Sound Advice: A cheaper Radiohead, but pricey wine

No surprises: After the massive success of last year’s Radiohead tribute show, the gang decided to do it again.

Last time, the event capped off a day at the Launch music and arts festival. This time, James Cavern designated it as the official after-party for his own Concert in the Park on May 30. Wristbands from the park meant free entrance to the show, and sure enough, Marilyn’s on K was completely packed shortly after the doors opened.

It’s tough to say if folks were more excited to support the 30 local musicians who joined forces and traded roles all night, or if they just wanted to scream the lyrics to Radiohead songs without paying $90 to actually see Radiohead.

Regardless, there was a lot of Sacto love and pride going around, on and offstage.

Life in 24 Frames opened the show with a few of their own songs—an excellent fit to the sound of the rest of the evening. (To read more about the band, see “The sweet hereafter,” SN&R Music, page 38.) They also played the first Radiohead cover of the night with “How to Disappear Completely.” It delivered.

Musicians cycled in and out, but the hits—and the quality—kept coming: “15 Step,” “Everything in its Right Place,” “No Surprises,” “Street Spirit (Fade Out),” “Karma Police” and so many more.

They weren’t all popular anthems off Radiohead’s most mainstream albums though. Hail to the Thief’s “2 + 2 = 5 (The Lukewarm)” was epic, as was “I Might Be Wrong,” off Amnesiac. Plus an obscure B-side track that I won’t even pretend to know.

Other highlights: “Fake Plastic Trees,” sung by Autumn Sky and Lindsey Pavao, with Joe Kye on violin, was particularly gorgeous. I may now forever think of “Idioteque” as a bumpin’ dance track. At the end, the musicians piled onstage and everyone in the room sang “Creep,” with the microphone circling the crowd. It was a moment of unity that never could have happened at a real Radiohead show—because Thom Yorke refuses to play the song.

And who needs the real Thom Yorke, anyway? We had Saint Solitaire’s Andrew Barnhart, to whom I give the Best Thom Yorke Dance Award.

In complete seriousness, seeing so much talent and collaboration at once was a huge treat—a treat I hope can happen more often. But until then, I’ll wait for next year’s Radiohead tribute show.

Nineties nostalgia and $20 wine: Last year’s inaugural BottleRock Napa festival was an artistic success, but a financial disaster. While bands like Kings of Leon and the Black Keys were paid top dollar and put up in extravagant wine-country digs, mulitple vendors were allegedly stiffed, and the original promoters filed for bankruptcy. They left an unpaid tab of more than $8 million and a general feeling that the festival wouldn’t continue.

Then Napa local David Graham and the Latitude 38 Entertainment group intervened. Long story short, the result was last weekend’s successful reboot with notable headliners such as Outkast, Weezer, Eric Church and the Cure. Better yet, the event was fan-friendly, simple to navigate and boasted a terrifically tempting food garden that featured reasonably priced offerings from Napa’s eateries—well, reasonably priced for Napa, anyway. A nice glass of cabernet ran about $20.

With four stages, music played constantly. Still, prior to the festival’s start, there’d been some carping about the lineup being a little heavy on the ’90s acts. Ultimately, it seemed to satiate festivalgoers. On Friday night, the Cure played a two-and-a-half-hour set and sounded amazing in what was the first of only a handful of scheduled U.S. shows it’ll play in 2014.

Other highlights included Matisyahu surprising the audience by playing a set that almost entirely comprised brand-new songs from his new album Akeda, which at that point had not yet been released. Also, Matt and Kim blew the crowd away with frantic antics and pure enthusiasm.

Outkast may have been the festival’s loudest, but Weezer had a great moment where the sound cut out and the crowd gleefully took over the singing until it came back on. Robert Earl Keen played one of the event’s finest sets. And Sacramento’s Autumn Sky made the most of its opportunity, playing a well-received set early on Saturday.

Going forward, Graham says he wants to keep the festival reasonably sized while constantly improving upon the talent, food and wine offerings. “We are not ever going to bring in 50,000 people even if we could,” the promoter said Saturday, as attendance neared a comfortably crowded 30,000. “It’s about experiencing music on a level [the fans] experience.”