The Magnificent Seven
Four days. Three stages. More than seventy bands. And enough patchouli oil to fuel a 757 made from bales of hemp and “Phish Phorever” T-shirts. It can be a funky, overwhelming filly, this Wakarusa Music and Camping Festival, but one your Birkenstocks can easily navigate with the proper guidance. Which is why we wrote these seven must-see shows on the back of an empty packet of Zig-Zags we found stuck beneath our wizard hookah in the van.
Los Lonely Boys
They say one is the loneliest number that you’ll ever do. And two can be as bad as one. In fact, it’s the loneliest number since the number one. Which means three should be a real bastard. But when three is the number of Los Lonely Boys, whose song (“Heaven”) is sitting at No. 7 on the VH1 Top Twenty Countdown, you get the impression that the Austin Music Awards’ band of the year just might be fixing for No. 1. And the Garza boys (Henry on guitar, JoJo on bass and Ringo [cough] on drums) can’t be that lonely these days, with the critical hordes swarming to tell the West Texas trio that it’s numero uno. The band’s self-titled debut provides plenty of sweet melodies that pack a punch yet leave listeners warm inside. Not unlike the whole salt-tequila-lime trick, only without the subsequent projectile vomiting. — Nathan Dinsdale
6:30 p.m. Sunday, June 20, on the Sun Down Stage.
Guided By Voices
What in the hell is a relatively clean-cut former schoolteacher with a punk pedigree doing in the middle of a hippie lovefest that’s got more jam than Smucker’s? Keeping things interesting, that’s what. Guided By Voices frontman Robert Pollard hasn’t mellowed much with age, and he continues to put out more records than the average bear, including a slew of solo works and a mammoth GBV boxed set issued last winter. This summer, the group will release its gazillionth studio album and a two-disc “director’s cut” of its most popular effort, Bee Thousand. Pollard says the group will break up at the end of the year. For now, though, GBV puts on one of the rowdiest, drunkest, lengthiest rock shows around. Perhaps it fits the Wakarusa bill after all. — Geoff Harkness
10:25 p.m. Saturday, June 19 on Wakarusa’s Sun Up Stage.
Sound Tribe Sector 9
Sound Tribe Sector 9 represents an evolutionary step from the prog-rockers of the late ’70s and early ’80s, even as it is embraced by the tie-dyed crowd. The band pushes the standard musical boundaries of the improv-rock scene beyond the more traditional influences of jazz, funk and rock to include liberal doses of house, jungle and electronica. The results are trancelike musical meditations based not on solo displays of technical pyrotechnics but rather on the more communal explorations of mood and groove. That sort of dedication to the collective experience of the musicians onstage can’t help but spill over to the audience, and the group leaves new fans in its wake after every show. — John Kreicbergs
1:30 a.m. Friday, June 18, at the Revival Tent. Also 7:20 p.m. on the Sun Down Stage.
Spoon
When you think of Texas rock, what comes to mind? Whiskey-laden, rock-your-fucking-socks-off bands like Pantera and ZZ Top, right? But Britt Daniel doesn’t waste his time living up to old Southern-rock standards. In fact, his music is completely devoid of mainstream assumptions. Gaining popularity after its breakup with Elektra records and the release of Girls Can Tell and Kill the Moonlight, Spoon has delivered a rebirth of soul and sensuality to rock music unseen since the demise of the Afghan Whigs. Daniel’s Dizzy Gillespiesque, be-bop-style vocals are as much an instrument as the loungy guitar and keys, giving the songs a sort of dog-with-Tourette’s-syndrome-humping-your-leg intimacy. And who doesn’t love that? — Andy Vihstadt
9:05 p.m. Saturday, June 19, on the Sun Up Stage.
Robert Randolph and the Family Band
Some Pentecostals take up serpents. Robert Randolph took up something much more dangerous — the pedal steel guitar. Known as an unwieldy and difficult instrument to master, Randolph learned to bend the ax to his will after hours upon hours of woodshedding in his parents’ New Jersey church. Now, after a roller coaster of indie celebrity has taken Randolph from his home at the house of God to the House of Blues and beyond, the prodigious string-bender has found a home with the welcoming and faithful followers of the jam scene. — Kreicbergs
10:30 p.m. Friday, June 18, on the Sun Down Stage.
Derek Trucks Band
Can a guy this young really have the blues? You’ll believe it when you see Derek Trucks, who practically burns the fretboard with heart and soul. And his music isn’t solely for masturbatory guitar freaks, either. Trucks and his band are into actual soul music, and their album Soul Serenade is modeled after the smooth, mellow vibe of Marvin Gaye’s What’s Goin’ On, Miles Davis’ Kind of Blue and Cannonball Adderly’s Somethin’ Else. Trucks also places a high premium on improvisation, but there’s more at work here than fodder for ‘shroom-addled jam-band freaks to spin around to. The Derek Trucks Band aspires to a higher, more spiritual form of musical communication, and Trucks’ reverence for the rich history of blues, jazz and soul comes across, literally, right through his fingers. — Saby Reyes-Kulkarni
9:15 p.m. Saturday, June 19, on the Sun Down Stage.
Drive-By Truckers
These boys are real. Real ugly. Real true. Real pissed sometimes. Real tender other times. And occasionally all of those things at once. A couple of years back, the band’s Southern Rock Opera was a make-or-break record that made them real good. It rocked without skimping on the emotion of earlier faves such as “The Living Bubba.” And the Truckers know exactly what they are: funny and mean and bruised up real bad. Great rock-and-rollers on “Sink-Hole,” and great country singers on “Outfit.” Capable of a greatness not so strained as what they achieved on Opera, which will define them for years. And they’ll be on a big stage in Lawrence come Sunday, almost like they’re the stars they should be. — Alan Scherstuhl
7:50 p.m. Sunday, June 20, on the Sun Down Stage.
