Kilby Block Party 6: Thursday in Pics

I traveled up to Salt Lake City to take in one of the newish festivals that seems to be doing things right, Kilby Block Party. The lineup is one of the best of the year for my tastes, by far. Previous years, KBP was only two or three days; they hit four days this go round for a stellar group of artists to accomodate touring schedules with New Order, Yo La Tengo, Future Islands and Devo featured.

Click through, I have some thoughts and plenty of photos to peruse. If you were at the rail, see if you made the crowd shots. If you weren’t there, blast you favorite tunes by each artist and pretend.

Let’s face it, the big draw for adding a night to the fest was getting a spot in New Order’s tour schedule. The bonus was that Devo could tag along. Levelor, Teen Suicide, Yo La Tengo and Future Islands also got the call. Thursday had no conflicting stages, so early attendees got to stroll between stages and see everyone, or live by priorities and camp up front.

That brings us to some logistics; the festival layout is solid. Two main stages were situated at either end of the main fairground, while there was a smaller (think BMI at ACL) side stage next to the headliner stage and a new stage in the rodeo stadium rounding things out. Thursday just used the two largest. Plenty of bars, bathrooms and food trucks (great food). VIP seemed to be a pretty nice value that included lounges and indoors facilities.

Highlights, New Order and Devo. No other way to put it. Yes, Yo La Tengo sounded amazing. Yes, Future islands (IMHO to the detriment of the songs) receive the front-person of the fest award with Mr. Samuel T. Herring. I enjoyed the new-to-me Levelor and (questionably named) Teen Suicide as appetizers.Devo rolled out the hits and fellow photographers that did not really know Devo were surprised to learn just how many of their songs for which they knew all the lyrics. New Order, while firmly in what should be the nostalgia years, still offer variations in both setlist and delivery from tour to tour. This was a very different show to one Nathan and I caught at SXSW 24. Brandon Flowers come out for a song, though he maaayyy have been guilty of over-singing his part during “Bizarre Love Triangle”.