After having been asked to headline the Village Voice’s infamous Siren Festival at the historic Coney Island for several years, Built to Spill finally accepted the honor, following in the footsteps of some of indie rocks latest and greatest such as Ra Ra Riot, Broken Social Scene, Steven Malkmus and the Jicks, New York Dolls, M.I.A, Cursive, Popwreckoning favorites White Rabbits, TV on the Radio, and Death Cab for Cutie, to name a few. It’s generally speaking a who’s who of both up and comers as well as hard-hitting indie heavyweights and it’s FREE!
The last time I attended I was young 21 living in Williamsburg. It was the first year the festival took place. It was 100-plus degrees and by the end we were crispy, stuffed with zepolis, covered in beer and sand, and eventually everyone started to look like the side show freaks that Coney Island is famous for. That year we saw Peaches, Rainer Maria, Guided by Voices, and Jon Spencer Blues Explosion. It was quintessential New York, one of those amazing days where you keep pinching yourself, “Do I really live here?” But for some reason, I never returned to Coney Island or the Siren Festival after that. Truth, Coney Island was dirty, run down and kinda sad. A forgotten NYC treasure with a giant price tag and an expiration date that every New Yorker was aware of. Coney Island was finished…or so I thought. In terms of the festival and it’s stellar lineup each year, I always thought to myself, ‘Well, I can catch them at The Bowery….right?’
I had a change of heart this year. Lured by the opportunity to see Built to Spill under the shifting sky, by the beach, at the end of a perfect Summer Saturday, I returned to Coney Island nine years later, and now I’m left wondering why I waited so long. This years lineup included Built to Spill, The Raveonettes, Spank Rock, Frightened Rabbit, A Place to Bury Strangers, Grand Duchy, Monotonix, Thee Oh Sees, Future of the Left, Japandroids, Michachu & The Shapes, Tiny Masters of Today, Bear Hands, The Blue Van, Justine D., and Deadheat DJs.
Grand Duchy is Frank Black, a.k.a. Black Francis, a.k.a. lead singer of The Pixies, and if you don’t know that…well shame on you, go do your homework before continuing. Anywho, Black Francis and his wife Violet Clark are Grand Duchy and they played songs on the main stage from their debut album, Petits Fours. The hooky songs feature vocals from Clark paired with Francis’s trademark storming guitar riffs. Clark, in an artist statement, describes the music as a set of opposites: “eclectic and consistent, raw and cooked, smooth and rough, punky and pop, guitar and synth, he and she…Dinner and dessert.” Anything Francis does, in my opinion is genius. See Teenager of the Year as reference. Grand Duchy is another feather in his hat.
Built to Spill took the stage to play the last set, just as the sky was changing from day to eve and the Cyclone lights flickered on. The band that inspired Modest Mouse, Death Cab, and the ubiquitous Northwest Sound that followed, played for over two hours. They played everything you’d ever want to hear, giving the crowd just what they came for. Everyone knew every lyric. You almost didn’t belong if you didn’t. The first note of “Carry the Zero” dropped and the hardcores were high-fiving. Doug Martsch turned four-minute songs into eleven-minute epic guitar jams busting string after string as fireworks blossomed in the purple sky overhead and lovers clutched each other closer. It was ridiculously magical. People were literally turning to the stranger next to them with Cheshire cat grins. And again, nine years later, I’m asking, “Do I really live here?”
Coney Island hasn’t changed much in nine years. It’s still run down, forgotten, and kinda sad, but that’s what you love about it. It buzzes with nostalgia for a time when everything was hustling and bustling, when honey roasted almonds were five cents on the boardwalk, when the skyline mattered, and people believed in two-headed snake babies and one hundred pound rats. To visit Coney Island is a suspension of disbelief. Seeing Built to Spill in this context is a somewhat of a similar act, so good it must be fiction.
