Interesting festival this year it was hot as hades out there most of the day, so I pretty much stayed put at the main stage and watched five acts:

Arcade Fire- Second time I've seen them live and they have yet to let me down. Watching their live show really makes me question the negative feedback as merely backlash. Played most of the funeral record and the No Cars Go song thta has been floating about the web. Great band, great set can't wait to see what they do next.

Wilco- Once upon a time, I would say they were in my top 5 bands. Now, sadly I barely care. Wilco circa 2005 is a band trying to be Sonic Youth and the Grateful Dead at the same time. Endless guitar solos which amount to noise. Enjoyed some older songs, but overall this was a dud. I know they did a pretty good job making Jay Bennett look like a jackass in the Sam Jones documentary, but he always added a lot to their live shows and I sure miss him now.


Kanye West- I had no expectations for this to be good, the Gorge is a wierd atmosphere for hip hop, but he brought the house down. The crowd was baking in the heat and people were danvcing, waving their hands and having a great time. He played two new singles and they were fantastic. I've always enjoyed the record, but the live show made me like it more.

Modest Mouse- The beginning of the set was pretty boring with a couple of old tunes mixed in with boring crap from Good News, but my favorite moments of the festival were the three songs Tiny Cities Made of Ashes, 3rd Planet and Doin the Cockroach. Amazing performance to save their set from total irrelevance.

Pixies- I'm really glad I saw them last year because they were off in every way. Frank's voice souned shot, they were rarely together and the set seemed to drag a bit. I don't think it was any reflection but an off night. We were close enough to see their facial expressions and they all had the look of "this really isn't going to well", but the crowd was still hot for them and they seemed genuinely apppreciative at the end of the night.


Fun day of music overall- I think I drank about 164 oz. of water and only peed twice.

so did you see any of the non-headliners?

We saw Math and Physics Club, Parks and Recreation. Smoosh, Blue Scholars and Bobby Bare Jr...Most of the rest of the day was spent at the Main Stage as well - Sorry we never got to meet up with anybody, but the wife wasn't feeling very well due to the heat.

i wanted to see USE

We saw USE.....they were great, a lot of fun, but their show really would have played better at 12:00 at NIGHT instead of 12 during the middle of the day. The crowd was really grooving to them though - it was also really cool to see most of the band standing off to the side of the stage grooving later on to The Arcade Fire performance.

I caught Bloc Party (very good)
The Dears (great)
AC Newman (solid)
The Arcade Fire (unreal..i was blown away with the amount of people there to see them)
Wilco (ok but i was pretty much out of it because of the heat..that was my resting period)
Kanye West (i was disappointed with his performance and i like the album (well about 8 songs) and thought the 2 new singles were mediocre to bad (golddigger song especially)
Modest Mouse (beginning and end of their set......i've never really enjoyed them live and what made their performance less than exciting was the fact that the main stage played 10-15 modest mouse and ugly casanova songs throughout the day during band set ups...what the hell is up with that.)
The Frames (superb..i don't like their albums so much but everytime i've seen them live they've been fantastic. The singer was making great banter with the crowd which was suprisingly big considering they were up against Modest Mouse. He kept mentioning that it was great to have modest mouse as his back up band during quiter moments of their set. Great stuff).
The Pixies (good but very intense...they avoided the "hits" and pummeled the audience. Very loud. I thought Frank Black was fantastic (guitar and vox) but joey had some minor slip ups throughout. I was so drained by the time they played that i didn't enjoy it as much as i should have....i'm also glad i saw them last year in Boise when i could focus my energy on them).

Great overall and sorry we didn't have a chance to meet up.