Recap: Virgin Mobile FreeFest at Merriweather Post Pavilion

As is the case with most high-profile music festivals, your reaction to the 2009 Virgin Mobile FreeFest relied entirely on how you approached the nearly 12-hour schedule. If you were lured in by the laughably out-of-touch headliners on the Merriweather Post Pavilion main stage—like Blink-182, Weezer, The Bravery, and Jet—then you likely spent half of your hot summer afternoon in obnoxiously long lines (seats in the pavilion were first-come, first serve), flanked by 14-year-old Avril look-alikes chattering about how “old school” that song about unraveling a sweater is. But if you ventured across Merriweather's 40-acre woodland landscape to the West Arena, you were treated to a surprisingly diverse, captivating lineup, including St. Vincent, The Hold Steady, Public Enemy, The National, Girl Talk, and Franz Ferdinand.

Sure, it’s difficult to critically examine a free concert. Perhaps it’s best to just take a free lunch when you can get it—that is, until you hear the lead singer of Taking Back Sunday tell the crowd that the free admission “takes a lot of pressure off,” explaining that, “if we mess up, I don't care. You didn't pay."

Luckily, The A.V. Club doesn’t judge music by its price. (Hey, it’s always free for us!). So let the hating begin. Here’s a rundown of what you may have missed—and what you should have missed:

Pavilion vs. West, Round 1: Mates Of State vs. St. Vincent
With a quick scan of the FreeFest’s bill, St. Vincent is noticeably out of place. The pace of Annie Clark’s lucid, swirling indie-pop is markedly slower than any other band in the festival, which explains why the band was stuck with the barely afternoon opening set on the West Stage. While scurrying across the venue to catch the last few minutes of St. Vincent’s set, I was only able to hear “Actor Out of Work” through the trees—just enough to make me swoon.

Mates Of State was the first band to take the main Pavilion stage. Not many of the tweeny-boppers in the crowd—undoubtedly counting the minutes until Taking Back Sunday started screaming and swinging microphones—seemed to know who Jason Hammel and Kori Gardner were, and the duo did little to keep their attention. The set was lined with hits from the band’s latest (and best) record, Re-Arrange Us, but lacked a sense of showmanship to fill the pavilion’s vast space. Mates redeemed themselves with a heartfelt cover of Tom Waits’ “Long Way Home” to close the show, a particularly powerful song when performed as a husband-and-wife duet.

Winner: Tie, only because I missed St. Vincent.

Round 2: Taking Back Sunday vs. The Hold Steady
The Hold SteadyJohn GriffithThis one was a no-brainer. The Hold Steady, without a doubt the most thrilling set of the day, brought the West stage to life. With the opening riffs of “Constructive Summer,” singer Craig Finn seemed to channel "Saint Joe Strummer" (as he's called in the song's lyrics), accenting each hook with a playful, angsty stage presence. The entire band, from Finn to dapper-dan keyboardist Franz Nicolay (pristinely primped in a full suit and waxed moustache), seemed to genuinely have fun during the show, but perhaps that’s just a visceral response to the fist-pumping rock they produced.

Give credit to Long Island screamo-pop outfit Taking Back Sunday for one thing: The guys know their audience. Within seconds of the start of “What’s It Feel Like To Be A Ghost,” frontman Adam Lazzara had already broken into his geriatric-Mick Jagger swagger. It only took Lazzara one additional song to start strangling himself with his microphone chord (his questionable signature move). A few songs later, Lazzara described how the acting performances in Titanic inspired him to write “Carpathia.” He really knows how to make the teenage honeys purr.

Winner: The Hold Steady, in a landslide.

Round 3: Jet vs. Public Enemy
There really wasn’t anything to hate about Jet’s set on the main stage. Super-hits like “Cold Hard Bitch” and “Are You Gonna Be My Girl” are decent saccharine-pop ditties, and they sparked sing-alongs on Merriweather’s sprawling lawn. Each song sounded identical to the track on the album, which is a credit to the band’s skill, but a debit to its creativity.

After a slow start due to sound issues (and a subsequent “fight the power” chant), Public Enemy presided over the West Arena’s largest and most eager crowd of the day. The set was more a celebration of the iconic rap duo’s past than an attempt at rebirth: “Shut ‘Em Down” ignited the audience into a steady hop, while references to Flavor Of Love and remembrances of all Public Enemy’s fallen heroes (from Ted Kennedy to Rick James) kept everyone sufficiently confused.

