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The National, with vocalist Matt Berninger (right) and bassist Aaron Dessner, closed stage on Saturday night at Fun Fun Fun Fest in Austin.

Austin's Fun Fun Fun Fest lives up to its name

By: Matt Goodman

Posted: 11/14/08

Music fans, keep an ear out for Austin's Fun Fun Fun fest in the future.

Taking place last weekend mere blocks away from the Texas Capitol at Waterloo Park, the third-annual music festival spanned four stages devoted to indie, punk, hip-hop and electronic, and comedy or more low-key acts.

And the festival brought out the big guns: The National, Deerhoof, Islands, Trail of Dead, a one-time Dead Milkmen reunion, Bad Brains, Kool Keith, Dan Deacon and Clipse - artists all talented enough to headline their own tours.

Because of its setup, fans didn't have to schizophrenically dash from stage to stage to stay within genre confines. But even for the daring, more musically varied folks, all stages were no more than a five-minute walk away from one another. It was more of a chore to choke down the swirling dust that continually plagued the festival.

Saturday was dominated by some of the better acts in indie rock. Parts & Labor kicked off the festivities, adding sporadic electronics and noise freak-outs to its fairly standard mall punk.

At the punk stage, Young Widows brought some bite between all the garbage "punk" fluff that populated stage three.

Walking from that to Bishop Allen was an odd transition, but its entertaining, easygoing pop brought smiles to a number of faces that warm afternoon.

One of the festival's highlights was The Octopus Project, which followed Bishop Allen on stage four. Its raucous live show was full of instrument switches, sound experimentation, people dressed in oversized ghost outfits, awesome audience interaction and a huge amount of energy. All this added to its dance/shoegaze sound that dominated the stage Saturday afternoon.

…And You Will Know Us by the Trail of Dead played as the sun set, which immediately took me back to the band I knew and loved in high school. Loud, demanding, vicious and insanely talented, the band put on one of the more intense shows of the festival complete with crowd jumping and stage climbing.

Deerhoof was the surprise of the event. Listening to the records doesn't do this band justice. I'm convinced it has one of the tightest rhythm sections in indie-rock, pumping out heavy Pete Townshend-style riff after riff, bringing some balls back into a genre that really needs it.

Dan Deacon's set was a ton of fun. The Baltimore electronic dance artist organized dance battles, dance obstacles and dance … pathways? He essentially turned his set into a giant dance party by setting up right in the middle of the crowd.

While Deerhoof took me by surprise, The National lived up to my extremely high expectations. The group brought a horn section, which really filled out its sound. The sad-sack hyper-intellectual indie rockers broke out of their shell and brought a high-energy, incredibly spirited performance to a hungry crowd.

The highlight was drunken lead singer Matt Berringer tearing the stage apart and tossing every part of his mic stand into the crowd, including his mic. The group's best song, "Mr. November," was even more intense than it was on record and was a perfect close to a heavy Saturday.

On Sunday, Tom Gabel of Against Me! fame took to stage two as part of the Revival Tour and offered some very interesting punk-meets-country tunes. His gruff voice perfectly accentuated the acoustic guitars behind him and made for a great afternoon set.

Islands followed on the main stage and rifled through a blistering show dominated by tracks off its newest record, "The Arm." The highlights still came from the previous record, "Return to the Sea." Closing with the epic noise-pop song "Swans (Life After Death)," these guys brought their A-game Sunday afternoon.

Black Angels followed, with its acid-drenched, '70s-style psych-rock. Complete with smoke machine and lights, the Angels' hypnotic, dirty psychadelia was a welcome change.

Over on the hip-hop/electronic stage, "rapper from space" Kool Keith brought his energy and ridiculous sparkling shawl in front of a packed corner of Waterloo Park. His energy and steady flow matched perfectly with the bass and quick beat shifts thrown out by his DJ.

Those who wanted something different altogether stayed and listened to Grupo Fantasma, a really fun Tropicalia group that jammed more people on stage than I thought possible.

But Sunday's highlight was Clipse. Hailing from Virginia, the brothers Thornton had more energy than any other act I caught at the festival. The DJ got the crowd going with a mix of UGK, Geto Boys, Tupac and Biggy before Pusha and Malice rushed the stage to play a host of tracks from their albums and mix tapes. Popular chart-toppers like "Grindin," "What Happened to That Boy" and "Cot Damn" snuck onto the set list between heavy hitters like "Ride Around Shining" and "20k Money Making Brothers on the Corner."

This is one of the most innovative rap crews in the game, and this performance cemented its status as essential, as far as I'm concerned. No one would know who Pharrell was, had these guys not pushed The Neptunes to the surface.

After the crowd dispersed Sunday night and hundreds of empty 24 ounce cans of Foster's lined the ground, it was clear that this is Texas' best music festival. Laid-back, interesting and as fun as its name would imply, Fun Fun Fun Fest is only going to get better as the years progress. Let's hope the festival organizers keep in mind exactly what made it as great as it was: the music.