Day For Night 2017 Recap
Day For Night Is Here!
Day For Night is here. Last year Consequence of Sound gave the festival the honor of “The Last Great Lineup in 2016,” and great lineup it was. My top favorite acts being John Carpenter, SURVIVE, and Nick Murphy… Unfortunately at a festival you can’t see ‘em all. I would like to add that I did also go to the Björk performance which I hated— everyone all crammed into the space like sardines and you couldn’t see a goddamn thing. It was awful. However, I thought the Björk digital experience was awesome. It was of the first times I really got to get some hands on experience with VR and it was pretty great. I was one of the few people who actually took heed when the email came out and said that you needed to get a reservation time before going and spots were going to go fast. Unfortunately, some jerk stole my phone at 3rd Floor in Midtown earlier this year, and my phone wasn’t backing up so I lost almost all of my pics from October 2016 to June 2017, Day For Night 2016 included. I’m still pretty salty about it, and it’s sad because I had some great pics. The light installations last year did not disappoint either. The big red one upstairs and the cotton candy thing downstairs were by far two of my favorites which leads me into Day For Night 2017… The Friday Summit.
Some of the images I was able to salvage form Day for Night 2016 despite my not backed up phone getting stolen.
The Friday Summit
There’s a political overtone to the festival, starting with some profits being given to Planned Parenthood, which, great, everyone has to have their cause. This year the Friday Night Summit (did they have one last year? I don’t know, I wasn't that interested. Honestly I wasn’t that interested this year, but someone gave me some free tix, so why not at least check it out?) hosted a lot of media-hot political activists, such as Chelsea Manning, the infamous Wikileaker, and Nadezhda Tolokonnikova, member of the Russian feminist punk rock group, Pussy Riot, who was notoriously arrested for speaking out against the leading class in Russia. I think going to the talks would have been fun, but alas, I have a job, and cutting out early this Friday wasn’t an option, so I missed them all. I just had to settle for the late night performances and the open installations.
The Vibe.
On pulling up to Post HTX in Uber to the former Barbara Joran post office, I was buzzing with excitement. The building was being lit up by projected moving LED lights, and memories of last year came flooding back, even thought I’ve just been kind of meh on the lineup since it was released. Immediately upon walking in, I was somewhat disappointed, because last year there was this huge cotton candy light/cage extravaganza, and it was just in your face HFS, this is a really cool different experience. This year there was none of that. It was just nothing. Except for the Saran wrap VIP section. What a let down. Also the layout was different this year with the blue stage being more strategically centered in the middle, instead of being against the far wall, which was a welcome switch. The upstairs wasn’t open and there was only one bathroom open for women (FAIL. It’s aaaaaalllllll the way in the corner far from literally everything. Looking forward to the upstair bathrooms being open Saturday).
Walking up to Post HTX
a.k.a. the former Barbara Jordan Post Office
The Installations.
There were four light/sound installations that we were able to find, which were somewhat surreptitiously placed on the way to the closed Yellow Stage. I don’t know their real names, but I’ll call them The Portals, The Disco Balls, The Robots, and The Tower of Lights. In order of appreciation and liking I would have to go with:
The Tower of Lights: The tower of lights was a musically orchestrated tower in the middle of a ring of lights. Simple enough, but captivating in its simplicity.
The Robots: The Robots are the beautifully remachined, reimagined industrial manufacturing arms that have been programmed to appear as though they are interacting with one another. There is this battle or dance that they engage in, and it’s beautiful and delicate because they almost look like little eyeballs or perhaps machine versions of venus fly traps, or some kind of mechanical plant with a central eye. It’s cool, and we were fortunate enough to be able to experience this on Friday, because the wait is kind of long, and I can imagine that on Saturday it’s going to be extra crazy. The real name as I found out on Saturday is Telestron.
The Portals: The Portals obviously make you feel like you can step into another dimension of time and space, as they are giant rings suspended from the ceiling with lights being cast through them.
The Disco Balls: The Disco Balls are just what they sound like… a cluster of disco balls suspended from the ceiling that make you feel as though you are looking over a galaxy of a billion stars.
