DesertFest NYC 2023

 

DesertFest NYC 2023

We sure as hell wished we had been there. DesertFest NYC… Seeing all those amazing bands. Catching up with my Doom Charts brothers, Scott Spiers from CleanAndSoberStoner, Remi VL - the Tallymaster and our very own Kyle SB / Shastabeast. We would have befriended a load of others there as well, cause we are all Heavy Underground loving brothers, and we would surely have become best friends with Josh Burke. Friend of Remi and Kyle, he has graced us with a review of the festival. Our very first guest writer, and yes, we would surely let him write about DesertFest NYC again… Or anything else for that matter… Great to meet you Josh! 

 

DesertFest NYC 2023

by Josh Burke

After some encouragement from a member of the Doom Charts, as well as Stoner HiVe contributor Kyle SB / Shasta Beast, I decided to attempt an actual write-up of the festival we all attended last weekend. Although I write a ton for my job, I don’t think of myself as a writer. As someone who tends to sum up experiences as “that was awesome”, “that was okay” or “that sucked” I have a lot of respect for people who can write a coherent and well-written review. So, anyhow, Desertfest NY 2023 was okay.

 

 

Colour Haze won the weekend.  Despite their 30-year history, they had apparently only played once in the States previously. What a special treat to have their unique brand of jazzy, psychedelic rock. Both nights were great; the band made both the intimacy of the St. Vitus bar and the grander setting of the main stage work for them. Either set would have topped my list, but I give the edge to Friday night on the main stage. It is really easy for largely instrumental and generally mellow music to be boring and self-indulgent. Colour Haze dodged both of those traps. Building up and then backing down, occasionally going all out, everything worked. Every solo mattered and added to the performance. I went into the weekend as a casual fan of this band, only owning a couple of records, and came away just stunned by how great they were, particularly drummer Manfred Merwald. I only wish they’d had merch!

 

A hugely surprising second place to me goes to Ecstatic Vision from Philadelphia. Interestingly, another band that traffics heavily in long, drawn-out jams with extensive soloing. In this case, all that excess is done in the service of having the funnest party you can have. The clear exuberance and joy on the faces of lead singer/guitarist Doug Sabolik and saxophonist/guitarist/flautist Kevin Nickles was infectious. Particularly, the latter had a smile on his face for every nanosecond of their set. Meanwhile, the bass player and the drummer were there to do their job, and they toiled non-stop with a constant groove that was impossible to resist. Add in forays into the crowd and into the ceiling and a guest appearance by an equally driven Nick Oliveri and it was pretty much perfection. While they had not really grabbed me on first listen, this is a band I will always go see live if I have the chance.

Djunah were equally amazing in a very different way. Donna Dianne is a force of nature. The title of their most recent (and amazing) album, Femina Furens, is Latin for “furious woman,” and Dianne has fury for days. Flailing wildly at her guitar while pouring her soul into the mic and tapdancing on a raft of pedals, most notably playing complex bass lines on her Roland PK5 synth. Yes. With her feet. Crazy. Djunah’s music defies any easy categorization. Songs alternate between angular guitar lines and heavy riffs, all accompanied by Dianne’s biting lyrics and powerful vocals that range from whispers to yells to howls of anguish.  At times Dianne seemed almost overwhelmed and the overall mood was one of increasing tension and discomfort. A missed note here and there is easy to forgive and almost an afterthought with all the emotion Dianne puts into her performance and the anthemic Seven Winds of Sekhmet was the perfect release to close their set.

Other standouts:

 

Lo Pan – one of the most melodic voices in all of stoner rock, plus pummeling bass grooves.

 

Upper Wilds – this year’s surprise for me. Perhaps the least “desert” of the bunch, but melodic, upbeat space pop more in the vein of Dinosaur Jr. “Space” being apt here, as singer/guitarist Dan Friel told us after their set that each album draws inspiration from a particular planet (Jupiter being the latest).

 

Dorthia Cottrell – her acoustic set mixed some of the songs off her new album, the aptly named “Death Folk Country,” with reinterpretations of Windhand songs, highlighting her soulful vocals throughout. Second guitar and violin filled out the sound nicely.

 

 

Godflesh – I wanted to like this set more than I did. I love this band and it was a solid performance with a good mix of material from across their catalog. Justin Broadrick and B.C. Green were somehow low key while still being considerably more animated than the last time I saw them, but the mix was physically punishing and had the clarity of a passing car with the subwoofer cranked to a thousand. This seemed to be a plus for much of the crowd, but I dipped out early to get a spot up front for Djunah.

 

Melvins – I am largely indifferent to the Melvins but I’ll be damned if King Buzzo, Steven McDonald and Coady Willis (filling in for the ailing Dale Crover) didn’t win me over. Buzz alone on stage, menacingly picking his way through the end of Boris, was a perfect end to Desertfest NYC 2023.

 

There were many, many strong sets beyond these, and I definitely had a great time at the fest.  I am slightly bummed at having only two days (plus the pre-party) versus last year’s three, as well as an overall line-up that lacked some heft compared to last year (or to the other Desertfests this year). I can’t imagine how hard it is to put on an event like this, but the curse of putting on a great festival is that people expect it to continue to be great. That’s especially true when so many attendees are paying for a plane ticket and a hotel. There is every reason to think this is just a blip and that next year will once again be impossible to skip. And we’ll see if Stoner HiVe lets me write about it again.

Josh, Kyle & Remi


DESERTFEST NYC 2023