NYT: Little Steven's Big Crusade (Garage Rock festival, bands old/new - Sat August 14th)

New York Times ^ | Published: August 11, 2004 | By BEN SISARIO

[weegee]

The NY Times fawned over the Strokes in the concert's followup review:

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/08/16/arts/music/16gara.html?8hpib

Such a pointless exercise that I did not even bother to post the article itself to FR. The writings from the forum above give a better sense of the event.

[weegee]

This NY Post article at least gives a little more detail (and it sounds like there will be a DVD of the thing coming out):

GARAGE BORE; MUSIC FEST TOO LONG & TOO MUCH

Dan Aquilante. New York Post. New York, N.Y.: Aug 16, 2004. pg. 041

August 16, 2004 -- THE best thing Steven Van Zandt (Bruce Springsteen's gui tar ace) could have done to make his International Garage Band Festival better would have been: Clean it out.
The show that started at 10:30 a.m. and closed the garage doors almost 12 hours later featured more than 40 bands, most of which couldn't sell out the tiny Mercury Lounge on nickel beer night.

The attempt at Saturday's daylong event to balance quantity (of regional unknown acts and has-beens) and quality end-show headliners (including the Strokes, Iggy Pop & the Stooges, and a reunion of the New York Dolls) ultimately failed.

It was like a four-star dessert after hours of cruel gruel.

The cherry on Saturday's sundae was Iggy Pop's bare-chested, star-powered performance. Mr. Pop came on like gangbusters. From the opening song through his finale he was in constant motion doing the scarecrow-on-fire dance, rolling on the stage, climbing the amps and leaping into the audience.

Movie director Chris Columbus discovered you don't mess with Iggy. The director of lite comedies was filming the concert for video sales. His two camera rigs (each as large as a golf cart) rode on tracks across the lip of the stage, often blocking performers from the audience.

Pop — a people's rocker who encourages anarchy — got annoyed at the intrusion on his stage. He leaped on the camera rig, gripping it with both arms and legs and attempted to shake it to death. A half-dozen techies attended the gadget after Pop's mauling but couldn't revive it. And the other rig, afraid of the same treatment, stayed snuggly parked at stage right for the rest of the show.

Pop's bark was just as good as that bite. While he was excellent in each of the tunes in his set, he really made his mark with the song "I Wanna Be Your Dog."

The audience was fairly unresponsive to the Strokes. The band didn't get a fair shake by the crowd who seemed to act as if the Strokes had no right to be sandwiched between Iggy & the Stooges and the New York Dolls reunion set.

The lack of adoration did seem to frazzle lead singer Julian Casablancas, yet he and his bandmates delivered one of the night's best sets including songs such as "Barely Legal," "Take It or Leave It" and "New York City Cops."

The much-anticipated New York Dolls reunion was a crowd favorite, but with most of the band in the marble orchard, there aren't that many dolls to reunite. Singer David Johansen and guitarist Sylvain Sylvain were the only original Dolls onstage and they dedicated the show to bassist Arthur Kane, who died last month in England.

Johansen looked pretty in pink, but at this point in his career the whole Dolls thing of high-velocity nihilism seems extremely forced. Still, it's forgivable given the band's relevance in rock history.

Nancy Sinatra, one of the oddest balls in the lineup earned the dubious achievement of being the worst of the big-name acts. She was ghastly. The initial thrill of the camp wore off quickly as the wizened singer croaked her way through a short set that felt long.

Like a geriatric in a miniskirt, she has the ill-conceived notion that by singing a Morrissey song she can snag youth appeal. Wrong. The only high point of her set was a version of her one hit — the worn-out "Boots." Then she thankfully walked.

[t_skoz]

Ugh, that's not what I would call a good review. At the show I played on Saturday, there was a band after us who was really good, but it was negated by them being serious a-holes. That is not the way to make friends and get ahead in this biz!