Bunbury Festival

On the 13th-15th we made our way to the lovely city of Cincinnati to attend the first ever Bunbury Festival. We got there early to check out the set up and found out that the area is really easy to navigate, so we mapped out our schedule and smiled like idiots while we waited for our weekend of music to start.

The first band we checked out was Capital Cities, and they made the trumpet sound like it had thunder and lightning in it - it made their songs full of energy, and the dual vocals of two male lead singers worked perfectly with this band. It was a unique set up but it worked out into this incredibly quirky dance music. Perfect to wake us up on our first day.

After CC we saw Crash Kings, which is, I think, the first rock band we've gotten into that doesn't have guitar. The keyboard makes up for it with a whammy bar, though, and the bass is pretty heavy, so it works. We saw them a while ago, but it was really cool to hear some of their new stuff and the new band mates had great stage presence.

We stopped by to see Ra Ra Riot for a bit and say hi to some friends, but we'd seen RRR recently and were dying to rock out for Airborne Toxic Event, so we headed over to their stage and waited at the front. Seeing TATE is like an entirely different experience every time, because for as long as they've been doing live shows, they put everything they have into them. The lead singer engages the crowd more than any frontman we've seen, and their music is so incredibly easy to shout that it's impossible to stand in front of them and not have an amazing time.

We caught the last half of Foxy Shazam to end our Friday the 13th, and as usual with Foxy, it got weird. A really, really good kind of weird. The keyboardist crowd-surfed with his keyboard, still playing it with a wire trail leading back to the stage. The entire band is like a rockstar circus act, never letting a single mellow second pass. They're just all about a show, and you'll definitely get one if you see them.

Day two started out with seeing 1,2,3, who we've seen once before opening for Yellow Ostrich, and it was definitely a good start to the day. They have something really genuine and effortless about their music, so much so that it gets you amped up for a day full of it.

Then we checked out Imagine Dragons and even though we were way in the back, we danced in the grass and the sun. Their song Radioactive is amazing live, full of enough energy to reach way past the stage. We're gonna be seeing them again in a venue when they tour with Awolnation, so it'll be interesting to hear all that dance energy packed into closer quarters.

We took a break and chilled out for the rest of the day, catching part of Manchester Orchestra and part of Gaslight Anthem and then got up front for Grouplove, who were fantastic live. There were tons of giant inflatable beachballs being thrown around with glowsticks inside of them, so instead of just focusing on the stage, it was like the entire crowd was part of the show. Then after catching a few songs from Weezer, we headed back to our hotel.

Day three started with a lot of rain, so the sets were a little off (but were updated on the mobile app, which is awesome and kept everything organized.) So we got there in time to catch Pomegranates, which is a great band based in Cincinnati. It seems like they are music fans as much as they are musicians, and the influences in their songs are steady, but they have an original, modern sound.

Lights, who we caught the end of after Pomegranates, has a more pop sound, a kind of Paramore vibe that was upbeat and lively, even though we were all sundead. Afterward, we found some shade and caught the more mellow City and Colour. It was a big music genre shift, but it's great to have an eclectic festival to check out different types of artists.

After the rain, it got extremely hot so we were melting into the lawn. We put our umbrellas up for shade and listened to Margot and the Nuclear So and So's laying out on the grass. If you could get impregnated by sound, it would be by this band. They have a really intense tone that gets under your skin, and mixing it with the heat, it felt like it was drugging you into a kind of sunhaze.

Then, we woke ourselves up and got right into the crowd for Neon Trees. We've seen them live a few times (and will again in Cleveland in a couple weeks!) but this was the first time hearing most of their new album. We thought we had a fantastic time at the last couple of their shows, but it was like they took up every good moment of the weekend and just expelled it into the crowd. Tyler Glenn did a piano rendition of Your Surrender that reminded you how freaking talented his vocals are, followed up by some of their new songs that are so high energy you forget how to do anything but jump.

We ended the weekend by listening to Death Cab for Cutie on steps overlooking the lake and the city.

The atmosphere of the festival was great and the people were awesome - everyone was there to hear some good music (which there was definitely plenty of.) We suffered from some post Bunbury blues while heading back to Cleveland, but we're really excited to see who they have come next year. We'll be there.