Clear sky, temperatures in the 80s and thirteen national bands playing to a packed audience lounging around on the LC’s lawn. Yup, It’s that time of year again when CD102.5 throws its annual Summer Festival celebration of future musical stars along with a couple of bands that have been around almost as long as the station itself.
This year’s festival took place over three days (I won’t be at Saturday night’s low-dough show so this just covers Thursday and Friday) with two nights featuring alt-rock superstars Cake and Weezer while Saturday’s show brings a collection of up and coming bands including L.A. skate-punks FIDLAR.
Thursday night opened with Glass Animals after Civil Twilight were knocked off the bill due to flight problems. Bear Hands were next up and the indie-rock band put on a decent show that ended with the couple of songs that everyone with a radio now knows thanks to the evenings promoters.
And then came the highlight of the show — Matt & Kim. The two-piece have played quite a few CD102.5 shows now, including a few Summerfests, and It’s so easy to see why. People groan whenever they appear on these bills but seriously, they’re are quite possibly the best Summertime festival band out there right now. I’ve seen this duo so many times and every time it’s pretty much the same show with similar sounding songs and the same stage tricks and I keep expecting to finally be bored, but, good lord it’s still such fun. I could watch this band a hundred times without it becoming old and seeing legions of fans crowd surfing during “Now” was possibly the best thing I’ve witnessed at the LC in quite a while.
The crowd quickly thinned out after Matt & Kim finished their set as the young kids fled the scene, leaving the older generation to see Cake play their first Columbus date since the last time they double headlined Summerfest. The Californian five piece launched into their musically diverse set-list and played a perfectly decent set. But they’re not Matt & Kim and I quickly lost interest.
Friday night opened with two bands that I didn’t get to see, POP ETC and Saint Motel before Atlas Genius took the stage shortly after 8pm.
The Aussie rock band have a small collection of songs that are catchy enough for a Summer show but too many sounded just like the last and a set of over an hour felt overly long, and again, they’re just not Matt & Kim.
And then along came Weezer, a band with a back catalog so good they don’t need to slap a smile on you like Matt & Kim do. They don’t need a sea of balloons, they don’t need to talk to the crowd and Pat Wilson probably shouldn’t get up and grind on a security guard. They opened with debut album classic “My Name Is Jonas”, and that just set the bar high for the rest of the evening as the band performed a greatest hits collection of their radio-friendly pop-rock that didn’t fail to deliver.
The majority of the set was pulled from early Weezer cuts. Recent singles “Back the the Shack” and “Go Away” received a warm response from the crowd but it was sing-along classics “Sweater Song”, “Say it Ain’t So” and “Island in the Sun” that had the crowd in a frenzy and at times it almost looked like Rivers Cuomo was going to break into a tiny smile.
The band ended with a two song encore that ended with breakthrough hit from the early 90’s “Buddy Holly” to put I fitting end on a night of celebration for CD102.5’s 25th year of operation.
The three-day festival wraps up on Saturday with Digisaurs, Bully, Genevieve, Joywave, Cayucas and FIDLAR.
To find more upcoming live music events, CLICK HERE to visit our Event Calendar.
Matt Ellis is a freelance photographer who covers bands that visit the city and the Columbus Crew MLS team. More about Matt can be found at Matt Ellis Photography.