Violent Femmes/The Avett Brothers/Edward Sharpe & the Magnetic Zeros- Summerfest, 6/26/13

Exceeds expectations... those two words best sum up my feelings about the performances by Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros, the Avett Brothers and Violent Femmes during their opening night performance in the Marcus Amphitheater during Summerfest 2013.  Each of the acts did their best to thoroughly entertain and engage the audience.  While I've seen all of the bands before, the combination of the three lead to a very enjoyable and fun evening of music, and ultimately a premier bill that will rank among the best I've ever seen at Summerfest.

Edward Sharpe & the Magnetic Zeros:
Alex Ebert, Jade Castrinos and the eight or nine other musicians who were playing on stage cooked up a laid-back, fun, hippie love-fest to start off the evening.   Edward Sharpe & the Magnetic Zeros 40 minute set was packed with the majority of Edward Sharpe's hits from their 2009 debut record, Up From Below, as well as numbers from their 2011 follow up, Here.  Most notably, "Man On Fire" featured Alex jumping into the crowd and running up and down the amphitheater stairs dancing with fans, posing for smart phone photos and high fiving concert goers, including my neighbors, all while singing one of his band's hits.  The band closed with a ruckus rendition of "Home," undoubtedly their best known track, which had the crowd there for the warm-up act, dancing and jumping in the aisles.  For a support act, you can't get much better than these guys if you want to get the crowd moving and pumped for an evening of music.

The Avett Brothers:
Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel music critic Piet Levy was right-on when he declared after last year's stellar performance at the BMO Harris Pavillion that the Avett Brothers would grace the big stage on their next trip to town for Summerfest.  After recently seeing the Avetts twice at the Riverside Theater and last year at the BMO Harris stage, I was a little worried at first about how their polished, yet down home Americana sound would translate in the cavernous Marcus Amphitheater.  After all, the Avett Brothers consist of musicians who mainly play bass, acoustic guitar, drums and cello, not necessarily the instrumentation we've come to expect from the majority of amphitheater bookings over the years.

Overall, the sound was solid and the band delivered an energy-packed seventeen song set that kept the crowd engaged throughout.  The band wisely focused on their more up-tempo numbers and highlighted their harmonizing abilities and exceptional musicianship.  Opening with "Live and Die" from last year's Grammy award-winning release, The Carpenter, the Avetts kept the momentum going right into "Talk of Indolence," a tune usually reserved as a set-closer or encore.  With barely a pause in between songs, the band made the most of their time on stage, delivering rousing renditions of tunes like,  "Head Full of Doubt," and "Kick Drum Heart."  On "Laundry Room," a more notable song off of 2009's I and Love and You record, the band rearragnged the number making it a bit more glossy, yet staying true to the original.  This pretty much encompasses the Avetts' musical progression as they've traveled up the ranks from a club act, theater act and now amphitheater show.  Perhaps the highlight of the set, however was the band leading the crowd in a sing-along of their staple set-closer, "I and Love and You," with the Big Bang Fireworks going off in the background.  I got goosebumps.

Setlist for The Avett Brothers.

Violent Femmes:
Drummer Victor DeLorenzo addressed the crowd as his band took the stage, "We are Violent Femmes and we're from Milwaukee, Wisconsin."  In many ways, telling the crowd what they already knew was a perfect metaphor for the Femmes headlining performance.  The songs were all ones that we already knew, and for this we, as an audience, were both comforted and grateful. 

Recently reunited after some serious inner strife amongst the band members, the Femmes returned to play Summerfest in front of a devoted hometown crowd in a loose and playful mood.  The band was as animated as I've ever seen them, most noticeably DeLorenzo.  The first ten tracks were the Femmes debut, 1983 self-titled record front-to-back.  While a dated record in terms of its sound, I would argue that there isn't an album out there that better encapsulates the general sense of adolescence than this one, and for that reason, it has timeless appeal with its listeners.

The hits, "Blister in the Sun," "Kiss Off," "Please Do Not Go," "Add it Up," and "Gone Daddy Gone," got the biggest reaction from the crowd.  You could not tell based on the stage chemistry that these were three guys who filed lawsuits against each other just years ago.  Instead, they seemed very happy and playful, albeit, showing their age as elder statesmen of the alternative folk movement. 


However, the highlight for me was not just the Femmes, but the fact that they brought along their horn section, "The Horns of Dilemma," who added brass accompaniments on several numbers.  My favorite Femmes tune, "Held Her in My Arms" came across in a classic manner with horn players (granted many of them with softball-player guts) cranking out the infectious melody on the chorus.

The fans were reminded when the band took the stage for their encore, that the word, "encore" literally means "again," and, for that, we got a second taste of the band's biggest hit, now turned baseball stadium clap-along, "Blister in the Sun."  There wasn't a fan in attendance, myself included, who didn't leave the festival grounds after seeing Violent Femmes without sporting a Summerfest logo-sized grin.


Setlist for Violent Femmes:

Grade: A+ (new #5 on my all-time "Best of the Fest" list).
All photos compliments of Gigshots by Stephen Bloch.

A view of my friend, Steve Bloom and I from the stage.  Cheers to Summerfest