Wanderlust
My wife and I were first-timers to Wanderland, Manila’s own answer to Coachella staged each year in an open field next to Circuit, Makati, so we didn’t really know what to expect. We’re kind of playing catch-up when it comes to modern rock festivals, so we’re always taken aback by the new wrinkles. We entered the grounds towards 8 p.m., just in time to catch the tail-end of The Naked & Famous’ set, leading up to the real reason we were there: Bon Iver and, to a lesser extent, Death Cab for Cutie (we’d already caught their strong Manila set a year or so ago; Death Cab “seconds” was really just a bonus).
As we inspected the dark grounds, it all came back to us: the fields of young people, the blankets on the grass. So far, so Woodstock. But instead of 1969’s mud, there were piles of empty plastic water bottles everywhere; instead of clouds of marijuana smoke, there were the obligatory vapists, blowing up clouds of non-toxic exhaust; and instead of kids rutting in piles of limbs on the ground, there were people piling together to take group selfies. Woodstock, you’ve come a long way.
Globe was a sponsor of the event, with a big lit-up tent and entry bracelets that promised barter rights for food, beer and water if you pre-loaded the things; ironically, we could not get a Globe 3G signal anywhere inside the Wanderland premises. And what was up with that drone hovering above the main stage, stopping above the crowd at periodic moments, presumably making its pictorial report before zipping away again?
Wanderland (now in its third year) features about 10 acts during the daylong festival, with side acts on side stages in between. My non-journalistic eyeballing toted up a crowd of about 8,000. But we were really there to see Justin Vernon, a.k.a. Bon Iver, transform introspective folkie numbers from “For Emma, Forever Ago” and his eponymous follow-up album into a live setting. Bon Iver (pronounced “Bon ee-VER,” a pun on the French “good winter”) did not disappoint, though the truncated set was disappointing. Bitin, even.
How to describe Bon Iver? An indie folkie who repaired to a Wisconsin cabin to woodshed songs in 2008, since earning Grammies, Vernon has developed in several unexpected ways, along paths that dazzle some, irritate others. The second number in his one-hour set was practically dubstep, and a showcase of looped vocoder somewhere mid-set (on the “Blood Bank” song Woods) offered a fuller blossoming of his talent. There are traces of new age minimalism now, a bit of jazz lite, and certainly a lot of R&B influence (he was even asked to contribute vocals to Kanye’s “My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy” album). With his plaintive falsetto — a wolf’s howl, but much sweeter — the singer was decked out in reddish beard, headphones and nondescript baseball cap (the cap, we verified, hid a receding hairline). Throughout the set, he was buttressed by two(!) drummers, a bassist who doubled on saxophone at one point, a second guitarist and three female backup singers who looked like they were about to swoon in Iver’s presence.
Bon Iver’s music may have broad appeal, but it definitely appealed strongly to the females in the audience, with its longing and scruffy woodland romanticism. There was also the musicianship, which was strong, and the striking voice of Vernon, which cut through the crowd in equal doses of clarity and soaring reverb. (He apologized for the minimal stage patter, saying he had limited time and had better just barrel through the set.)
My wife once asked me, when the sparse “For Emma, Forever Ago” came out in 2008, what Neil Young had that Bon Iver didn’t. It was an unfair question, but I ventured that Young had better tunes. That turns out to be unfair. Bon Iver’s tunes may be simple, almost minimalist, but they’re perfect springboards for the layers of melody and orchestration that the band whips together. There’s loads of feels here, even if you don’t know what exactly he’s singing about. Perhaps it helps to imagine Neil Young with a better voice, minus the ability to rock.
Towards the end, Vernon took the stage to play a solo version of Skinny Love, one of the standout tracks from his debut album, and it was clearly a cathartic experience. Vernon spat out words that catalogued a lost love (“And I told you to be patient/ And I told you to be fine/ And I told you to be balanced/ And I told you to be kind/ And now all your love is wasted/ So who the hell was I?”), and right there you could cut through the laser spotlights and vocoder subterfuge to the real heart of the matter.
After that, Death Cab for Cutie’s set seemed almost an afterthought, as tight and experienced and strong as they were. Ben Gibbard’s wired, skinny frame bounced on the stage platform, guitar in hand, as he tried to avoid getting his teeth knocked out by a similarly bouncing microphone (“It’s like a f***ing trampoline up here!” he quipped at one point). Gibbard opened with several new numbers, some apparently directed (sardonically) at ex-wife Zooey Deschanel, which didn’t quite erase the majesty of the previous set, but the band had loads of hits and lesser-heard material to fall back upon, even as the night wore on and the crowd seemed to evaporate further back into the Wanderlands grounds — though the all-seeing drone was still spotted overhead from time to time.
