Seryn, Doug Burr, Telegraph Canyon & the Old 97's
Fair Park Centennial Building
April 9, 2010
Better than: getting a forehead tattoo like one of the guys I saw get ink last night.
A bringing together of skin and ink wasn't the only attempted matrimony on the first night of Dallas' Musink Festival at Fair Park's Centennial Building on Friday night.
With a bill headlined by the Old 97's and otherwise heavy on un-inked artists that dabble more in folk and chamber-pop than the latest trends in body art, the 30-minute sets by Seryn, Doug Burr and Telegraph Canyon proved to be an interesting study in how seemingly polar opposites react when faced together.
(Hint: They, indeed, react like polar opposites).
The crowd gathered at the festival early on was clearly there for the
art being made inside and not the art of the musical variety taking
place on the outdoor stage, even with the damn near perfect weather.
Opting for the more appropriate, beefed up, electrical instrumentation--versus the acoustic instruments that the band often employs--Seryn soldiered
spiritedly and admirably through a concise set of songs that will make
up its upcoming album, tentatively due in the fall. Having been
together for only a year, Seryn already commands the stage with energy
and authority.
After browsing the aisles of tattoo booths and
catching a few minutes of BMX action on the half pipe inside, it was
time to see Doug Burr take a swing at igniting the ink covered group
outside. And even with a couple of the member of Seryn helping augment the
performance of Burr and his sideman, Glenn Farris, a cavernous stage in
front of an empty parking lot with a few dozen disinterested bystanders
proved not to be the proper forum for Burr's beautiful brand of folk-rock.
While
the sound system produced a somewhat muddy vocal mix for Burr, he, just
like Seryn before him, made the best of his 30 minutes. Going from just
about everyone's favorite "Slow Southern Home" to what will soon be
everyone's new favorite Burr track, "Red, Red," off of his album to be
released in May, Burr and Farris did manage to elicit a slightly
heartier amount of cheers as they exited the stage than when they had
entered it half an hour prior.
In between sets, the evening's emcee, Jim Rose, the wild human punk-circus leader, seemed to be a bit
bothered by the small crowd, even though he did his best to rise above
it with his profane brand of stand-up and some relatively shocking
stunts that would make Letterman's stupid humans look like Rhodes
Scholars. Only when a flabby, shirtless man took several darts to his
fleshy back did the crowd warm up to Rose.
Perhaps Seryn should bring a
few darts from a Denton bar next time they want to really get an
indifferent crowd revved up.
Adding to the out-of-place feel for
the evening was the music being played over the P.A. during the set
changes. David Gray was prominent on the playlist, for instance. It's doubtful that
anyone will be confusing Gray with Mike Ness anytime soon.
But as
darkness fell on Fair Park, the crowd outside of the Centennial building
continued to slowly swell. Approximately 150 folks (if not a tad more)
were on hand to see yet another stellar showing from Telegraph Canyon,
the Fort Worth collective that continues to improve upon what has become
possibly the best live show in North Texas.
As Chris Johnson and
company rolled boisterously through "Shake Your Fists," "Safe On the
Outside," and "Into The Woods," the style lines among the crowd gathered
had been drawn in the parking lot. The fresh-faced indie-loving
youngsters, who likely have never as much as had a temporary tattoo on
them, huddled together relatively close to the stage while the
well-decorated attendees made it a point to be more than a fashionably
cool distance away from the musical proceedings.
At this point, more
than earlier when hardly anyone had been there, it was apparent that
putting a band on a stage at a tattoo festival doesn't necessarily mean
that the people getting tattoos are going to care all that much about
what's happening on that stage, simply because the stage is at a
celebration of ink.
That is, unless the Old 97's are performing
on that stage.
Rhett Miller and the rest of the band
are the clear winners of the night's MVB (Most Valuable Band) Award. By
the time the opening number, "Wont Be Home" was complete, not only were
there hundreds of people outside, but they were enjoying themselves and
crossing the lifestyle boundaries that had been held so closely for the
entire night. During "West Texas Teardrops", signs of unity were
ever-present as men with Mohawks and tattoos banged their head and sang
along next to dancing soccer mom cougars, who were out for a night of
Rhett Miller hunting.
As on-top of their game as Telegraph Canyon
had been before them, the 97's were even more so. Belting out
time-tested fan favorites like "Doreen" (which saw Phillip Peeples going
absolutely ape on his kit), "Curtain Call," "Rollerskate Skinny,"
"Hitchike to Rhome" and "Barrier Reef," the hometown heroes knew
precisely what buttons to push on the audience.
By the time the
97's served up an encore of "Big Brown Eyes" and their classic
show-closer, "Timebomb," it was clear that the vision of bringing
different types of people together through music had finally been
achieved on this first night of the Musink Fest.
Critic's Notebook
Personal Bias: I do not have any ink, but have always admired the art involved
and the guts of people who have not only one but dozens.
