Forecastle Day 3 Review

         It was blistering hot from the start on Sunday, but it didn't seem like anyone cared at the White Reaper set. Especially not the band, who were wearing black almost exclusively. The crowd grew as the set went on. Sometime in the middle they did a cover of "Rock n' Roll Part 2" by Gary Glitter, it seemed like more and more people were on stage as the set went on too, random kids just grabbing the mic and singing the lyrics or screaming. At one point a guy in a giant grim reaper costume came on stage and danced around. The energy at this show both on and off stage was pretty nuts.

White Reaper

         One much needed change that Forecastle made this year was shrinking the VIP section at the Boom Stage. In years past, the front of this stage was divided in half by VIP ticket-buyers and regular ticket-buyers. This led to a tighter crowding of people not on the VIP side where I watched a few people get hurt. This year, the VIP section was smaller and further stage right so that the whole front barrier was occupied by non-VIP ticket buyers, who weren't as packed together as they had been before. It didn't seem to make much of a difference for the VIP concertgoers either. There were about the same amount of them as previous years, showing about the same level of engagement. Altogether it just looked like a safer environment for everybody. 

Portugal. the Man

         That being said, Portugal. the Man's performance was full of surprises. I was planning on skipping the second half to catch the beginning of Modest Mouse's set just because I've seen Portugal so many times, but halfway through their opener "Hip Hop Kids," when I noticed that Nick Reinhart (of Tera Melos, Bygones, and more recently Death Grips fame) was standing in on second guitar, I got comfortable. Though they did mostly pull from their latest album "Evil Friends," they threw a couple surprises into their set like "Floating," from In the Mountain in the Cloud, and "Chicago," from Waiter: You Viltures! and even "Day Man" from It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia. Over the past few years I've seen them focus more and more on stringing their songs together so they don't have to stop as much during their set. When they closed, they covered "Another Brick in the Wall" into their recent single "Purple, Yellow, Red, and Blue."

Modest Mouse... all of them

         I'm not a huge fan of the new Modest Mouse stuff, too many people in the band and all that, but they threw a few of the older songs into this set like "Styrofoam Boots," "Tiny Cities Made of Ashes," and "Shit Luck." The whole set seemed impersonal, but what can you expect from a main-stage performance. Still it was really nice to see them play with everyone singing along to "The Good Times are Killing Me."

         The Tallest Man on Earth took the stage as a full band, but halfway through the set Kristian Matsson played a few by himself including "Love is All," and "Lion's Heart." For "The Gardener," he brought out First Aid Kit to sing backup, then the full band took the stage again.