OMG I was there! Front row center bitches! She killed!

what song did she cover towards the end? the one she said she listened to on the way to school... it was amazing.

i love her sneaks...good pics BV.

more pics over at Fresh Bread
http://freshbread.blogs.com/fresh_bread/2007/07/village-voice-s.html#comments

did she cover The Pixies - Where is My Mind?

did she ever find a mic?

I caught Elvis Perkins only. It was a good set, but hindered by not really being the right kind of music to play outdoors by the beach. Seemed like a cool guy too.

she did cover "where is my mind" -- i didn't even realize cause it sounded so different. i hope there's an mp3 of it around.
but she covered some other song -- it was very late 70s synth and she was busting out the cutest dance moves ever.

"i nearly had a siezea/tryin' to get my visa"

I thought M.I.A. was good, but I left because of the bad sound. Just couldn't take it anymore. If the people would have danced, I could have gotten into it more, but everyone just stood still.

the crowd for this was SOOOOOO AWWWWFUL

must have been awesome to be in the press pit

well it's alright that you missed the black lips, as they are and were awful.

Did some kid actually jump on stage and take a giant toke in the middle of the set? I can't really tell what's going on in the pics, but that's sure as hell what it looks like!

Did anyone see Dr Dog?

Did anyone see Dr Dog?

The song is called Jimmy and it's coming out on her new album. She covered Where is my mind... the whole song? I don't think so.

The 'Cover' might have been a new song. The main part of the track was 'Blue Monday'(abiet slowed up, lower, and with M.I.A beats behind it) and if I remember right she rapped during the verses and fell into a few of the Pixie's lyrics during the chorus.

The 'Cover' might have been a new song. The main part of the track was 'Blue Monday'(abiet slowed up, distorted so it hit harder in the lower registers, and with M.I.A beats behind it) and if I remember right she rapped during the verses and fell into a few of the Pixie's lyrics during the chorus.

Dr. Dog's sound was too low -- I didn't think they sounded too great -- and I typically love their stuff.

galang

She totally covered Where Is My Mind. the whole thing. believe it. it was hot.

the highlights of the day for me were elvis perkins (though this was plagued by bad sound) and matt n' kim (though plagued by uninformed mindless hipster political diatribe). everything else was pretty blah to me. this festival is consistently exceedingly poorly organized: poor sound, aggressive coralling by security people, and if you aren't in the first few rows you can't see a thing. Big ups to Matt from Matt n' Kim for mentioning how much the GINORMOUS VIP area sucked. someone told me this was the last siren festival and i can only hope so.

Jimmy is a cover of a song from the film Disco Dancer, it's a 70's/80's bollywood film and the song's called Jimmy Aaja, or Come Jimmy. the beat's pretty much the same, as is the hook, but she raps in english over the verse and the original verses are sung in hindi. youtube Jimmy Disco Dancer, the video's funny.

That drunk girl dancing with MIA in the first pic is in Justice of the Unicorns
http://justiceoftheunicorns.com/

Excellent photos. Re the kid on stage: MIA had asked the people up front, "Where are my dancers at?", encouraging people to come on stage. When that girl took the bait and climbed up there, MIA happened to have her back to her, crossing to stage left and hen she turned around, the fan was being grabbed by security. MIA, who had stopped the show several times to put on more lipstick, drink water, etc, didn't intervene; all it would have taken was a word to security that it was cool, since she's the one who encouraged it, but she looked the other way. And when another fan jumped up to dance immediately after that, security left them alone. Seeing her up close I gotta say I don't think she's really very comfortable on stage. Never get tired of Galang, though.

Matt & Kim and The Black Lips were my favorites. Dr. Dog didn't sound right, they were having sound problems too. Missed M.I.A, Voxtrot was the worst. Would have stayed for Cursive but I got really tired watching an hour of Voxtrot. Overall, it was a really good day of free music.

+1 for Black Lips. Why do dogs have black lips?...

Did anyone else think that MIA's pants were amazing? As well as her dancer's pants, for that matter....

How many poor sequins had to give their lives for that outfit?

The VIP area is needed to take care of the people that pay to put the show on. Newsflash one more time to all you stupid hipsters... Things cost money and not everyone's parents pay for everything. When you go to a free show be it at the pool or Siren or even the Annex. Someone somewhere is paying for it. I would guess Siren fest costs around $500,000 to produce. The weekly pool shows about $100,000 each.
Boo there's ads, boo hoo there's a VIP area, booo.
Stop bitching and pack up and move back to where you came from.

