All the Day Holiday

All the Day Holiday kicked things off just after noon with selections from The Things We’ve Grown to Love, the band’s stellar debut full-length released on Linc Star Records last year. Opening with the airy “Cheers (You Still Love Me)”, the four-piece explored intricate and spacious melodies but remained grounded by the rock-solid percussion of drummer Mark Ventura. The band’s soaring vocals were provided only by rhythm guitarist Daniel Simmons, who managed to sound not only pitch-perfect throughout the set but also enormous — it’s hard to believe no one else is contributing backing harmonies. “Cities” closed the band’s excellent set, and before the clock even struck 1PM the bar was already set high for remaining bands.

Cheers (You Still Love Me)
Autumn
Real Time
Greener
2000 Winters
Cities

Steel Train

New Jersey natives Steel Train took the Skate and Surf Stage next, though it was unfortunately difficult to hear the band for most of the set, making normally-solid songs such as “Firecrackers” and “Kill Monsters in the Rain” a chore to listen to. Even a cover of “Dancing in the Dark”, which should have been a great moment being performed right outside Giants Stadium (the de facto home of Bruce Springsteen) was tough to get into. The band closed with a brand new song from their upcoming album and failed to connect with the crowd during their thirty minute set.

(Unidentified song)
Turnpike Ghost
Firecrackers
Dancing in the Dark (Bruce Springsteen cover)
Alone on the Sea
Kill Monsters in the Rain
(New song)

fun.

Following Steel Train’s set, frontman Jack Antonoff raced to the Sony Stage to perform with his other band, fun. The six-piece began with “Walking the Dog” but didn’t fall into rhythm until their second song, “I Wanna Be the One”. Excellent harmonies anchored pop-masterpiece “All the Pretty Girls”; “Barlights” had the crowd singing along to the band’s bouncy beats. Frontman Nate Ruess gave one of the best performances of the entire weekend, but the band inexplicably cut their set short and closed with “At Least I’m Not as Sad (As I Used to Be)”.

Walking the Dog
I Wanna Be the One
All the Pretty Girls
Barlights
At Least I’m Not as Sad (As I Used to Be)

MC Chris

While taking a break from the excessive heat, I caught geek-rapper MC Chris on the Zumiez South Stage. Aside from plugs about his association to Aqua Teen Hunger Force, MC Chris’s set included cuts across his decade-spanning discography including “Drinkin’ Blunts”, “Wiid is By My Side”, “Nrrrd Grrrl”, “006″, and “Fette’s Vette”. Certainly not an act to take seriously, the performance would have been much more enjoyable if the geek-rapper didn’t rely so heavily on sampling throughout his set — it wasn’t just choruses, even verses were piped in with MC Chris just rapping along with himself on tape.

Polar Bear Club

Upstate New York’s Polar Bear Club played at 2:45 on the side stage to a fairly small crowd. Frontman Jimmy Stadt poured his heart into the set, which drew across both of their full-length albums but focused primarily on Chasing Hamburg, the band’s sophomore effort released by Bridge Nine Records in 2009. Songs like “Another Night in the Rock”, “Boxes”, “Election Day”, and “Burned Out in a Jar” showcased the band’s blend of melodic hardcore and post-hardcore rock. “Living Saints”, the band’s latest single, finished Polar Bear Club’s enjoyable set.

Good Old War

Good Old War played next on the Zumiez North Stage, opening with “Window” from their 2008 debut, Only Way To Be Alone. “Weak Man” was well-performed, and “Breaking Down”, a rare cut found on a split with Cast Spells, was an interesting surprise. “Coney Island”, the band’s very first single, received deservedly roaring applause. Anchored by the band members’ excellent voices and complementing harmonies, Good Old War somehow manages to sound even better in a live environment than they do on their excellent studio output.

Good Old War

Guitarist Dan Schwartz switched between an electric guitar and an acoustic guitar throughout the set; Tim Arnold’s keys and additional guitar fleshed out the surprisingly big sound the Philadelphia three-piece creates. Good Old War’s self-titled album, for sale in June, contributed three songs to the band’s solid eight-song setlist, including “My Own Sinking Ship”, which featured drummer Tim Arnold stepping out from behind the kit and playing accordion.

