The rain sliced through the amphitheater behind a wicked wind, the lights from the stage dancing like ghosts in a wayward waterfall while a Jolly Roger flag near the drum kit conjured visions of a sinking ship. Lightning crashed on every side. Then the lights, public address system and amplifiers gave out. The H.O.R.D.E. festival, with 11 bands performing Sunday at the World Music Theatre, was under siege and about to close early for business.
But Neil Young and Crazy Horse, the band with the misfortune of being onstage when nature started pushing in the doors, pushed back. In the darkness, illuminated only by a couple of candles, Young, Frank Sampedro and Billy Talbot hunched at the waist and tore at their guitar strings, as if willing them back to life. This was the kind of reckless, electrocution-defying act that thumbed its nose at reason and reduced observers to giddy laughter born of disbelief, followed by passionate shouts of encouragement that cut through the shattering wind and rain.
After a few minutes of this windswept theater, power was restored, if only partially. The PA was blown, and a couple of speakers were set up on either side of the band. Instead of a big outdoor rock concert, the scene was more like a community sing-along in an underground bunker.
“You are like a hurricane . . . and I’m getting blown away,” Young wailed in the song du jour, while water cascaded down the aisles and thunder crackled as if on cue. For those thousands of listeners left shivering in the pavilion, the wind raising goose bumps underneath soaked T-shirts and blouses, an otherwise fine but ordinary concert had become something extraordinary–scary, blissful and life-affirming all at once. Talk about raging against the dying of the light.
Bunched together on the stage like truckers at a bar, Young and the three grizzled members of Crazy Horse explored the spooky contours of “Tonight’s the Night” and “Down By the River,” then blew the lid off their tiny replacement speakers on “Powderfinger” and the so-dumb-it’s-great “Piece of Crap.”
Young spoke exactly two words: “Nice night.” He waved and was gone, ending a long day that had begun eight hours before, when he serenaded early arrivals with a brief acoustic set on a small stage set up near one of the entry gates. He was joined by Blues Traveler’s John Popper, a founder of the six-year old H.O.R.D.E. (Horizons of Rock Developing Everywhere) festival.
Though unscheduled to perform, the jolly Popper and his safari hat, muttonchop sideburns and ebullient harmonica playing were everywhere. His festival originally was dominated by hard-touring bands that relied on improvisation and instrumental chops to woo audiences, and Popper remains a believer in the beauty of the impromptu jam as he guested on sets by Morphine and Leftover Salmon as well as with Young.
Such jamming can open a window to transcendence or to a 55-story free fall. A distinctive splat! could be heard when Popper, Primus bassist Les Claypool and keyboardist John Medeski, of the instrumental trio Medeski Martin & Wood, joined Morphine for some free-style soloing on the small stage. The lugubrious midtempo pace had everyone walking on egg shells, and rather than lifting off, the music kept unraveling, held together by a masking-tape bass line or a harmonica-riff bandage but little else.
After shaking off the extra baggage a few hours later, Morphine delivered a typically swaggering, finger-snapping set on drums, sax and two-string slide bass before the rain drove them off. They followed a number of workmanlike but unspectacular performances by Push@ Down and Turn, New York art-punk trio Cake Like, post-hippie band Leftover Salmon, British popsters Kula Shaker, Toad the Wet Sprocket, and Primus. Much more impressive were jazzy instrumental combo Medeski, Martin & Wood, and the Ben Folds Five, actually a North Carolina trio, augmented by a string quartet.
The lanky Folds pounded his grand piano over sledgehammer bass riffs, and like a demented auto mechanic reached underneath the hood of his instrument to pluck the strings. With such avant-garde touches colliding head-on with falsetto harmony vocals, the Ben Folds Five turned its sarcastic ditties into rollicking roller-coaster rides through ’70s pop, ’80s arena-rock and ’90s postpunk.
The king of that sort of mix-and-match style hopping, however, was clearly Beck, whose deconstructionist soul revue radiated charm that steered clear of camp with its feel-good energy. But it was the captivating, no-boundaries-allowed musicality that affirmed the singer’s wide-screen vision, from solo-acoustic Dylanisms to hip-hop party-meister sloganeering: “Ya got to regulate!” “Bottles and cans, just clap your hands!” The audience was glad to oblige.
The blond, boyish singer sported a white suit and tie and later a rhinestone cowboy outfit, as he whipped through knee drops, splits, pop-and-lock disco steps and the funky chicken. He bantered like a soul emcee from the ’60s, while his music tossed funky grooves, folk melodies, western twang and sucker-punch melodies into a blender.
It was a standout set. And had it not been for a storm and one band’s refusal to succumb to it, it would have been the one to savor.