They are all great and unique in their own right, and have something special to offer, so highly recommend all of them.
The Music.
One of my favorite parts of Friday night was this weird LED screen square outside where they were paying homage to 90s candy ravers and German techno culture with some deep house beats to go along with the visuals. I could dance to a steady deep house beat all night, so I enjoyed it as well as an eclectic mix of hippies, hipsters, and scene kids. I could totally identify with the pictures they were flashing on the screens, I was a candy kid in the early 2000s. Thank you State Palace Theater, you really set the foundation for my future in electronic music.
The musical performances that I saw on Friday night were too political for my personal tastes. I’m not a big fan of overtly political music (disclaimer: I did see Morrissey this year). The thing about music is that I want it to take me away from all the shit stuff in real life. It’s my escape, so when you remind of what a clusterfuckery of a place we live in, it kinda just kills my mood.
We were able to catch some of Jenny Hval, a Norwegian political performance artist. I was too concerned with trying to understand the visuals to really enjoy the music, but when I did listen to the music, I like her voice, but I was often disturbed and confused by the visuals. For me, the live texting bit was banal.
Then we listened to a little bit of Earl Sweatshirt. It was ok. He’s still a little raw/rough around the edges, so it felt like a really, real and genuine performance, but I couldn’t really get into it, so then we left.
Saturday Festival
Lights and Music.
Aside from the time they shut down EDC Vegas in 2012 due to wind around midnight when most people were at peak fuckedupedness, this was by far one of the most bizarre festival experiences I have encountered.
Let’s just start with the fake news. So when we left on Friday night we asked a dude at the exit gate if there would be in and out privileges the next day. The guy assures us that yes, there will be. Basing our strategy on this nugget of false information we arrived at the festival a little late (mostly because of me because I have a sick dog at home at 1:55ish and are informed that no, we won’t be able to leave and come back.) Bummer, because the one reason I came on Saturday was to see Nine Inch Nails, so now we have to stay the whole time, but we’re going to make the best of it. So we grab a beer and post up for our first show.
First on the schedule was Of Montreal, which I’d never seen perform live, and while I wasn’t much of a fan to begin with, not for lack of liking, but more from lack of exposure, I probably enjoyed this show the most, for reasons we will soon get into, but let’s just say that despite the cross dressing lead singer and dancing birds, robot gear head things, and crocodile dragon on stage, this was probably the closest thing to a normal festival concert all day. Granted, I know that this festival is different, but the rest of the acts we saw were just bizarre, and then forces of nature prevented me from being able to enjoy NIN, which all goes back to the false information because of course my standard festival backpack includes a poncho when the forecast is dicey, let alone when the forecast calls for 100% chance of rain later in the night… I’m not an idiot and I’ve been to at least 30 festivals in my lifetime. If I would have been truly prepared for the day, I would have gone in with a full festival backpack, a much thicker coat, and my official Day for Night beanie that I bought on Friday night.
After Of Montreal we spent a good amount of time exploring the installations upstairs. One of the biggest and one of my favorites was Clusters, which I only got video of, and it doesn't host well on Squarespace. And then I also felt a particular affinity for Uproar, which I thought was a pretty poignant and clever way of juxtaposing the trillions of gallons of water that flooded Houston's streets during Hurricane Harvey, and the probably millions of social media posts tagged with #HoustonStrong. I also like Ricochet, but c'mon people it's a laser tent with a point in the middle, if you stick your finger in there you ruin it for everyone, and your finger does the same thing that the guy before you's finger did when he stuck it in the mid-point of light.
Some were interactive, some were just visual and auditory. Some had very clear statements, like the one with all the dead crabs. I’m still really curious as to how many crabs were harmed in the making of that installation. I get the message, but I’m hoping that those were acrylic crabs and not real crabs.