Window
Weak Man
Breaking Down
I Should Go
Looking for Shelter
Here Are the Problems
Coney Island
My Own Sinking Ship

Minus the Bear

Minus the Bear took the stage at 4:40PM, beginning with two cuts from 2007′s Planet of Ice: “Knights” and “Throwin’ Shapes”. “Pachuca Sunrise” was enjoyable, and Omni lead single “My Time” sounded great. Indeed, the Seattle five-piece sounded crisp and experienced during their seven-song setlist. Unfortunately, though, song selection left much to be desired with new, unreleased (and largely unheard) songs taking up about half of the band’s set time. Thankfully, the band dug back to their debut full-length (the exciting Highly Refined Pirates) to close their set with “Absinthe Party at the Fly Honey Warehouse”.

Knights
Throwin’ Shapes
Into the Mirror
Pachuca Sunrise
Hold Me Down
My Time
Absinthe Party at the Fly Honey Warehouse

Motion City Soundtrack

Motion City Soundtrack‘s set began as it has since the release of the excellent My Dinosaur Life, with Justin Pierre reciting the album’s first lines: “It’s been a good year, a good new beginning / I’m through with the old school, so let’s commence the winning / I’ve been a good little worker bee / I deserve a gold star”, but on drummer Tony Thaxton’s cue the band quickly abandoned “Worker Bee” and cut straight into I am the Movie‘s “The Future Freaks Me Out”. The crowd was hardly phased by the transition and was actually quite ready to sing along to every word of the old favorite. “My Favorite Accident”, another song from the band’s quirky 2002 debut, quickly followed and Pierre had the crowd in his palm.

Motion City Soundtrack

Current-single “Her Words Destroyed My Planet” briefly slowed things down, but the song’s infectious chorus soon had the crowd bouncing around once again. Even at the band’s weakest moments — Even if it Kills Me cuts “This is for Real” and “Broken Heart” — Motion City Soundtrack still outperformed most of the day’s acts. At their best, such as on Commit This to Memory tracks “Attractive Today” and set-closer “Everything is Alright”, Motion City Soundtrack is punk-pop perfection.

Motion City Soundtrack

The Minnesota six-piece’s Moog-powered set flew by, even though the band performed for thirty-five minutes across ten songs. It was good to see newer songs like “A Lifeless Ordinary (Need a Little Help)” and “Disappear” making the cut, even if it meant pushing out former festival staples such as “Throwdown” and “Capital H”. Pierre was clearly losing his voice by the penultimate “L.G. Fuad”, but the band’s intimate connection with the crowd carried Motion City Soundtrack to the finish line.

The Future Freaks Me Out
My Favorite Accident
Her Words Destroyed My Planet
This is for Real
Attractive Today
A Lifeless Ordinary (Need a Little Help)
Broken Heart
Disappear
L.G. Fuad
Everything Is Alright

Mutemath

Louisiana’s Mutemath began with drummer Darren King duct-taping headphone monitors to his head, allowing him go rock out as hard as he wanted while still hearing the foldback. The tactic proved not to be strictly theatrical — on “The Nerve”, the first song from their latest effort, Armistice, King flailed around on the kit and barely kept the adhered headset in place. The album’s title track followed before Mutemath played a lengthy instrumental, “Reset”, from the band’s debut EP of that same name.

Mutemath

A plethora of instruments found their way into frontman Paul Meany’s hands, including a keytar and a homemade device known only as “The Atari”. Singles “Typical” and “Spotlight” were the biggest crowd pleasers, and the band wrapped things up with a fairly lengthy rendition of “Break the Same”.

The Nerve
Armistice
Reset
Typical
Spotlight
Break the Same

Piebald

To promote a series of reissues, Piebald reunited for Bamboozle to play all of their 2002 full-length, We Are the Only Friends We Have, unquestionably the band’s strongest album. “King of the Road” started the nostalgic trip down memory lane with frontman Travis Shettel recounting the band’s status circa 2002: “Andy went back to school, he got sick of Newbury Comics / Aaron still rides a lot, except now he’s just fatter / Alex took over for Alex Van Halen, after his major surgery / Jon, well, he got married to Laura and I teach their kid in first grade”. And with those opening lines Piebald was off to the races, attempting to fit the entire album into a brief time slot on the Zumiez North Stage.

Piebald

Spoiler alert, Piebald rolled through everything but “It’s Going to Get Worse Before it Gets Better” in front of an audience almost exclusively filled with fans old enough to legally consume alcohol — the first and only time such a crowd would assemble all weekend. Everyone pushed to the front for a chance to share the microphone on fan-favorites like “Just a Simple Plan” and “American Hearts”; The Hope Conspiracy’s Jim Carroll filled in on guitar for part of the set, allowing Shettel to leap into the crowd as necessary.

