05.20.2011 - Hangout Festival Day 2 @ Gulf Shores, AL
June 6, 2011
Hangout Festival
Gulf Shores, AL
Day two of Hangout brought on another busy day of stage-hopping to take in some fantastic music. We arrived early, and decided to hit up the Ferris wheel to take in the birds-eye view of this amazing beach party turned music festival. It was beautiful mild weather for our soaring adventure, which also included the sounds of Mariachi El Bronx floating over on the gentle ocean breeze blowing by.
After that relaxing ride, we hopped over to the Grooveshark Stage to catch the first part of Civil Twilight’s set. These guys from South Africa did not disappoint on this balmy day in the Deep South, and an originally small crowd turned into a much bigger crowd by the time we relinquished our spots at the front railing. Civil Twilight played “Anybody Out There”, “Soldier”, “Dying to be Born”, and my personal favorite of theirs, “Next to Me”, among other greats during their set. This was the perfect show to kick off another busy day at Hangout.
We then stopped into the John Lennon Educational Tour Bus for a press tour of this one-of-a-kind mobile recording studio. This non-profit travels around the country year-round providing students with hands-on multimedia experiences, and also offering top recording artists a space to record their music. We got to check out a music video that some kids affected by the recent tornados in Tuscaloosa, AL put together – this is some really top-notch stuff. You can check out some of the projects that were produced on the bus at this link: http://www.youtube.com/user/johnlennonbus.
We caught a bit of the end of Xavier Rudd’s set at the Boom Boom Stage (which, by the way, was the one tent-covered stage, and a great spot to escape the melting rays of the sun). This show seemed to be the epitome of a sweaty rock show – loud music, everyone really into it, people in the back hula-hooping (yep, this has become a “thing” at festivals, we’ve noticed). Popped over to catch a bit of Minus the Bear’s set at the Surf Style Stage (music seemed good, though we aren’t familiar with them yet).
After a long, hot hike down a beach littered with beer cans (people are so rude), and waiting for what seemed like forever, it was past the scheduled showtime, and a Hangout crew member approached the mic and announced that Cee Lo was still on a plane, and going to be a no-show...but that The Foo Fighters were going to perform instead, so “Forget you, Cee Lo”. I can’t count how many times I heard people comment about how epic this was, that this was the highlight of the festival, and on and on. And, slowly but surely, people started a chant that included certain words from a line of Cee Lo’s current radio hit (not the radio edited version though).
So Dave Grohl and the rest of the Foo Fighters emerge, and begin performing nothing but covers (including Queen’s “School’s Out”). I’m starting to think something must be up – I understand this was technically unplanned, and they most likely had a setlist for the evening headlining show, but why would a band like this come out and only play cover songs? Then, during their third song, a cover of Prince’s “Darling Nikki”, Cee Lo steps out to the microphone to take over for Dave on lead vocals. It was certainly the shocker of the weekend, I must say.
The Foo Fighters cleared out after that song, and a quick tear-down and setup ensued prepping for Cee Lo. He re-emerged onstage, and hurriedly performed maybe a six song set, hopping around from song to song like a jackrabbit on a hot-tin roof (yep, just cobbled that one together myself). He was ending songs early so as to save time, jumping between Cee Lo songs (“Fu** You”) and Gnarles Barkely (“Crazy”) songs – it was just kind of strange. I think I (and a lot of others) would have preferred that the Foo Fighters had just gone ahead and finished up their set, covers or otherwise. Cee Lo later tweeted “I apologize to everyone in Alabama for being late had a show in NY this morning and flight delayed. Thanks to dave and the foos!forgive me”.
The Avett Brothers had the pleasure of following that crazy set. I’m convinced that these guys never disappoint – they seem to be such a tight bunch of class-act individuals. The crowd sang along to almost every song in their set, which included “Tin Man”, “Laundry Room”, “Kick Drum Heart”, “And it Spread” , and “I and Love and You”. Joe Kwon is such a maniac with that cello – I still have no idea how he balances that thing between his neck and shoulder and dances around with it as gracefully as he does, while still playing the hell out of it.
After standing in the packed crowd for most of The Avett Brothers set, we decided to fight our way out and ended up sitting off to the side of the stage in the sand, enjoying the rest of the set with backing tracks provided by the crashing waves of the Gulf. This was probably the most relaxing, zen-like experience of the weekend. If you haven’t been to this festival, consider making the trip once. How can you beat seeing this many top musical acts with the sand between your toes?
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