And godammit, Flavor Flav can still warm up a crowd like the best of them, even if he does look like he’s been dead for three weeks.

Winner: Public Enemy

Round 4: The Bravery vs. The National
Apparently, The Bravery’s single, “Believe,” is based on a now-defunct bar in New York City. Funny, I thought it was based on anything released by The Cure in the late '80s.

In many ways, the New York City quartet is the epitome of the early '00s post-punk revival. Its hook-heavy songs are unapologetically simple, making The Bravery an appropriate addition to the FreeFest main stage. Although the set was mildly entertaining, the crowd began showing fatigue as The Bravery hit its stride.

The National’s set, like St. Vincent’s and Public Enemy’s before it, was another outlier in a bill laden with underwhelming pop-rock groups. The band’s moody, artful songs are simultaneously hypnotic and engaging, driven by the somber, smoky voice and perplexing lyrics of frontman Matt Berninger. After lulling the crowd with “Start A War,” Berninger showed his lighter side, asking the crowd, “How’d you like Public Enemy? We kind of do the same thing.” While “Secret Meeting” was warm and soulful, the growling chorus of “Abel” provided a glimpse of Berninger’s darker underbelly.

Winner: The National, in another landslide.

Round 4: Weezer vs. Girl Talk
What do Weezer and Girl Talk have in common? Apparently, a love for Ozzy Osborne.

Minutes after Weezer opened its set on the main stage with Black Sabbath’s “War Pigs,” Pittsburgh mash-up master Gregg Michael Gillis—a.k.a. Girl Talk—mixed the song with Ludacris’ “Move Bitch” to construct one of his opening dance grooves. Gillis then spun a string of tweaked tracks from 2006’s Night Ripper and last year’s Feed The Animals, including an extended version of his brilliant mash of The Jackson 5 and “Bohemian Rhapsody,” while sharing double-fist pumps with a few dozen audience members onstage.

It’s natural to wonder what a Girl Talk show is like. Is it just a dude behind a computer? No—he’s also on top of the computer, around the computer, and pretty much everywhere else on the stage. Gillis isn’t much for chatting during his set, mostly just DJ jargon like “You still with me Virgin Fest?” Beyond that, the set was just a raucous outdoor dance party.

Weezer’s set was an enjoyable (yet eventually depressing) journey through the band’s discography. Rivers Cuomo hopped on stage during the opening riffs of “Hash Pipe” (after the rest of the band opened with “War Pigs”), nervously flailing about as if Woody Allen were taking a stab at the Rodney Dangerfield dance from Caddyshack. The band weaved between the sterling hits of yesteryear (“Surf Wax America,” “Say It Ain’t So”) and the less-than-stellar hits of today (“Troublemaker,” “Pork And Beans”). The set closed in similar form as it opened, with an inspired cover of “Should I Stay Or Should I Go.” No points awarded for creativity, but you can’t say enough about the execution.

Winner: Girl Talk, by a hair.

Round 5: Blink-182 vs. Franz Ferdinand
Jesus Christ, Blink-182 is still making dick jokes? The crowd was lucky to hear a single late-'90s pop-punk song end without an immediate reference to “cock n’ balls,” guitarist Tom Delonge’s fondness for handjobs, or bassist Mark Hoppus’ desire to “go down on Oprah.” And after awkwardly discussing the key of the next song, the California trio returned to form by blasting out “The Blow Job Song.” At least the past decade hasn’t changed Blink-182 too much—and based on the crowd’s reaction to each mention of a penis, the teenagers that first laughed at their hijinks in 1999 are apparently stuck in the same state of arrested development.

But man, Travis Barker can wail, and I’ll admit it: Blink’s show was shamefully fun. I think we all missed their old little-persons-on-trampolines shtick during “All The Small Things,” though.

To those that had never seen Scottish quintet Franz Ferdinand live, its closing set on the West Stage was likely the day’s surprise performance. Many were quick to write off the band as yet another over-simplified post-punk clone (like, say, The Bravery or Jet), failing to acknowledge the band’s polished, jam-heavy live aesthetic. With many of the screaming teens creaming themselves over Blink-182 in the pavilion, the Franz Ferdinand set was more mature and intimate than many of the stage’s earlier performances. Franz opened big with its latest commercial hit, “No You Girls,” then gravitated to more compelling tracks like “Burn This City” and “Darts Of Pleasure,” each driven by grooving, multi-layered guitar lines. The set closed with a 10-minute electro jam, reaching a final crescendo as the clock struck 11 p.m.

Winner: Franz Ferdinand.

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