Piebald

By the time album-closer “Sex Sells and (Unfortunately) I’m Buying” ended, two things became readily apparent. It was obvious that Piebald was a fun, personal band that can put on an extremely high-energy and engaging performance. However, it was also clear that Piebald never again approached the high bar set with We Are the Only Friends We Have during the remainder of their career. This made the one-off Bamboozle set even sweeter: a great live band performing only their greatest material.

King of the Road
Just a Simple Plan
American Hearts
Long Nights
Fear and Loathing on Cape Cod
The Monkey Versus the Robot
Karate Chops for Everyone But Us
Rich People Can Breed
The Stalker
Look, I Just Don’t Like You
Sex Sells and (Unfortunately) I’m Buying

Kevin Devine

Kevin Devine and the Goddamn Band had the difficult task of following Piebald. “Cotton Crush” started things off on the right foot, and “Just Stay” finds Devine at his best, but the noisy noodling on tracks from his latest effort, Brother’s Blood, is just self-indulgent and largely unenjoyable. “Carnival” is too long, too unguided; “Another Bag of Bones” and “Brother’s Blood” would have been great in a more focused, even acoustic, attack. Devine routinely leaves his backing band behind, it’s unfortunate that this was not the case at Bamboozle: the singer-songwriter is one of the genre’s best, and he is a much better live act alone with his just his guitar.

Cotton Crush
I Could Be with Anyone
Carnival
Another Bag of Bones
Just Stay
Brother’s Blood

Girl Talk

On the opposite end of the parking lot, mashup artist Gregg Gillis — Girl Talk — was throwing a massive dance party. Seamlessly combining classic rock and modern pop hits, Girl Talk had the entire Sony Stage singing and dancing for forty minutes. Not content with spinning just his records, Girl Talk’s live show is a mash of the familiar tunes found on his albums and also a ton of other radio favorites. Girl Talk executes like a veteran DJ, feeling the crowd and adjusting the mixes appropriately, all while inviting dozens of fans on stage with him to dance along and, interestingly, to fire toilet paper into the crowd. Pool toys and other inflatable devices were launched into the audience near the set’s end, and, after forty minutes of nonstop dancing, grinding, and crowd-surfing, the general consensus was exhaustion — and a desire for much, much more.

Weezer

Following a set by MGMT, Weezer closed out the Bamboozle weekend. The hard-hitting “Hash Pipe” went first, followed by the comedic yet ridiculously catchy “Troublemaker”. Frontman Rivers Cuomo was genuinely entertaining through the entire set, even running through the crowd and high-fiving fans before climbing up the soundtent rafters behind the crowd. Weezer’s world-wide tour experience shows: the band understands how to make going to a concert a truly enjoyable experience.

Weezer

Two cuts from the band’s masterpiece, 1994′s “blue album”, went back to back: surprise radio-hit “Undone – The Sweater Song” received adlibbed interludes; “Surf Wax America” is an an absolute blast in a live environment. When the band moved into their newer material they did so with grace, selecting only the strongest cuts such as “Let It All Hang Out”. While the band’s newer material is not quite up to the standards set with albums like Pinkerton, it is quite enjoyable in concert.

Weezer

“Dope Nose”, from the criminally under-appreciated Maladroit, was an awesome surprise; bassist Scott Shriner provided lead vocals on the rare cut. “Why Bother?”, another rare song, also made the setlist with guitarist Brian Bell singing instead of Cuomo. “Say It Ain’t So” was absolutely massive and received an enormous applause from the crowd. “Can’t Stop Partying” wonderfully mocked the current auto-tune/dance genre. “(If You’re Wondering If I Want You To) I Want You To” is the best song Weezer has written in five years and was one of the night’s highlights.

Weezer

Things wrapped up with a great performance of “My Name is Jonas” and a crowd singalong to “Beverly Hills”. The band returned for their first encore with riffs of Van Halen’s “Hot for Teacher”, and “Pork and Beans” was solid, but a shaky cover of MGMT’s “Kids” (with parts of Lady Gaga’s “Poker Face”) dented an otherwise top-notch set. MGMT had just performed the song an hour earlier — did it need another treatment?

Weezer

The second encore began with Cuomo looping parts of “Island in the Sun” together and performing the song — drum, bass, and guitars included — by himself until the chorus. It’s definitely a strange way to perform the song, but it offered the crowd a different take on a decade-old song. Weezer closed the set properly by reaching back into their 1994 debut and tearing through “Buddy Holly”.

