boston-calling-modest-mouse

Modest Mouse, Brand New & more played Boston Calling

by Andrew Sacher

Modest Mouse (via @jo_db)
MM
crowd (via Bryce Larsen)
BC

The May 2014 edition of Boston Calling went down this past weekend. I went on the Sunday (5/25) which, among other things, was a day full of nostalgia and mutual admiration. Brand New thanked Built to Spill and Modest Mouse on stage, saying they wouldn’t be a band without those two groups, and only about an hour later, Modest Mouse also told the crowd they wouldn’t have existed without Built to Spill. All three of those bands haven’t put out new music in roughly five years, and while a festival full of the hottest flavor-of-the-month acts can be exciting, sometimes you just want a stacked lineup of bands playing the songs you know and love.

Earlier in the day Kurt Vile & the Violators did their thing, opening with “Wakin’ On A Pretty Day” on what was undoubtedly a pretty day, and following that 10-ish minute song with more of their lengthier jams, setting what may be the perfect mood for an afternoon in the sun. If there’s any artist right now that you need to see outdoors, it’s Kurt Vile. After Kurt was Built to Spill who were less fit for a huge festival stage than the two artists that paid them tribute later in the day, but still an excellent sounding band. They were more reserved on stage, far from rock stars, but when Doug Martsch ripped guitar solos they were met with cheers from the crowd almost every time, which still only few indie rock bands (like Dinosaur Jr) can pull off.

Brand New (via @mwells05)
Brand New

Then came another fun-in-the-sun set from Phosphorescent, the new megapop version of Tegan & Sara which was actually very solid even if you miss them being a rock band, an over-the-top set from indie pop phonies Bastille, and finally Brand New.

The band may hail from the early 2000s Long Island emo scene, but they got up there sounding closer to Sonic Youth than Taking Back Sunday. Their set was made up entirely of material from their third and best album, 2006’s The Devil and God Are Raging Inside Me, it’s practically equal predecessor Deja Entendu, and its likeminded followup Daisy. (Yes, that means no “Logan to Government Center.”) And sure, it would’ve been nice to hear “Jude Law” or “Seventy Times Seven,” but it felt like an artistic decision to omit those songs, not a diss at their fans. They’re now a heavy, noisy rock band who were legitimately intense on stage. Even the Deja songs like “Sic Transit Gloria” and “Okay I Believe You, But My Tommy Gun Don’t” were fleshed out with the feedback that fills their later albums. And if you’re wondering just how hard Brand New goes these days, during set-closer “You Won’t Know,” Vinnie Accardi threw his guitar 30 feet in the air (twice), crashed a cymbal with it, and used a stage lamp as a slide.

Then Modest Mouse took the stage for what would be the second of three times this year the two bands play back to back. (They co-headlined a Cooperstown show a day earlier and will co-headline a Queens show in August.) That may sound like a weird double bill, but it worked so well. After being pushed around and squeezed in like sardines for Brand New’s aggressive set, the crowd was looser for Modest Mouse, and broke out into a sea of Deadhead dancers at least once (during “Bukowski). Relatively speaking they were more laid back for most of the set, but not in a lazy way. Most of these songs may be over ten years old (the set was most Good News For People Who Love Bad News plus a few from each other album), but Modest Mouse really delivered like they meant it. I last saw Modest Mouse at Orion Fest in 2012, and their Boston Calling set easily blew that one away. A picture of Modest Mouse’s setlist (which they didn’t 100% stick to) and few more pics from the fest, below.

The bi-annual Boston Calling happens again in September with The National, Neutral Milk Hotel, The Replacements, Nas x The Roots, Spoon, The Hold Steady and more. Tickets for that one are on sale now.

A few more pics and a couple videos from the May Boston Calling below…

Modest Mouse – “The World at Large” at Boston Calling, May 2014

Brand New – “You Won’t Know” (clip) at Boston Calling, May 2014

Phosphorescent (via @mwells05)
Phos

Built to Spill (via @mwells05)
BTS

Kurt Vile (via @mwells05)
KV

Modest Mouse setlist (via Boston Calling Instagram)
MM