Siren Festival Line-Up 2008 Surprisingly Decent

I'm a little behind the 8-ball in commenting on last week's Siren Festival announcement. New Yorkers thought last year's gig would be the final one, being that Coney Island is transforming into condominiums and shopping centers. Well, looks like they are eeking out one more year.

Last year was the first year I went in a long time. For years, the line-up consisted of white boy, indie rock bands. It just lacked variety. Luckily, they had different style performers from the hip-hop of M.I.A., the garage rock of Black Lips and Detroit Cobras, the shoegazer sound of Twilight Sad, the mellow singer-songwriter qualities of Elvis Perkins and My Lavender Diamond and the legends of New York Doll.

This year the organizers booked legend in the making Stephen Malkmus & The Jicks as the main draw, which is fan-friggin-tastic. Also, who's telling who will show up as Broken Social Scene. I have a feeling they will be competing against each other on the duel stages.

The rest does steers towards that white boy indie rock bands, mainly because they had to pick from scraps that Bitchfork Festival took up.

• The Helio Sequence: Saw them open for Kings of Leon back in the day.
• Beach House: Might put some people to sleep. Feel free to go to the arcade at this time
• Times New Viking: New album, Rip It Off, is damn good.
• Jaguar Love: Not too familiar with them
• The Dodos: Good one
• Annuals: Sweet, they'll bring out some new material
• Parts & Labor: Local act with a crazy drummer
• Dragons of Zynth: I received some stuff them a while ago, some of their tracks a little over my head
• These Are Powers: Never heard of them

With these free festivals, you really can't satisfy everyone. It's not like public funding is backing these things. You go, see a bunch of advertising that pays for this things, get sunburned with your mates, get turned on to some new music and go home tired and sweaty.

Heck, I'll go to Siren any day over the Pitchfork "Let's Build Our Ego and Prove How Awesome We Are" Festival. So sure, I'll be all over Siren this year, as long as it's not 1000 degrees outside that day. The question remains: which ironic T-shirt do I wear?

Comments

[Rokchic]

I love your site! Just came across it today and I love the way you write - it's very entertaining and I'm such a fan of well-written sarcasm! haha Good job, keep it up :) You have another subscriber :)
Nice to meet you,
Cheers from New Zealand,
Rokchic :)

[ocko]

was that Kings of Leon show/Heilo Sequence show at the factory? If so my friends' band opened up also.

[MusicSnobbery]

I wish, would have been a better crowd. It was the starland ballroom, in bubblefuck, New Jersey

Dragons of Zynth!