Very nice pics - more at Feast of Music:

http://www.feastofmusic.com/feast_of_music/2007/07/swan-siren-song.html

M.I.A. = perfection

i couldn't deal with the sound (or lack thereof) and all the people pushing and shoving. From where we were we could barely even tell that she was playing, but I just didn't have it in me to make my way up.

She looks amazing, though. thanks for posting the pictures.

to everyone complaining about the bad crowd,the crowd really came alive when the New York Dolls played.Check out this youtube clip someone already posted
http://youtube.com/watch?v=sd6B7EF0Gvs

Overall Siren was a dud. Bad sound, everyone crammed down a street and a so so lineup. I had never seen Matt & Kim before and had heard good things. I thought they were awful. It just goes to show people will hype/listen to anything. MIA was great and the Dolls were cool though. Dolls should have mixed up their set better. They opened with Looking For A Kiss and then played most of their new album and a Janis Joplin cover before playing their 70's classics. I may be the only person to think this but Siren Fest and Coney Island need an overhaul! I would not go back.

what was with Black Lips and the poor chicken?Disgusting.

here is a pic of it from the village voice web site.
http://www.villagevoice.com/gallery/0730,30siren,77293,3.html?pic=16&total=35

this is a bit scatter brained, but:

1. free stuff in NY gets crowded. that's why i've spent most of every siren festival getting drunk or high on the beach.

2. NY crowds don't dance so much. if you are white like me, you have been told repeatably by pop culture that white people are terrible dancers. well fuck, now i've got a complex about dancing. i didn't realize until i was 24 that i'm actually not a bad dancer. certainly not great, but shit, i'm still kinda new at this.

3. people move to NYC from other places. even the native americans came here from somewhere else. snobbishness about being a native new yorker is not very different from saying "close the borders, america is full." (i spotted that on a t shirt a few days ago.) on the other hand, i'm from queens, so for people from brooklyn, manhattan and the bronx, i might as well be from kentucky. and i've been caught talking shit about staten island to a staten islander. (but come on, staten island's main attractions are a landfill and some projects where most of wu-tang are from!)

jjazznola - "MIA was great"

It just goes to show people will hype/listen to anything.

BTW - did anyone else think that the Siren merch was dope this year?

OMG i was there too...i got there like around 6:30pm...i think i missed my favorite song, did she sing "bucky done gun"?? Anyway i spent the whole show trying to get to the front,to see if i could get at least one Nice picture of M.I.A..anyway by the time i got to the middle, she started singing "Galang"...i really enjoyed the concert. What i didn't like was that some people were just standind there...they didnt even know who she was, they were talking about other things...it was very annoying.

By the way, nice pics!!

I was up at front for the first half of M.I.A's set but I got kind of bored with it so I left to go see Voxtrot. There we so many people there to see M.I.A, it was ridiculous! Haha. I loved Black Lips, but the show was nothing like the one on Thursday at Maxwell's, but then again that's an intimate venue. Either way, even if I was kind of disappointed in some of the acts, I still had a good time.

too bad you missed the Noisettes... they rocked

too bad you missed the Noisettes... they rocked

oi, i am fron brazil...i love ´m.i.a..... i love....mia...................................................................love........mia............peace..............in...........the .........world...............and........mia.................my......heart.............i.love....you...!

oi, i am fron brazil...i love ´m.i.a..... i love....mia...................................................................love........mia............peace..............in...........the .........world...............and........mia.................my......heart.............i.love....you...!

kind of unrelated, but does anyone know who designed the huge brightly colored graphic prints of coney island that were postered all over the place?

"I had never seen Matt & Kim before and had heard good things. I thought they were awful. It just goes to show people will hype/listen to anything."

well maybe your first time seeing a band you're psyched about shouldnt be with 100,000 other people outdoors at an event notorious for crappy sound.
see a band in their element, in this case in a warehouse or basement in brooklyn, before you write them off.

siren is no one's element, except maybe dave fucking matthews

"kind of unrelated, but does anyone know who designed the huge brightly colored graphic prints of coney island that were postered all over the place?"

yeah...anyone? those prints kicked ass

easy question...just check the siren website folks!

his name is paul antonson
http://www.paulantonson.com/

very cool stuff...i agree

Those graphic, Warhol-ian/iPod-like prints were created by the developers who are going to ruin Coney Island (luxury apartment builings right next to the Cyclone ?!!!!!!!!!!! Yeah, that'll work). On the bottom right of the prints it reads "The New Coney Island" in white letters. I made the "iPod-like" reference because that's the first thing that came to mind when I saw them.

