could be right.

8:33 p.m. — There she is! Solange! With Diana Ross inspired hair and a bright red flowy dress, she apologizes almost immediately for the delay, “Some things never seem to fucking work up in this bitch.” Before launching into her song of a similar title “Some Things Never Seem to Fucking Work” a bright pop song that would not be out of place in the Paula Abdul catalogue. Actually if you told me that Solange was doing a cover of Paula Abdul’s old work, I would believe you. Dev Hynes, with whom Solange had a very public spat, appears for three songs, including (with Moses Sumney and KING) “Young, Gifted and Black.” People were tweeting that it was the big moment of the weekend … Maybe.

8:47 p.m. — There seems to be a new fashion trend of dudes in nightgowns with cartoon animals on them. Do you think we could reverse it? Is it too late?

9:09 p.m. — “I know it’s Sunday night, but are you ready for a bit of a party?” singer Stuart Murdoch of Belle & Sebastian asks before launching into “The Party Line.” Dude, have you met us? Angelenos are ready for a party on a Monday morning at 11 a.m. It’s who we are.

9:23 p.m. — Belle & Sebastian seemed genuinely tickled to be playing outside of the Coliseum. They showed footage of the 1984 Olympics opening ceremony during which a man in a jetpack lands on the field. “What happened to jetpacks?” Murdoch wanted to know, “We had them in the ’80s.” Then they launched into the thematically appropriate “The Stars of Track and Field.” Of course they did. They are adorable. They probably planned that set list for weeks.

10:03 p.m. — Ran over to catch a couple minutes of the superb D’Angelo and the Vanguard. The crowd stretched as far as the eye could see. Everyone was delighted that D’Angelo is back. In fact one lady earlier in the day didn’t believe me when I said he was playing. “Oh I just assumed it was a hipster band called D’Angelo and the Vanguard.” With bands named Joy Orbison and Chet Faker, it’s not entirely implausible.

10:21 p.m. — Best shirt seen at Thee Oh Sees show read, “Everything Louder Than Everything Else.” Which was very appropriate for this show, that was deafening as soon as you stepped on the field. The sneaky bastards went on early. Set times are for jerks. They were already on their third song by the time I reached them. Most of the punk kids were whirling dervishes under the trees, jumping around without a care in the world. Well, almost all of them. I spent some time dodging a psychotic drunk girl in a striped shirt and pigtails who was looking to start a fight. I love everything about punk music but that.

10:41 p.m. — The electric “Toe Cutter/Thumb Buster” has made everyone lose their minds. Trees are not meant to be moshed in. Kids are jumping on the branches or out of them onto their friends. Someone is going to get hurt. Good thing the ambulance is already parked so close.

11:46 p.m. — Intellectual foreign policy discussion on the metro train home by drunk college kids.

“Kanye is the most powerful man on earth. If he declared war on Australia we would have to do it.”

“Why not Russia?”

“It has to be Australia because it’s so innocuous. No one is mad at Australia. It would really show his ruthlessness.”

Good point.