One Reader Reacts to Desdemona
Cincinnati is looking for responses to Desdemona thanks to the lack of media coverage. I couldn't make it there so I don't have one. Kelly, fresh from Europe, has her thoughts though, and some pictures:
i went to the festival aware of my own biases about cincinnati i was bringing, and tried very hard to let them fall to the wayside and simply enjoy the music. these biases include having been elsewhere than america for the last several years, and the complex range of culture shock that is still settling in after coming back. and i was pleasantly surprised. the stills were fantastic, as well as rogue wave (despite some major technical difficulties). it was nice to see several canadian bands out, including the small sins. they enjoyed the fervor of one single fan rocking out right in front of the stage while everyone else sat mildly in the crowd, even when a band member brought his tambourine with him running up and down the stairs, trying to invoke audience participation. personal note: their drummer lives down the street from my brother (it's a small world in canada). all in all it was a very tame, relatively small but not too small, young crowd. paper airplanes was the only semi-local band that played sunday as far as i know, and they put on a really great set. what might have been slightly disconcerting to them were the two youngsters in their sporting goods chairs set up right in front of the stage, sipping water retrieved from their cupholders. who knows, maybe they were family members. one of the headlining bands, the fiery furnaces, are great performance artists even though i don't quite connect with the music. before the last act played, nick spencer came out on stage to thank everyone and to let everyone know how difficult it was to make the festival happen. he sounded tired but proud of his accomplishment, calling for the crowd to go buy more beer ("drink that shit!") so that he could break even. the most honest moment, perhaps, of the whole evening, was when the lead singer from the stills said, "Cincinnati freaks the hell out of me." i am convinced he meant it in the best, most innocent quebecois way, and it somehow echoes what i was feeling the whole time perfectly.
