There’s this new thing I just made up called the trifecta of dirty: dirty people, dirty dancing and dirty beats. Well, I’m the one who put words to it, but Chicago’s second annual North Coast Music Festival is responsible for planting the seed.
Of course, “dirty” isn’t the sole adjective here, just a prominent one. Not everyone was sweaty and mud-marked, not all the dancing needed to be censored and the music was much more than dirty beyond the bass drops of the DJs. It’s this integration of filth, fashion, funk and flavor that gave North Coast its distinction.
The 50,000 people who flooded the grassy, relatively quaint Union Park experienced a 3-day music festival that one could also accurately classify as trippy, lively, chill, colorful and low-key with a little rave-y aftertaste. If Lollapalooza is Chicago’s grossly popular, city-roving music festival for twenty-somethings, North Coast is the new, in-the-know, bright-eyed and well-liked cousin.
Selling out on Saturday and Sunday and surpassing last year’s attendance by 10,000, the independent festival showcased heavyweight electronic artists, jam bands, hip-hoppers and eclectic cross-genre groups. Some of the major lineup draws included French house music producer and pop artist collaborator David Guetta, dubstep artist and DJ Bassnectar, “Black and Yellow” rapper Wiz Khalifa, hometown hero Common, genre-bending instrumental group Sound Tribe Sector 9 (STS9) and English “Rockefellar Skank” DJ Fatboy Slim.
Two main stages housed the headlining names likely to draw the biggest crowds while another stage hosted big daytime players. Then there was one sad, little stage in the corner behind some beer stands for local artists. Hey, all the more intimate.
The least populated day of the fest, Friday, hosted about six or seven less artists than days two and three. Still, the night introduced David Guetta and Wiz Khalifa to a crowd ready to get the fest rowdy. David Guetta mixed in Fergie and LMFAO-aided “Gettin’ Over You” among other radio plays with a generally predictable but still lively set that seemed to be overshadowed by the stage’s earlier DJ, Wolfgang Gartner. The skinny, flat-brim-hatted Wiz Khalifa and his Taylor Gang Crew flaunted energy throughout. The tree-lined audience kept crump-happy even between hits like “Roll Up” and crowd killer “Black and Yellow.” Kudos to Mr. Khalifa for only briefly mentioning his fondness for less-than-legal hobbies.
Saturday was the rainy day. As if that deterred anyone, artists or otherwise. If anyone was a little down in the dumps from the downpour, all wrongs were made right by Major Lazer’s early evening banana-rama. The duo consisting of DJ/producers Diplo and Switch (though the latter was MIA, or else invisible), Major Lazer delivered punch-packing, coconut-scented moombahton with appropriately placed move-busting dub hooks, dancehall loops and vocals. An afro-ed MC and scantily clad junk-shaker made what was already exciting even more so.
As the colorfully costumed whimsy went down on the tree-lined Red Bull stage, slightly darker more industrial dub stepper Rusko spun on the main North Coast stage. Lazer’s almost campy Caribbean groove rivaled the harder hitting industrial sounds, but dancing was the theme on both ends.
The dubstep continued with Carl Cox but was overshadowed by the local legendary conscientious rhymesayer (ahem, personally introduced by an alderman even), Common. Headliner Fatboy Slim held down the Red Bull stage after Carl Cox dismounted. The aging DJ put out surprisingly modern riffs and loops to an audience who easily and instantly erased Slim’s connection to the prom scene in “She’s All That.” Even sharing the bill with young, scene-stealing dubstep divas, the Fatboy can hold his own, and then some.
The fest’s final day was a true finale. The North Coast stage was met with the absolutely bonkers and charmingly absurd Of Montreal near sunset. Extreme costumes and antics all around (including a never-ending balloon train worming above the crowd and a posse of changing, circus-like performers) made Of Montreal’s set not necessarily the best-sounding thing in the world (though frontman Kevin Barnes nailed all the highest peaks in “Gronlandic Edit”), but certainly one of the most joyful and bizarre.
Electronic beats helped transform the day to night with sets by ATB and “Satisfaction” producer Benny Benassi. And satisfaction was indeed the outcome from Benassi’s jumpy electro house, pop samples and occasional dubstep breaks.
Rivaling the headliner Thievery Corporation with Bassnectar to close out North Coast was regrettable. Not just regrettable, but plain unfair. Bassnectar’s audience extended way beyond the imaginary boundaries for which the stage allowed. Igniting the speakers were his popular remix of Ellie Goulding’s “Lights,” a version of the track namedropped across t-shirts all over festie grounds, “Bass Head,” as well as jittery, dark, double-time house and half-time, metallic-sounding dubstep. Bassnectar was a clear champ of “Summer’s Last Stand.” Then again, the whole eclectic weekend off that pink line “L” stop was blue ribbon-worthy.
