This year’s Free Press Summer Fest has been announced, and, wow, I must say I am impressed. Snoop Dogg, The Avett Brothers, Primus, Big Freedia, Danny Brown, Jeff the Brotherhood, Willie Nelson, Clap Your Hands Say Yeah, Flaming Lips (performing Dark Side of the Moon), Wavves, Diplo, Best Coast, Major Lazer, Turquoise Jeep! I’m gonna have a hard time avoiding the miserable Houston heat this summer!
Wednesday night, Big Freedia brought the booty-shaking sissy bounce movement to a mainstream audience via Jimmy Kimmel Live, performing two high-energy New Orleans favorites for all to hear…and see. And believe me, if you’ve never seen a Big Freedia show, you are in store for a pretty exceptional visual stimulation this morning. Just try not to shake your rump, I dare you.
A friend of mine and I were discussing the awesome awesome lineup for Fun Fun Fun Fest this year, and recently, they announced their schedule for our viewing pleasure. My friend was excited, but admitted he knew only a few bands. Where, he wondered aloud, could he find a comprehensive rundown of each band, a sampling of their musical chops, so he could further educate himself before the finest weekend of his year? I assume the Fun Fun Fun website has such a playlist, and they do, and it’s cool, but I wanted to make my own. So every Friday, from now until the fest (that’s nine weeks), I will be posting a playlist for your educational purposes for each stage and day, excluding the Yellow stage, which is mostly comedy.
This week’s playlist covers the bands playing on the Blue (Hip-Hop/Dance) stage on Friday – Fat Tony, Auto Body, Pictureplane, Franki Chan, Black Milk, Omar Souleyman, Big Freedia, YACHT, Spank Rock, Four Tet, and Public Enemy.
Listen to the playlist on Spotify.
Missing From Playlist (not on Spotify yet): DJ Car (Stereo) Wars
My Stage Pick: Public Enemy
Friday’s headliner lineup is pretty great (Passion Pit, Reggie Watts, Danzig Legacy), but there’s no denying the headliner of the whole fest is Chuck D, Flava Flav, and the rest of the crew. Â Do yourself a favor and mosey on over to the Blue stage for a spell and it’s pretty much guaranteed you won’t be disappointed. Â These guys are hip-hop legends for a reason.
This year I made the big move from Lubbock to Austin, and the transformation has done wonders for my live music fix. I should have been writing down all the awesome bands I saw this year (and the years before, for that matter) but alas, hindsight, she is 20/20 once again. I think this post covers the highlights more or less, however. There’s plenty of great live music I saw this year that I’m leaving out, but after the jump, in no particular order, are twelve of the best shows I witnessed in 2010, eleven of them right here in the Live Music Capital of the World.
And for the record, I wanted to put the Sleigh Bells show on here, as fun as it was once they finally started playing, but everyone who attended knows Beauty Bar is at fault for that show’s omission. What a disaster.