Hash Pipe
Troublemaker
Undone – The Sweater Song
Surf Wax America
Let It All Hang Out
Perfect Situation
Dope Nose
Say It Ain’t So
Can’t Stop Partying
Why Bother?
(If You’re Wondering If I Want You To) I Want You To
My Name is Jonas
Beverly Hills
Pork and Beans
Kids (MGMT cover)
Island in the Sun
Buddy Holly

Weezer finished the Bamboozle festival on a high note, leaving everyone excited for the possibilities of next year’s lineup. A reunion set from Piebald in addition to superb sets from Motion City Soundtrack,  Good Old War, All the Day Holiday, and Girl Talk were great parts of the day. I unfortunately missed MGMT, The Dear Hunter, and Moving Mountains — evidence of the number of quality bands playing Sunday afternoon. As the parking lot emptied, it was evident that it is hard to find a better two-day experience on the east coast for contemporary punk and indie influenced rock and roll.

All photographs by the excellent Dan Gonyea.

With the poor weather, I arrived late and regrettably missed Reubens Accomplice and most of Limbeck’s set. Fortunately, I did catch Steel Train, a band I’ve never taken much interest in. Ignorantly, I wrote them off as one of the countless generic, uninspired Drive-Thru Records bands that seem to plague the Garden State. Tonight, however, I caught the band live and am ready to give this band a solid listen after a stellar live performance. Songs included “Firecracker” and “Kill Monsters In The Rain”, though I’m not too familiar with their catalog to document exactly what they played. Setting the bar extremely high, however, I was ready to see how Piebald would stack up.

There’s something to be said about Piebald, but it’s hard to pinpoint exactly what words describe the act from Andover, Massachusetts (though I’m going to rely heavily here on using their standout track, 2000′s “American Hearts” as a focal point). With hardcore origins that progressed into emocore/indie, Piebald became a band that appealed to a wide variety of people–notably outside the mainstream, however, until the aforementioned single saw some airplay on MTV (the song’s line “[America] has broken my American heart” was inspiration for California’s No Way Out changing their name to My American Heart).

Still, the band saw no mainstream success and just a few days before this stop on the tour, Piebald announced they would be breaking up by the end of the month and that their final dates in August would be the band’s last. It’s not surprising that on a night filled with pop acts, very few in the crowd would appreciate the band’s final tour–Piebald never appealed to the casual listener, despite being heavily respected in underground music.

Tonight, however, Piebald performed an excellent farewell set (though making no mention of their breakup the entire evening), easily outperforming the opening acts and even headliners The Format, who always play an excellent set. The band played a nice selection of old and new, and the few Piebald fans in attendance certainly helped liven the crowd up during the band’s harder songs. During their set (and most notably “American Hearts”) the band poured their entire souls into the music and showcased exactly what is missing from the modern punk-pop/emocore scene: heart. Many similar punk-pop and pop-rock acts are now seeing heavy MTV play, but they’re missing Piebald’s American Heart.

The Format brought great supporting acts and certainly had their work cut out for them taking the stage as the final band of the evening, but the Arizona natives are known for their tremendous live show. Sadly, the band’s song selection suffered: eight tracks from Dog Problems were played, but the band missed out on four of the album’s key songs in “Matches”, “I’m Actual”, “Time Bomb”, and “If Work Permits”. This is unfortunate, since the band selected some of the weaker cuts from Dog Problems instead and chose many from their far inferior debut, Interventions and Lullabies. The full set:

Pick Me Up
The First Single
Wait, Wait, Wait
Give It Up
Oceans
Dog Problems
Tune Out
Dead End
Janet
On Your Porch
Tie The Rope
The Compromise
Inches and Falling
I’m Ready, I Am
Snails
She Doesn’t Get It

“Inches and Falling” was a last minute addition, inspired by a fight the band had to interrupt midway through their set. Acknowledging themselves as “weak pussy pop music”, the band belittled two kids in the crowd who decided moshing through “Oceans” was a good idea.

The Format perform their songs perfectly: they actually sing in key and don’t get sloppy with their instruments. Poor song selection aside (it really does hurt to see the first quarter of Dog Problems missing entirely and replaced with average tracks from Interventions and Lullabies), the band put on an excellent performance and showcased why they are such a respected pop / pop-rock act. Highlights of the night included “The Compromise” and “The First Single”, crowd-pleasers that got the audience dancing. Title track “Dog Problems” is clearly one of the band’s finest achievements, and the band certainly did justice live to the Queen-sounding song.

It’s easy to recommend this tour with an amazing act like The Format headlining, but with Piebald’s farewell and solid openers like Limbeck and Steel Train, this is a must-see summer tour to close out August. Goodbye Piebald, you will be missed.