Fun Fun Fun Fest Sunday: Part 1
3 days flew as quickly as the fun times we had at Fun Fun Fun Fest. Regardless, Austin was the hot spot this weekend for all music lovers. We are sad to see it end, but here’s a little reminiscing of what went down yesterday. Did you see Slayer? The Sexy Saxophone Man? Did you eat tacos?
OBN III’s
When Orville Bateman Neeley III and crew hit the black stage, not a lot of the attendees knew what to expect. While Sunday was definitely the most crowded day, the majority of those one-day pass holders were just there to see a headliner. For those liluns that were only expecting rioutous feets out of Tyler, The Creator and Slayer, OBN III put up their middle fingers and gave a real punk show.
Within the second song, Neeley was repairing his mic with neon-green duct tape from his frenzied stage. If the band couldn’t get a wild reaction out of the crowd, Neeley took a lot of time interacting with the photographers by jumping into the media pit or violently screaming into cameras. At one point while standing in the media pit, he stared directly into the eyes of an attendee who seemingly expected a punk show where everyone would play nice. Neeley finished off the confrontation by giving the guy a high-five and saying, “We just became friends on Facebook, how about that?”
Keeping the quota of rebellion to a maximum, Neeley dedicated a song by exclaiming that it was “for the kids. Not the old people, because they always get what the want.” Thankfully the namesake of the band wasn’t the only one pulling levers to operate the delinquent machine. During “Get Off Yer Knees,” guitarist Jason Smith turned on his elvis legs and rubbed his guitar strings on a nearby amp for a haunting effect. Finishing off with “If The Shit Fits,” Neeley ripped off his belt, used it as a whipe, and as the final song ended, tied the belt around his neck as a noose and proceeded to roll his eyes back and pretend to choke. If anyone in the crowd expected just another garage band, their expectations were surely demolished as OBN III provided a punk-rock high strong enough to inspire immaturity and rebellion for several days to come.
Grimes
Grimes enchanted and mystified midday audiences at the blue stage this Sunday. She was joined by one male dancer, staying true to her minimalist style while attempting to add more interactivity to her show. With witch house inspired beats and bass that force movement in the audience, Claire Boucher’s performance was much more organized and confident than previous appearances. With such a wide vocal range, her lisp and angelic high notes create a fascinating combination, particularly in contrast to her shatteringly low bass lines.
During hit “Vanessa”, Bouchers’ male dancer ran to the middle of the crowd and created a strangely avante garde dance circle. It was a rare occurrence this weekend that stage members actually went into the crowd, so this outburst definitely helped loosen up the otherwise fairly stiff audience. With repetitive lyrics “sleep in the day and dance in the night”, it’s easy to see where Grimes derives her inspiration from; this refined club music will likely take her to deservingly new heights.
Nobunny
It seemed like the crowd knew what they were in for while waiting for Nobunny, judging by the level of excitement that surrounded the stage. The band, fronted by a bunny-masked Justin Champlin (AKA Nobunny), were met with shrieks of joy as they walked onstage.
Nobunny was dressed in his typical outrageous fashion, wearing striped Fruit of the Loom briefs and a tattered leather jacket, with his matted blonde hair poking out from behind his bunny mask. Crazy-eyed and on a mission, Nobunny jumped across the stage, slapping his face with the microphone while singing to the band’s catchy garage pop tunes.
The crowd erupted for “I Am A Girlfriend” and “Chuck Berry Holiday”, while Nobunny egged them on, flashing his butt at the crowd and sticking the microphone into his underpants.
Nobunny’s antics didn’t stop there. He poured a bottle of water down the front of his underwear, and then stuck the crushed bottle down inside it.
After dancing around with a water bottle in his underwear for a bit, he took it out and sprayed the crowd with the “crotch water”, something that was highly appreciated by the laughing crowd.
One of the last songs Nobunny performed was a cover of Hunx and His Punx’s “You Don’t Like Rock & Roll”, a song that he co-wrote with the band. The crowd laughed and danced as Nobunny sang “You don’t like rock and roll, and I don’t like you!”, while hitting himself in the head with the microphone.
Baths
Baths is the project of solo man, Will Wiesenfeld. By listening to Baths, one could easily mistake the project to be purely digitalized, yet live, this proves to be quite the contrary. As Wiesenfeld took the stage, he assured that it was going to be a good night ahead at the Blue Stage.
Working through various tracks off both Cerulean and Pop Music/False B-Sides, Baths had the crowd engaged as soon as the mic check was going. The vocal range between “Aminals,” “Lovely Bloodflow,” and “Flux” highlighted Wiesenfeld’s vocal talents. He wanted everyone to have fun, and Baths’ encouragement of one to dance was more than enough to get the crowd going.
The work put into Baths’ performance is much more than the typical one man turning knobs and playing off his MacBook. If Aphex Twins and Bjork came together and made a musical child full of danceable, glitch beats, Baths is what you’d get. While Baths may sound great on record, the execution of the music is about precision: Wiesenfeld knows when to make things happen without making it seem staged, and it sounds great.
