MusicFestNW, Day 5.

The only option tonight was the Crystal Ballroom for three bands leading up to the end of Musicfest NW 2009, Modest Mouse. I love their recorded stuff but as of yet, hadn't seen them, and figured I should at some point. I really wasn't feeling it - especially given all the negative feedback I'd heard about Isaac Brock's performances (drunk, unintelligible, a waste of time) and the fact that I rate the Crystal Ballroom as the worst venue to see a show in Portland.

So in case I decided to opt out, but to keep with the "musicfest" theme, I saw a matinee of It Might Get Loud. WOW. Jimmy Page, The Edge and Jack White talking about making music and playing each others' songs together? With rarely seen old footage of Page and Edge's early years? Fans of any of these three, or even just of the guitar, or music in general, should see this. It was quite entertaining to watch Jack attempt to be so nonchalant about the meetup even though it was clear when they were all talking and playing, that he was pretty stoked.

And so I was inspired, and the Crystal show would essentially be free (what with the pre-paid wristband, which had already paid for itself). I killed some time in a local record store, got a quick dinner and headed in.

OK. I'm a little concerned that all my MySpace links have left some kind of "virus disguised as an anti-virus" on my computer (how annoyingly clever!), so I will just say without links that Morning Teleportation was probably the most surprisingly entertaining band I saw all weekend. You can find them on YouTube. I think they hit almost every genre in their set, and they definitely had such a great time doing it all. Best set of the night, hands down.

This was followed by Mimicking Birds, who, in another venue after not following the aforementioned energetic-bordering-on-Riddlin-requiring band, might have been pretty enjoyable. They were quiet, and the sound at the Crystal is awful so I couldn't hear a single word he said, and it just seemed like an inappropriate booking given the other three acts of the evening. I need to give them a second chance at a more appropriate venue though.

Next up was Love As Laughter. If they were opening for another band I wanted to see, that would be OK, but I wouldn't seek them out specifically. Which is not to say that they were bad. I just wouldn't pay money to see only them again.

And finally, Modest Mouse. It was everything I hoped for... a couple of random songs followed by a brief, unintelligible rant by Brock, followed by several more songs...

Followed by a longer unintelligible Brock rant having to do with wanting to be paid in jet skis because then he could visit places he really wanted to visit, only they would have to flood first because that's the only way he could use his jet ski there... This went on for about 4 minutes and when someone(s) shouted "just play a song!" (I was not one of them but I was definitely in agreement) Brock then went on a 5 minute tirade about how he never felt comfortable talking in front of large groups of people and everyone should just respect the fact that he was talking because he felt like he should be talking even though he didn't really have anything to say... and so on and so forth and finally, the inevitable "Oh, fuck it, let's just play a song."

(At least I think this is what happened - between his mumbling, his possible/probable drunkeness, and the terrible sound at the Crystal, he could've been telling us a story about imaginary butterflies in the Amazon who led the ghost of a medicine man to the cure for cancer, and no one would've known what the hell he was talking about either.)

ANYWAY! At that point I was thinking, "just play Float On so I can go home, OK already?" and two songs later they did, and I felt fulfilled, and I went home. I'm sure I missed a great cover of a New Order song or something equally random, but I got what I needed out of that and won't need to pay to see that again.

Only regret this year: I didn't see Sunny Day Real Estate. But I saw Jeremy Enigk last summer, and seeing them Friday would've meant I didn't see Nurses at the Doug Fir, and that would've been sad. Otherwise, I'm OK with how this all went down. And now the wristband has been severed and I sleep. Back to real life tomorrow. Must work on that.