After checking out the exhibits, next on the schedule was Lil B. Being from south Louisiana I’m no stranger to Hip hop, but admittedly never heard of Lil B or any of his music. My boyfriend and his brother are big into hip hop and at this point I was just along for the ride. First thing I notice is that he’s dressed completely inappropriately in sunglasses at 4:30ish and cut off shorts with a rolled up chambray looking shirt, and he’s still sweating balls through it. Next thing that piques my interest is that he keeps saying “Dallas.” Now I’m not sure what he was saying because he kept slurring a lot but I keep asking my companions, “Why does he keep saying Dallas, he knows he’s in Houston, right?!” The performance gets stranger in that he’s basically just dancing goofily on stage and being his own hype man, uttering random “yeahs” and “alrights” every once in awhile. Another questions I find myself asking is, “Isn’t he supposed to be rapping or something right now?”
He keeps talking about positivity, and it’s pretty clear that he’s under the influence of some kind of cocktail of legal and illegal substance. And then at one point he takes off his glasses and makes some kind of statement to confirm it. People in the crowd are literally giggling at the absurdity of the whole thing, but at least it was fun, and I walked away thinking… He looks like a young LL Cool J in a wig.
After getting somewhat bored of Lil B, we headed to check out the tail end of Pussy Riot. I say I’m not into overtly political music, but I’d never listened to or seen Pussy Riot perform, and I have to say, I could get into feminist punk rock. Their lyrics are clever and funny and the music is catchy. Upon further exploration, I listed to the two songs that I was able to catch at the show, Make America Great Again and Straight Outta Vagina. Listening to the songs on the album on Spotify after the fact and comparing against the live performance, I prefer the live version much better to the studio version.
After Pussy Riot we needed a break from the cold, which the girls were in sports bras and pajama pants, so they must have been freezing even though they were jumping and dancing all over the stage, so we went to check out more installations. Then I got a text from another friend saying that the set times had been pushed up because of the rain and that Pretty Lights was already on, while I would have liked to have seen the whole Pretty Lights set, I’m pretty sure I’ve seen him at least six times in the past 5 or so years, so I wasn’t too disappointed when we only caught the last two songs. I’m almost ashamed to admit this, but my biggest thought when I saw him was, “I feel like he put on some weight.”
Next after Pretty Lights was Cardi B, who was a huge disappointment. She came on super later, and then she performed like 3 songs and left because she was cold. Bodak Yellow’s alright, but I don’t think that success warrants diva behavior just yet. Be humble.
After Cardi B, we went back to the installations and hung out and took a little bit of a break after being on our feet for about five hours at this point. We knew the weather was going to be bad, but Nine Inch Nails was literally the only band that I really wanted to see on Saturday, I was just whatever on everything else, so we waiting, in the cold, windy, rainy night for 15 minutes before they came on. After the 5th song, we called it. It just wasn’t worth it anymore. I’ve seen NIN before. Seriously, snow would have probably been better than being drenched in the cold.
Sunday Wrap Up
I won’t be attending today. First of all, I’m getting old and just can’t hang like I used to and secondly, I’ve already seen all of the people on the lineup that I would want to see with the exception of maybe En Vogue (hello, childhood) and Thom Yorke’s solo stuff, but going back to what I said about Friday, I have a job, and I don’t want to be tired on Monday, and who wants to stay up until 2 AM on a Sunday anyway?! Not me anymore, I’ll leave that to the young folks in their 20s.
One random thing I’d like to mention is that I think TABC needs to check the alcohol in there because I swear it’s being watered down and those drinks are waaaay too expensive. Three tall boys (obviously can’t be tampered with), and 1 single and one double cocktail later (can be tampered with) at about the time when Cardi B went on, I felt as sober as when I walked in the door, but a little amped because I’d drank two Clutch City Mules which have Red Bull in them.
Overall, going for the two days was totally fun and worth it. While I think comparatively 2016 was better than 2017, I still enjoyed my time, and Day For Night has definitely been beating FPSF in value for the past three years. RIP FPSF, and axed on your 10th anniversary too. Sad. But now we have In Bloom festival to look to in the spring. I’m still undecided on this as I’ve got to be more mindful with my money in 2018. You know, I want to do adult-y things like buy a new car and a house, and I’m thinking I want to spend 2 weeks in New Zealand next December, so maybe I should spend thousands on the 3 or so festivals I go to every year.
