Take a ‘Chance’ on Revelry

by Jake Rickun

Say what you will, but this year’s Revelry was superb. I saw some incredible performances and I was still able to party on Mifflin all morning through early afternoon.

Around 4:30 p.m., I walked over to Library Mall where Revelry set up its Main Stage this year. Here were my top five favorite shows of the day.

5. Mick Jenkins

Though a tad late, Jenkins eventually ran on stage in crisp white vans and dark denim jean overalls. As quickly as he arrived, the temporally choppy synths of “THC” from his mixtape The Water[s] filled Library Mall and absorbed the crowd into attentiveness.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gl_rDCqKvuA

The vast majority of his set came from The Water[s]. After “THC,” he engaged with the crowd, instructing the audience in a call-and-response that would become a motif in his set.

“When I say ‘Drink more,’ y’all say, ‘Water,’” Jenkins said.

Despite a pretty tight set, there couldn’t have been more than 75 people in the crowd, which Jenkins seemed to take note of. They couldn’t match his energy, and an underwhelmed Jenkins left without a bang. Still, his set and performance were pretty kick-ass.

4. Me en You

At this point I’m pretty embarrassed to say that I didn’t know Madison-based Me en You until a couple weeks ago when I interviewed Daniel Kaplan (Lord of the Fly, Me en You). Their frontman is Eric Newble, but Kaplan has a strong presence in the band’s musical makeup.

Damn, was I blown away. The sun gleamed warmly on Mendota while boats and water-skiers slalomed and made ripples on its otherwise calm waters. It made for great scenery as Me en You filled the Terrace with the most instrumental and soulful set of Revelry. They had saxophones, bass guitar, steel guitars, drums and more. I’m not sure the stage could have been more packed.

These guys were having so much fun, and I’m sure everyone felt that. Their energy was magnetic and their music was extremely organic and heartfelt.

3. AlunaGeorge

There’s no way to say this without sounding like a huge hipster douchebag, but I’ve been a big AlunaGeorge fan since they released their debut singles “You Know You Like It” and “Your Drums, Your Love” back in 2012.

Singer Aluna Francis took the stage donning a Mifflin tank top, Wisconsin athletic shorts and a bright red Bucky bandana. It was pretty cool to show her appreciation for UW like that. I was standing about three feet away, looking up at her as she sang hits from 2013’s Body Music.

I melted. AlunaGeorge had a snappy drum set that really added a nice touch to the band’s digital foundation. Throughout the whole set, Francis’ voice was absolutely flawless. She danced around on stage and never missed a note. I was extremely impressed to hear that their musical fidelity translated perfectly into a live show. AlunaGeorge slayed.

2. LORDprez

Lord of the Fly (Kaplan) returned to the stage for a second set with CRASHprez (Michael Penn II). DJ *hitmayng (Ian Carroll) introduced Lord of the Fly and his onstage “opponent” CRASHprez. It was friendly of course, and reminded me of Lil Wayne and Drake when they did their matchup a while back.

I’ve been a fan of Lord of the Fly’s work since he released Not Safe for Work last April. But I hadn’t started listening to CRASHprez until this year. After interviewing them a couple weeks ago, I made sure to see their collective performance as LORDprez. It was Penn’s last show as a student here. He promised a lot, but damn did he and Lord of the Fly deliver.

They started the show with a powerful homage to Tony Robinson and lyrics from CRASHprez’s “40, 28.”

“No one man should have all that coward,” they said in unison.

As expected, their chemistry was magnetic. Lord of the Fly’s unstoppable spastic energy fused perfectly with CRASHprez’s performative aggression and charisma. As the sun began to set, yellow-orange LEDs replaced the sun’s diminishing glow and illuminated their faces in a captivating, menacing light.

These guys knew what they were doing. They knew their audience and how to connect with them on a level that transcended sheer performance.

1. Chance the Rapper

Madison loves Chance. His mixtape Acid Rap is surely an all-time favorite for many.

While it was explicitly Chance’s show, it felt more like a collective effort with Donnie Trumpet and the Social Experiment joining him on stage. They’re dropping their debut album Surf later this week, so they made sure to perform their latest single “Sunday Candy” to help promote it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xdcW70M1h_Q

“This is your show,” Chance said. “How many of you actually downloaded Acid Rap?”

It seemed like every single person screamed to let him know. Acid Rap wasn’t “pushed onto” anyone like many albums and singles are, Chance added. He thanked the crowd for being a part of his rise to prominence.

I found a spot in the crowd and ran into CRASHprez and Lord of the Fly, where I congratulated them on a fantastic show. All around me was blissful energy, mouthing Chance’s songs verbatim and losing themselves in the moment.

It couldn’t have been a more fitting way to end Revelry.

I know we students have been told “don’t go” to Mifflin. Of course no one listened. I’ll agree that Mifflin is a blast and that you should go. But at this point, Revelry has become something special, so it would be a huge mistake to miss it for another year.

P.S. If you’re wondering where the Chainsmokers are on this list, any group that touts itself on having members that are “devilishly handsome” doesn’t really deserve much praise. I’m sure their set was totally #turnt and that everyone was there for the music.

Cali dreamin’ at The Terrace

by Andie Burjek

The Terrace Stage at the Revelry Arts and Music Festival was something like a county fair: groups of friends played cards, people kept to themselves and read books, families lounged in the sun. And it was all the while bands of varying talent took the stage. I found a table and people-watched, only to find that people watching got old very fast, considering that most people dressed like they were attending Coachella on a midwestern farm.

Terrace Stage headliners LORDprez wouldn’t be taking the stage for a few hours, and in the meantime the audience sat through a mixed bag of afternoon performances.

Madison-based Modern Mod and the Minnesota-based Bad Bad Hats gave the best performances. The lead singer of Modern Mod, Emily Massey, rocked an appropriately modern mod hairstyle: short, straight hair and bangs, but blonde with pink streaks instead of the 1960’s black. She had a strong voice and the band had a well-organized set with a sound reminiscent of Best Coast’s California vibes. They were having fun and they passed that on to the audience.

The Bad Bad Hats also had that California-band vibe. The audience bopped in front of the stage lightheartedly. I really liked them, and I only liked them less when the lead singer Kerry Alexander announced that the next song was inspired by the awful Mandy moore movie “A Walk to Remember.” I was also disappointed they weren’t actually wearing bad bad hats. Regardless of these flaws, their performance was strong and fun.

Other groups did not make the same impression. Local group Dolores incorporated too much jamming and not enough coordination. My friend compared them as a wanna-be Phish, but who would even want to be Phish? Also, they’re described as a “funky indie psych rock pop fusion.” That’s too many adjectives. When did describing a genre of a band become so complicated?

Still, Dolores was decent compared to the one-man show Ben Talmi. A lone boy with a guitar and a whole lot of eye-roll inducing music. He was like that kid on your floor freshman year who tried to impress girls by playing acoustic guitar and saying he writes his own songs.

All-in-all, the afternoon was a casual, mellow, relaxing alternative to, let’s say, a Kentucky Derby party, and equally white. A stage of live music (a singular East-coast boy with a guitar and “deep” songs, a few groups with strong female singers with a very California style of music) with beautiful Lake Mendota backdrop complete with sailboats.