By Jesse Cataldo
Considering how Brooklyn’s music scene is thriving these days, it would be expected that any festival that represented the entire borough would be a large scale affair, spanning two or three days and covering a good amount of precious Brooklyn grass.
Therefore, many would be surprised to hear that the Third Annual Brooklyn Rock Festival was actually held Sept. 4 with little fanfare, spread only by wordof-mouth and a few scant Internet postings. Even more surprising was the location of the event that turned out to be a cramped square of junkyard space in the Williamsburg section.
Despite the setting, the festival, presented by Mighty Ones and Twisted, boasted an eclectic bill, headlined by Providence duo Lightning Bolt and local upstarts Liars. The junkyard, located on Kent Street between Grand and North First Street, was crowded with welldressed twenty-somethings sipping Pabst and three beaten-up vans that may or may not have been property of the bands. People lined up outside the high walls of the junkyard, listening in for free while onlookers caught the show from apartment rooftops across the street.
The festival officially began at 2 p.m. with a performance by Washington natives Shoplifting. They were followed by local band Sightings, who played a deconstructed form of basic rock ‘n’ roll which drew elements from noise and art rock. The Panthers, a politically charged old-school punk band from the Brooklyn area, went on next.
The Liars took the stage a little after 5 p.m. with a flurry of activity from lead singer Angus Andrew, who donned a feathery mask and flowing white robe with matching pants. The band, which also included guitarist Aaron Hemphill and percussionist Julian Gross, played a set of material culled from their latest album They Were Wrong So We Drowned. The album is a haunting exercise in gloomy but danceable beats and witchcraft-themed lyrics. Combining the post-punk of early 80s acts such as Gang of Four with modern electronic implements, the Liars pulled at and remolded their songs, stretching out long periods of static noise crested by skittering electronic beats and pounding off beat drum work. Andrew, a native of Australia, took advantage of these moments to caper and sway about the stage, at some points climbing atop one of the vans where the crew videotaped the performance.
Headliners Lightning Bolt, notorious for both its intense volume and its refusal to play on an actual stage, appeared amid the crowd only minutes after Liars had left the stage. The band is made up of drummer Brian Chippendale and bassist Brian Gibson, who plays wildly oscillating bass riffs disguised as guitar by some clever tuning and torrents of thick distortion. Plugging in and tuning in moments, the band quickly launched into its unique brand of distorted guitar jazz, marked by impossibly complex drum beats seasoned with a tribal flavor. Chippendale somehow managed to perform with a microphone firmly planted in his throat, letting loose a stream of unintelligible noise which flowed over the music like a third instrument. The normally reserved hipster crowd went wild during the performance, putting the band at the eye of a furious swirling hurricane with only a towering stack of amplifiers to protect them.
The festival acted as a small but diverse sample of independent music from Brooklyn and beyond. However, the event paled in comparison to this summer’s Siren Festival, which not only boasted over a dozen bands but also no entrance fee and the prime location of the Coney Island shoreline. Still, the show served as a welcome outdoor diversion from the usual barbecues and pool parties of the Labor Day weekend
The band Liars was the premiere group at the Sept. 4 Brooklyn Rock Festival as theyperformed in front of a large crowd. (Jesse Cataldo)
Lightning Bolt made a fantasic appearance with its volume and persona at the BrooklynRock Festival. (Image courtesy www.laserbeast.com)