Matt Ulman

Jon & I had been kicking around going this year because he came with us last year & had a good time. It turns out that Saturdays are his biggest days in the new job, so no Jon this time. The wife had to work, too, so I went alone.

The Shins, The Donnas, Pretty Girls Make Graves, along with Sleater-Kinney headlining. Even after having an only marginally decent time last year (rule #1 – don’t drink beer when there are only 10 portable restrooms for 10k people), I couldn’t pass this up. I got there in time to catch some of the Shins, but really couldn’t get close enough to the stage to hear them. For some reason they insist on having this in a little side-street, so people are really stuffed in. I decided to go get a corn dog & beer on the boardwalk instead.

I walked back for enough of the Donnas to confirm what I’d always assumed about them – pretty boring. I watched from the side of the stage, through a fence inside one of the amusement parks. That was enough for me – back to the boardwalk for some sausage & peppers

I’d resolved to get something out of the day, so I pushed a little further than I was comfortable into the crowd for S-K. I was only about a quarter of a mile away when they came on. We’d seen them play a couple of months ago at the Warsaw, where they were great on the old stuff & made me wish they’d stopped putting out new stuff a couple of albums ago. The new songs just didn’t rock. They weren’t even fun in a funky way, they were just bland. I was pleasantly surprised that everything sounded much better this time. Even with distance & a very distracted crowd there was lots of energy. It would have been a good show even if it had cost money.

I took the camera along, and took some pictures. Of course I hadn’t charged the batteries, so only a few pics.