This is the last part of our three-part series on the May 2015 Boston Calling music festival. The previous two parts can be read here and here.
While Saturday’s lineup was oriented toward pop, with artists like MØ, Tove Lo, and Marina and the Diamonds, Sunday put the spotlight on folk and country. Folk band The Ballroom Thieves opened the afternoon’s performances, and country acts The Lone Bellow and Jason Isbell carried the theme into the evening. Saturday’s pop stylings did see an outlet on Sunday in newcomer Halsey, who gave the day’s second performance and made her kinship with Tove Lo evident onstage, calling the artist her “girl” and saying she kept a picture of the previous day’s flashing incident saved on her phone. If Halsey, at 20 years old, is Tove Lo’s younger successor, she is a worthy musician for the job. Her dark-toned pop is reminiscent of that of artists like Grimes and Bat for Lashes; though perhaps not as unique as either of them, she sings her catchy tracks well and with energy. At the cusp of her career, Halsey is looking toward a bright future—perhaps, à la Marina and the Diamonds, she will return to a future Boston Calling to perform later in the day.
In contrast to Halsey, ILOVEMAKONNEN didn’t seem to be the sort of artist to joke around onstage—the quiet, almost sweet persona he projects in interviews was evident during his set, and he seemed earnestly floored by the audience response to his performance. As various think pieces have noted, ILOVEMAKONNEN has adopted a quiet, relatively feminine image that makes him more or less unique in the hip-hop world and has prompted speculation regarding his sexuality, to which he has appropriately refused to respond conclusively, stating such questions to be irrelevant. Though he may not have the onstage intensity of many other rap performers, ILOVEMAKONNEN, who surged to popularity after Drake remixed his track “Club Going Up on a Tuesday,” demonstrated to Sunday’s audience that a rapper with a softened image can easily put on a compelling show.
Soon after, according to Boston Calling’s initial schedule, electronic artist Chet Faker would have performed; due to an injury, however, the planners invited back New York indie pop act Lucius, who had performed at Boston Calling in September 2013. The group—centered around Jess Wolfe and Holly Laessig, a duo of lead singers and best friends— displayed versatility with strong performances that ranged from rock to folk to straight-up indie-pop. The pair was remarkably in sync, and their friendship onstage was charming, particularly when Jess brought a cake onstage for Holly’s upcoming birthday.
TV on the Radio then brought in a surge of momentum to put on one of the best sets of the festival. They proved themselves to be the sort of group one falls in love with live: Though their studio versions are excellent, their tracks seem designed to be performed. Their frequently thick instrumentation—layers of guitars and synthesizers—was capable of filling the open space of City Hall Plaza in a way no other group quite accomplished. And as he sang, lead vocalist Tunde Adebimpe danced about in a wonderfully bizarre fashion, twisting and tangling his arms.
Though in a rather different fashion, Tenacious D, the next group to perform, was equally suited to live performance. Jack Black and Kyle Glass make entertaining music, but the highlights of their set were the moments when they talked or otherwise moved beyond just performing their tracks. Jack Black in particular was absolutely hilarious in every action he took—particularly when he, completely inexplicably, changed from a shirt depicting an enormous panther face into one covered with Targaryen sigils (from George R. R. Martin’s “A Song of Ice and Fire” series) and subsequently into a shirt with a white tiger face. Comedy and extemporaneousness go hand in hand, and so Tenacious D live is the form in which Tenacious D is meant to be heard.
The last artist of the festival, the Pixies, was appropriately placed—they began making music in the ’80s, and so their history exceeds that of any other artist who performed over the weekend. For this reason, some of their songs—“Here Comes Your Man” and “Where Is My Mind”—incited the entire audience to sing along. And this was such an enormous deal of fun that the group can be forgiven for taking somewhat of a cop-out and repeating those songs during their encore. Though the Pixies’ major albums all came out over a decade ago, they sounded mature rather than dated; notably, too, bassist Paz Lenchantin, who only joined the band a couple of years ago, put on a spectacular performance and seemed entirely at home onstage with Black Francis and the other members.
Just before this final performance, Boston Calling’s organizers finally announced the lineup for September’s instance of the festival, which is to be headlined by The Avett Brothers, alt-j, and Alabama Shakes. As indicated by the whoops and cheers that accompanied the announcement of each artist, September should expect quite the audience.
—Staff writer Grace E. Huckins can be reached at grace.huckins@thecrimson.com.
