Top Ten Fun Fest Artists

We hope all of you stayed dry on Sunday at the Fun Fun Fun Festival and we also hope you soaked in the great weather of Saturday. All in all we had a great time over the weekend and saw tons of great bands.  Just as we did with ACL, we’d like to give you a brief recap with our top 10 favorite bands from the weekend festivities. We’re putting these in no real order and just listing them with some brief reasons why we liked them so much. Follow the jump for our top 10 Fun Fest bands.

Les Savy Fav

Okay, so I know the sound wasn’t spectacular here tonight, but in a weekend where a lot of lackluster performances were given by my favorite artists, Tim Harrington didn’t fail to deliver.  Who can argue that the best moment of Friday came watching Tim hump an unsuspecting fan atop a ladder atop the crowd.  We warned you that this would be one of the best performances of the festival, and as we guessed, it killed. –nathan.lankford.

Russian Circles

I have been listening to Russian Circles for a couple of years and I always considered myself a casual fan. Their albums have been solid, no frills affairs, great for late night drives or studying, I never gave them much thought other than that. I have friends that simply adore Russian Circles and that’s what lead me to making room for them in my packed Saturday schedule. I am so glad that I did.  I knew their new album, Geneva, was leagues better than their previous efforts and all the power they display on that album is present in their live performance.  The amount of power these three unassuming men put out is awe-inspiring.  Guitarist Mike Sullivan utilizes looper pedals to make this trio sound huge.  Another thing that really stood out to me was that there was not a vocal microphone on stage. Russian Circles simply came out, rocked the eff-out and left, and with a weekend full of cockiness coming from numerous punk bands, it was refreshing to see these guys let their music speak for them. –mwilliamrice.

Destroyer

Whether you love this guy or not, you can’t deny the merriment created by listenting to his odd (not abstract) lyrics and creative songwriting.  Sure, Jesus Lizard thought they were the heroes, so they wanted to be as loud as possible, but if you snuck back to the yellow stage, you were lucky enough to watch one of the more surprising moments of the weekend.  Dan and his guitar, quietly playing  into the dark night was a good cap to Saturday. –nathan.lankford.

Ratatat

Who knew that Even Mast could wail so hard on the guitar?  I’ve always been a big fan of this band and how they can actually play instruments unlike some of the other dance music bands around.  They do obviously play to some backing tracks, but I still love the way they really know how to get the crowd going with sweet guitar solos.  I’ve also always been baffled how sounds like that can come out of a guitar.

This Will Destroy You

You gotta give some love to these local boys! This Will Destroy You from San Marcos were the first band on my Sunday schedule and they were a great way to ease into the craziness that became Sunday evening.  The skies were already graying as the quartet worked through the lion-share of their self titled 2008 full length.  Their slowly building atmospheric anthems slowly brought the rain that would plague us the rest of the evening, but at the moment, their music was the perfect soundtrack for that dreary afternoon. –mwilliamrice.

Lucero

I’m not a huge huge fan of this band.  I like Ben Nichols voice, with all its throaty whiskey drenched passion, but the rest of the band on album just hasn’t held up for me at all. That is until Sunday, when the rain began to clear for just a little bit.  The band, including a killer horn section, rocked the soggy crowd, reminding us all that The Hold Steady isn’t the only sort of band trying to go the way of the E Street Band. –nathan.lankford.

Yeasayer

Yeasayer wins the award for giving us the best preview of what’s to come in 2010.  The band jammed a lot of new tracks that sounded great and got us really excited for their new album next year.  A few old tracks near the end of their hurried and shortened set were a nice addition to the new tunes.  This is a buzz band you’ll be hearing about for years to come.

Young Widows

Louisville, Kentucky’s Young Widows were the first band I saw on Fun Fun Fun Fest weekend and man, were they spectacular!  The afternoon’s playlist was heavy with tracks from their 2008 album Old Wounds, which was largely tracked in a live setting, so their performance was pretty spot on with their recorded materials. I can only imagine how great these guys are in a small club. –mwilliamrice.

Crystal Antlers

We’ve seen this band a few times now and they still continue to impress each time we see them.  You’ve got a throaty/screaming singer, an incredible drummer, and a crazy black man running around in a band always full of energy.  The songs from the new album also sounded ten times better live than they did on the record.  “Andrew” will definitely appear on our year end lists.

Times New Viking

Another band that I would always rather see live than sit and listen to at home.  It just seems like the records are so damn lo-fi that I can’t get into them, but then the live show rocks face.  Hopefully this band will continue to rock out and put great energy into their live sets.  They also make incredible sounds for only being a 3 piece.

Honorable Mentions

The Jesus Lizard, Fucked Up, Coalesce, Why?, Atlas Sound, Torche, No Age, SSION