This is the second part of our three-part series on the May 2015 Boston Calling music festival. The other two parts can be read here and here.
The organizers of Boston Calling appear to have put some effort into partitioning the weekend’s performers by genre—a boon for attendees who may only want to hear a few artists and who may then be able to buy only a single-day ticket. The composition of Saturday’s crowd, even in the early afternoon, indicated that the festival’s second day would put an emphasis on pop and electronic music, given the unusually high percentage of teenage girls in the audience—though perhaps some of the younger crowd were My Chemical Romance fans thrilled at the chance to see Gerard Way.
Danish electropop artist MØ, most famous for being featured on the Major Lazer track “Lean On,” fit neatly into the apparent focus of Saturday’s lineup and was a highlight of the early afternoon performances. At the beginning of her set she burst onstage in bold sunglasses and with two braided buns atop her head, and, though her energetic and entertaining dancing caused her hair to unravel over the course of her set, she gamely continued leaping about and bobbing her head—with renewed vigor, if anything. She also evidenced impressive vocal chops not immediately obvious in the studio versions of her electropop songs. A consummate performer, MØ seemed to connect with her entire audience, and not only its young contingent.
The day’s performances, of course, did not solely cater to pop fans: After MØ’s set, rap duo Run the Jewels wooed their audience by coming onstage to Queen’s “We Are The Champions”—to which, of course, the whole crowd sang along. Impressively in touch with each other throughout the performance, Killer Mike and El-P drew on a variety of content from their two albums to date—creatively titled “Run the Jewels” and “Run the Jewels 2.” The pair even incorporated a political statement into their set and gave a shout-out to Ireland, which had voted in favor of gay marriage the previous day. Unsurprisingly, the crowd appeared unanimously in favor of their statement, and it was up to Swedish pop singer Tove Lo to scandalize the audience. During “Talking Body,” she briefly flashed the audience—evidently a habit of hers during performances [LINK: http://www.mtv.com/news/2162945/tove-lo-flashed-audience-hangout-fest/]—and elicited cheering only rivaled by the audience response to her performance of her number three single, “Habits (Stay High).” For another artist, such a move may have seemed a somewhat cheap move, but Tove Lo’s evident humor throughout her set as well as her vocal chops and a catchy new song made for a fun and enjoyable performance.
Not so for Gerard Way, former lead singer of quintessential emo band My Chemical Romance, who seemed rather dreary throughout his entire set and so failed to drum up much enthusiasm, despite the apparent preponderance of MCR fans in the crowd. Given that the majority of his fans know him from his former band, Way made somewhat of a faux pas by failing to perform any of his old songs, particularly given that he has only come out with a single solo album since the bank broke up. Fortunately, Marina and the Diamonds, the next performer, more than made up for his bland set. Wearing a matching patterned sports bra and yoga pants, a shimmery bomber jacket, and an enormous headband declaring “Froot” (the title of her most recent album), Marina bounded on stage and connected immediately with her rather large audience, who cheered loudly throughout the entire set and seemed to know all the lyrics to her songs. A talented singer, Marina has also been remarkably successful in constructing for herself a somewhat bizarre persona, particularly since “Froot”; at Boston Calling, her stage was decorated with a colorful backdrop of planets and stars and enormous, blow-up fruits in strange hues.
But no performer on Saturday, or indeed during the entire festival, could match St. Vincent’s wonderful strangeness. She is not only a remarkably talented musician—her guitar playing was some of the best at the festival—but an inspired performer. Throughout her set, she impressively executed robot-like dance moves synchronized tightly with those of one of her keyboardists, Toko Yasuda. Indeed, she appeared to perform as a sort of android character, pretending to “power down” each time the stagehands exchanged her instrument. Though St. Vincent’s repertoire could easily make for a fantastic set if merely played straight, the more offbeat aspects of her performance provided just the right amount of whimsy to complement her unique sound.
After this performance, My Morning Jacket, the day’s final performer, at that point couldn’t be looking to give the best performance of the day, as St. Vincent had already resoundingly claimed that title. Despite their long history—like fellow headliners Beck and The Pixies, they released albums in the 90s—the band focused their set on their two-week old album, “The Waterfall,” and not solely by way of the songs they chose to perform. Drummer Patrick Hallahan’s bass drum was emblazoned with the album cover, and the cover was also projected onto the large screens to either side of the stage before the set began. Around half of the songs the band played were off of “The Waterfall”—rather than simply a move to promote their newest content, this was in fact a wise choice, as their most recent album represents some of their most cohesive and well-constructed work. And the audience responded—though perhaps not as enormous as the crowd that had turned out for Beck and though some of the teenage girls seemed to have left, an impressively large crowd remained at City Hall Plaza into the night to hear My Morning Jacket’s last few songs.
—Staff writer Grace E. Huckins can be reached at grace.huckins@thecrimson.com.