Whoever posted about Staten Island, don't be surprised if SI becomes the locale for festivals within the next five years, like the Warped Tour for example. Also, they have clubs that also double as live music venues. All they need is a promoter, like Ron Delsner or even Bowery Presents to jump on board.

Did anyone see The Twlight Sad? They were the first band on the main stage. I'm pissed I missed them.

So that means Paul Antonson was commissioned by the developers who are going to ruin Coney Island.

staten island...cmon

bonnaroo will be moved to the south bronx before any promoter ventures into that concrete and gravel wasteland...

check out mtv's true life if you want to see what i mean

anyone know her set list?

In response to Sha-na-na-nomynous... I am staten islander. Fun fact: there are hipsters here too. they're rare of course (I'd gander about 1/10000 of the population or something) but we exist. We go to shows all the time, particularly free ones like siren and mccarren and we have EARS! Mark my words, staten island will become a cool place to live in the next 30 - 50 years. After brooklyn becomes high rent/trendiness because of it's proximity to manhattan staten island will gentrify it's ghettos and become awesome. Hopefully most of the italian-catholic-republicans (that came here from brooklyn anyway) that give staten island it's famous accent will move to new jersey or hell or something. Another fun fact: the SI accent is reasonably rare on the north side of the highway. It's like the mason-dixon line of the island and naturally southerners make the rest look bad.

Just thought I'd share.

As another (cringe) Staten Island hipster, I would venture to parrot the words of my above cohort.

I will also point out that there is so much park space on SI to put shows on and perhaps Ghostface will headline?!?! Hmmmm?, that ain't so bad. Would've cut down on David Johansen's commute time as well.

yeah, staten islanders do have ears. i've had to apologize to staten islanders for this very reason because i was talking to them and talked shit about SI to their faces w/o realizing where they were from. at least staten island has the advantage of being the forgotten borough. people talk shit about queens to my face all the time. generally staten island just kind of flies under their radar.

and as for concerts in parks on staten island: i'm all for it. i live in lower manhattan, about ten mintues on bike to the ferry.

p.s. my cousins are from staten island and now they live in jersey. it's kind of sad that staten island is more like jersey than the rest of NYC because it could be a pretty cool place. that one train you guys have is fucked up.

in response to jjazznola,the New York Dolls played all of the classics i wanted to hear but one-"Subway Train".That would have been a great closer.

Also they are obviously proud of the critical and commercial success the excellent One Day It Will Please Us To Remember Even This has gotten.The NY Dolls still have something fresh and relevant to say about the world today.

Did anyone else catch the two knuckleheads fighting during her set? WTF was that about?

I was there for Twilight Sad. I went down there just for Twilight Sad and MIA, so I made sure to be on time. I ended up right in front and the whole damn front row was 16 year old girls reading Harry Potter who had no idea who Twilight Sad was. And their set was a half hour late. And I think they made them cut their set short to catch up. But they were pretty awesome despite the fact there wasn't actually anyone there and those who were, didn't seem to know what was going on. I also saw Twilight Sad at Knitting Factory several months ago and they seemed as if they'd aged ten years in three months and looked kinda tired, even at one in the afternoon. But what they played was great. He said they'll be back in October.

Just for clarity - I created the illustration for the Siren festival posters, ads, tshirts etc. and a talented designer named Dave Bias did the design of those elements.

I don't know who created the warhol-like posters which were up all over the place.

"staten island will gentrify it's ghettos and become awesome." VOMIT VOMIT VOMIT VOMIT

for the record:

1. all staten island is good for is te nyc fire fighters who live there
2. anyone who readily admits to being a hipster should be shot
3. siren fucking sucked this year
4. the black lips are a terrible terrible thing, best thing about them was their gate hopping fans
5. the v.i.p. section was extended two feet more than it should have been as front row people could clearly see the line where the barricade was suppose to be set.
6. just because you're a originally from the city doesn't make you special.

Anyone who has a problem with someone admitting that they're a hipster takes themselves and way too seriously as to render them completely pretentious and subsequently should be shot.

Geez, anon 10:10 is a big nay sayer. Apparently everyone and everything sucks. i.e. places, people, shows, bands, and sections. Sounds like someone needs a blow job. (or a butt plug)

Most likely a butt plug. 10:10, hate to break it to you but if you're posting something on this site you're a hipster. "For the record."