Siren Music Festival 2008: Ra Ra Riot, Jaguar Love, Times New Viking, Annuals, The Dodos

Siren Music Festival 2008: Ra Ra Riot, Jaguar Love, Times New Viking, Annuals, The Dodos
@ Coney Island
Brooklyn, NY - July 19, 2008

The location of SPHQ makes for a quick report from this year's heat-drenched, over-stuffed, poorly laid-out Coney Island affair. Let's do it in order of the bands seen.

It was hard to tell whether the poor Main Stage sound system was at fault for not hearing the Dodos or if it was the Dodos themselves. I couldn't tell when they stopped or started playing a song. Nor did it sound like anything of shape was coming out anyway. Once I saw the Xylophone being played on what seemed like mute, I decided to check out Annuals over at the Stillwell Stage.

Annuals' indie pop sounded pretty decent for the few minutes that I caught. No complaints here except that I wanted to check out Times New Viking AND get a Warriors t-shirt from the surf shop so I had to go.

A t-shirt, a lamb/chicken/rice platter, and a walk later, it was time for Times New Viking. The first batch of songs sounded peppy, highly spirited, and not too dissimilar from Titus Andronicus. And everyone was having a good time including all the big sunglasses wearing hipsters, the shirtless men (of which there were enough to constitute their own demographic), and the annoying beach ball throwers. After a bit however, the band started to sound a bit redundant and sloppy, and the personal space was also becoming a bit eradicated, so it was time for another trip to the Stillwell Stage.

After about a full minute, I had enough of Jaguar Love. I don't quite know what the hell that was but it wasn't the band that made "Bats Over The Pacific Ocean", no sir.

Back at the Main Stage for the last time, it was time to settle in for Ra Ra Riot and Islands.

Ra Ra Riot probably sounds pretty darn good in a nice, small, well-spaced venue with adequate temperature. Their sweet, well-crafted orchestral rock sounds are more down home in spirit than they are proggy, but there is still something vaguely classical about them and it's a good thing. But alas, the poor sound system at the Main Stage struck again and the band became drowned out in a chorus of hipster talk, Cyclone screams, an echo chamber, some kind of a speaker sound delay in the back, and various Astroland cacophonies. Shade had begun to win out the day over the heat but it wasn't enough, and old Pennypacker had to pack it in and forgo a listen to Islands.