Written by Noel Stecher
Following day one; full of rain, music, and navigational confusion, handled in a
blithesome mood, we arrive back at a mud-filled festival campus, meeting at the press booth to
discuss the events of the day. The most important task was preparation for an interview with
Saint Avangeline later in the day. We also spent some time discussing who we would skip to
grab dinner (MUNA), and how excited we were for both Lorde and Ninajirachi.
After the discussion of our interview with Saint Avangeline, we set up on the hill to watch
the first performance of the day, which was none other than Saint Avangeline. Not only was this
the first performance of the day, but also her very first festival performance; the first time doing
anything normally doesn’t go as well, but she broke that rule and put on a phenomenal performance, one of the best of the day. Just moments before she got on, a light sprinkle began
to fall, adding a welcomed small melancholic touch to her beautiful performance.
Amping up the energy more while maintaining a dreamy melancholic atmosphere, the
shoegaze band Wisp entered the stage. Saint Avangeline and Wisp’s sonic style was
immediately and excitingly juxtaposed by the third act of the day, industrial musician Sofia Isella.
Covered in mud, she brought an intensity and harshness not seen by the previous two
performers. Utilizing crowd work and theatrics to great effect, she put on a performance that
was impossible not to love, regardless of affinity for style or familiarity with her work.
Acting as a breather but not a snoozer of a set, Paris Paloma was next on the docket.
Excitingly, I worked in the photo pit for the first time of the event, knowing that my job was to
take good pictures of the performer; I admittedly began shifting my attention to trying to get
good pictures capturing the beautiful movement and drape of her dress, A dress I believe to
be the best outfit of the entire festival, in both the performers and the crowd. I suppose looking back now, the beauty of the dress may have been an extension of the beauty of her music. Even with its softness, elegance, and underlying ferocity still existed in the music that may not be immediately
obvious, but is quickly unveiled with attention. My belief in this ferocity was substantiated near the end of her set, when previous performer Sofia Isella came out to help perform the song Labour alongside Paris.
The next challenge of the day was the await of our interview with Saint Avangeline, hoping to take place during the set of Snow Strippers; we hoped for no interference from the set of Snow strippers impeding our interview. We finalized questions, established roles (I was to be the cameraman), and patiently waited. When given word that everything was ready, we gave introductions to her and her crew, and set up. Within a minute of the camera rolling, Snow Strippers began with a volume that gave all of us a jump scare, being one of the loudest sets of the festival; Fingers crossed the audio of this interview is salvageable. Within just a couple of minutes, I realized the position I took up for recording was a mistake, and I would be working out for the next fifteen minutes trying to maintain it.
Not being able to hear a single word said within the course of the interview, afterwards I
was informed of all of the new information we had learned. Believing the bulk of the best
information we would get would be from the serious questions, I was proven wrong. It was the
silly questions about her personality where we were given amazing answers and in-depth
explanations of opinions. We learned all about her opinions on Pokémon, and how she grew up
with those games. But maybe most excitingly, we were given some early information on her
fursona she is currently in the process of making with her girlfriend; with the information we
have, I’m excited for the final reveal. We headed down to the end of Snow Strippers’ set to party
it up before grabbing our Panda Express dinner.
Arriving back at the autochthonous arena of Hinterland, hype quickly grew for Lorde. The
light rain that had been happening on and off throughout the day appeared and was newly
paired with a sharp, varying wind, creating an environment of drama while maintaining comfort.
As the weather became perfect for something memorable, Umbrella by Rihanna came on while
waiting, and suddenly thousands began to sing along; the crowd slowly morphed into one entity;
almost immediately following the end of Umbrella, Lorde came out on stage. Beginning her set
with an incredibly cool and experimental unreleased track, a track I believe was synced with her
own heart rate, something that would be periodically displayed throughout her set. I and
seemingly everyone else were left entranced and ready for what was to come: the beautiful
songs, the drama, the visuals, and the adrenaline.
Not relying on the typical prerecorded tracks or live mixing, I believe she and her band
were recreating all the songs live with the use of samplers, analog synthesizers, and traditional
instruments. This was not only deeply impressive in how close they consistently sounded, but
also the slight variations of synths added new life to her already incredible body of work. Along
with amazing sound, the stage design was easily the best I’ve ever seen. Changing between
songs, she implemented a constantly shifting loose choreography, gorgeous lighting, amazing
camera work, and props always utilized to their best ability. Around halfway through the set, she
paused to give a long and poignant talk. Initially talking about her fascination with Iowa and her
excitement of finally coming here, a fascination driven by childhood intentions for her future.
With a mother who was a poet, she grew up around literature, loved it, and dreamed of a future
of being a writer. Part of that dream was attending the Iowa Writers’ Workshop, arguably the
most prestigious writing program in the world, producing countless greats of literature. This
shifted to a speech on the importance of language, ending her talk by saying there is just
something in Iowa’s water (a reference to the Writers’ Workshop, not state politics). After this
emotional speech, she played the most powerful song of the night, Liability; a song that brought
me to tears, and I believe many others; at least one person next to me cried quite loudly.
Excitement never diminished throughout the rest of the set; Greenlight came near the very end
and was my favorite single song performance of the entire festival. Coming to an end a massive
banner was drawn across the crowd, and it ended with Ribs performing it in the crowd, an
amazing end to an amazing performance.
After a short rest, calming down from intense adrenaline, we set out for the campfire
stage. Slowly trekking through mud that had built up through the day, we arrived for the tail end
of the Between Friends set, a fun electronic duo. But what we really wanted was Ninajirachi.
She came out around 1 AM after a short technical delay. The performance started loud, and
within the first couple of minutes a particular look was on her face; until I watched her turn a
single knob, suddenly becoming the loudest set of the event, she appeared satisfied. It was so loud, in fact, our camera struggled to focus, an issue we did not have with any other artist, even standing just a few feet away from the subs. She put on an incredibly fun set, one that made it hard not to dance even in spite of the mud covering every inch of ground. We got to watch her remix Rock Music by Charli XCX into iPod Touch, something analogous to seeing Jesus remix water to wine. We sang along to every song we could; she even explicitly asked the crowd to sing along to a song where the only lyrics are “yeah” and “ah”. We walked away during the final song, discussing the amazing day as the sound of Nina talking about performing explicit actions with her computer slowly faded away.
