There’s nothing quite like Noise Pop to remind you that, even with all the entertainment at our fingertips, nothing can replace live music. Throughout the week, as I accumulated hand stamps and wristbands at venues from the Tenderloin to the Panhandle, it was hard not to feel alive and grateful for the many high-caliber musicians and absolutely stoked fans of different ages, backgrounds and subcultures.
The 10-day festival kicked off with a Feb. 20 opening party with Dam-Funk at the California Academy of Sciences, and brought impressive headliners to unique settings (St. Vincent and Ben Gibbard in the gorgeous Grace Cathedral, for one) and storied nightclubs alike. True to the festival’s roots, this year’s edition was heavy on indie rock, both with nostalgic acts like American Football and new-gen stars like Soccer Mommy. It also brought out left-field pop and cult hip-hop acts with passionate, niche followings. (My only complaint was a lack of local hip-hop artists during this vibrant time in the Bay Area scene.)
Below you’ll find a scene report from Noise Pop’s most exciting sets, plus lots more photos.
Earl Sweatshirt brought out the introverts
Earl Sweatshirt doesn’t really write songs with hooks. He says things that most people in the music industry aren’t willing to say (like “free Gaza”). And the beats he chooses are jarring and jagged, made from asymmetrical loops that don’t really work for dancing. Not that his fans care. The dense crowd at his two back-to-back shows at Great American Music Hall rapped along to his deep cuts, spitting each bar with their chests. On Tuesday night, it felt like 400 introverts found their tribe after years of passionately, privately listening to Sweatshirt in their bedrooms.
Sweatshirt arrived on stage to the guitar loop from his 2018 instrumental song “Riot!” “I feel like a Pop Tart right now,” he told the crowd. He probably wasn’t the only one having a psychedelic experience. When he delivered the dense, poetic bars of “E. Coli,” with its old-school-sounding choral beat produced by The Alchemist, phones went up and dozens of joints sparked throughout the crowd. During the set he brought back opening acts Navy Blue and Zelooperz, who had delivered heartfelt and moshpit-worthy performances, respectively, earlier in the night.
A chance to catch Glixen before they blow up
Glixen’s Tuesday-night show at Bottom of the Hill might have been the last chance to see them in the lovably ramshackle dive before they blow up. The young four-piece shoegaze band from Phoenix is currently on a tour of small clubs before they land in front of 125,000 festival-goers at Coachella in April. At Bottom of the Hill Tuesday, they exuded quiet confidence, mostly letting screechy distortion speak for them instead of bantering with the crowd. An audience aged 18 to 60 — the latter camp probably drawn to the show because of Glixen’s similarities to My Bloody Valentine — bobbed along in a trance as Aislinn Ritchie’s thin vocals floated along in frothy spumes of sludgy instrumentation.
Cymande returned in top form
“We’re gonna play you a song that put us on the map before we took a short break for 50 years,” joked Patrick Patterson, Cymande’s guitarist, as a funky bassline kicked off their 1972 hit “Bra.” With each shake of the shaker, trilling guitar riff and sunny burst of trumpet, the audience ascended into ecstatic, full-body dance moves. Folks with grey hair, who probably first heard the Caribbean-British band five decades ago, moved their hips, clearly getting their groove back — if they ever even lost it in the first place.
