Yeasayer/Keepaway/Delicate Steve at Governors Island
It took forever to get there but once we did, it was beyond ‘so definitely worth it’. Three free shows, locally brewed beer, and a clusterf**k of cool kids (of which several just happened to be really good friends of mine) on the Upper New York Bay-island, once serving as the first line of defense against the British, all made for a quite the saturday night out.
Delicate Steve was, besides having the smoothest band name since - I dunno, John Wilkes Kissing Booth? - quite the surprise with his instrumental mixture of Grateful Dead, Animal Collective and youtube sensation “Santana shreds”(!). Yet it served as pretty much the perfect soundtrack to the tip of Manhattan’s skyline being lit against a bright pink sunset. Keepaway sounded like they were really big fans of Yeasayer and the beforementioned Animal Collective, except they didn’t really have the songs to match their idols. The crowd quickly lost interest in spite of numerous “are you there, New York?” and “give it up for Brooklyn”-s. However, as the drinks grew stronger in numbers, so did the appreciation for Keepaway’s tribal Brooklyn-etno jam and by the last song, it actually didn’t seem half bad. Neither did Yeasayer’s ditto. Not bad at all. With an incessant will to never make the obvious choices in their songwriting but making it sound like they do, Yeasayer were simply awesome. Most songs were off of Odd Blood, peaking with spot-on renditions of an almost tearjerking I Remember, Madder Red and O.N.E. and by the end of Ambling Alp, not even the most slimfitted hipster could help but tapping his feet in recognition of Yeasayer and the night itself.
But oh, how I wish I were going to the Roskilde Festival this year.
Here’s Yeasayer performing O.N.E. live at Governors Island:
http://vimeo.com/12343368 (via freewilliamsburg.com)
