Pacific Festival Post Fact - Part 2 (recap by ZSE)

Part 1 of my Pacific Festival review consisted of acts that performed during the day. Part 2 below consists of acts that performed at night.

After Calvin Harris got the party starting on the main stage, Steve Aoki continued the party with his bangers ranging from "Turbulence" to his stellar remix of "Pursuit of Happiness." He had by far the greatest stage presence. Here's my favorite song he did, his remix to Kid Cudi's "Pursuit of Happiness".

Pursuit of Happiness (Steve Aoki Remix)

After seeing Aoki, I scrambled over to see Aussie house duo Bag Raiders. They were one of the up-and-coming acts I was most excited to see. What I didn't expect was that their sound would be so exceptional, not only with the instrumentals but the vocals as well. "Way Back Home" appeared to pump the crowd up the most as the duo both were banging on drums and the catchy chorus was hot and dope!

Bag Raiders - Way Back Home

After Bag Raiders, we went back to the main stage to see Ghostland Observatory. If you're looking for a group that not only sounds good but has amazing visual effects as well, look no further than Ghostland Observatory. While I don't remember all the songs they performed, I won't forget the amazing light show and lasers during their performance, which made their set pretty much amazing. Here's my favorite song I heard from them live, "Midnight Voyage".

Midnight Voyage - Ghostland Observatory

Ghostland was a great pick me up act for west coast hip-hop legend Snoop Dogg. Even though we had to wait over 30 minutes for Snoop to get on stage, his performance was off the chain. Seriously Snoop Dogg is a legend and if you're a fan of hip-hop, you must respect Snoop's music, his swagger and his status. He played mostly his older tracks, which I personally loved and while there was a couple older tracks he didn't play ("Deep Cover" and "Gz and Hustlers"), he still was great. Here's video we got of his performance:

Lastly Australian act Cut Copy came to the stage as headliners of the festival. I was surprised as anybody why Snoop Dogg wasn't the closer, but after seeing Cut Copy jam out with the energy they had, I left with a great appreciation for Pacific Festival and their scheduling. I enjoyed almost every song Cut Copy did and really absorbed the energy from lead vocalist Dan Whitford. Here's my favorite song from Cut Copy, "Take Me Over", just a great song for a road trip or any other adventure you embark on.

Cut Copy - "Take Me Over"

Review Post by Zach Siegal Eisman (BeforeTheBigs)

SUPERGOODMUSIC NYC: Lomma's Trip To East Coast Hipster Heaven

If you ever make your way to New York City during the muggy summer months that most people avoid like the plague (think: over-crowded, over-heated subway systems and a pungent aroma of homeless wanderers with their accompanying excrement frying in the sun), you will find yourself with a plethora of musically delicious options that will surely detract from your seemingly overwhelming olfactory sense. With an abundance of thrifty (and nifty) happenings all around the city for three summer months, you hardly even need to have a job! That said, you should totally get a job because, let’s face it, living on your buddy’s couch or in your parent’s basement or in cardboard boxes that some New Yorker's call home is so not hip n’ cool.

So on one of these particular steamy New York City weekends, I thought it a good idea to invest one night in making my way over to one of the inexpensive, if not free, shows on Governors Island. A short subway ride and a ferry trip later, and I made my way through the island and toward the expanse of land where the stage was set up for Los Angeles' own Local Natives to play.

Local Natives is a band that reminds me of The xx - not necessarily in sound but in quality. Both are very good bands, but both have only released one album. Sure, pretty much every song on that album is relatively delicious, but when you go see them, there isn’t going to be too many surprises in the set list or in the sound. As I had predicted, they ended their set with the most obvious choice, “Sun Hands”, but the hit by far of the night was my own personal favorite, “Wide Eyes”, a track with a ridiculously sweet beat and darkly enchanting lyrics. Local Natives, like The xx, is the kind of good quality band where you can go to a show, close your eyes, and not really know whether you are sitting alone in your car or standing amongst a swarm of people in the middle of Governors Island.

They sound exactly like their album, which is good, but it also means there are no surprises up their sleeve... but can you really expect a monstrous light show, an epic jam session, or elaborate costumes from a mellow indie band? Not really. So my point is that they are good. Would I pay $60 to see them at this point in their career? No. But for a mere $10 (the near-equivalent to purchasing their album on iTunes), I got to hear them play outside on a beautiful summer night with a cold beer in hand, the New York City skyline serving as a backdrop, and not through my low-quality car speakers while sitting in agonizing traffic on the 101.

Another New York City summer time treat is the free Jelly Pool Parties at the Williamsburg Waterfront in Brooklyn. These parties are like a daytime hipster haven complete with a misting station and epic city views. I mean, what does every New York-based hipster want to do on a lazy Sunday afternoon? The answer is simple: head to the motherland (aka Williamsburg), drink beer, and sprawl out on the grass between sweet beat dance-offs. Oh yes, that’s right. There were dance-offs... which felt more like train wrecks so bad that you couldn't not look, except in this case the trains were being driven by post-meth-head hipster-wannabes.

On this particular weekend, I ventured out to see Cut Copy. It was a beautiful Sunday, and I couldn’t think of a better way to spend it than basking in the sunshine at a free concert in Brooklyn. By the time I arrived there, Memory Tapes was playing, who proved to be a nice backdrop to my hangover. Finally, Cut Copy took the stage and opened with a very delicious track, “Lights & Music." This was followed by old and new hits including “Hearts on Fire”, “Going Nowhere” and “Blink and You’ll Miss a Revolution”. There were points in the show where I wasn’t sure if the Melbourne-based band was actually even playing their instruments, mostly because it seemed the song kept going even while all the band members had their hands up in the air. Due to my profound respect and love for this particular band, I’m just going to chalk the phantom playing up to a mere hangover hallucination. Either way, the Jelly Pool Parties are great New York City summertime fun, and free music from synth-band heavy-hitters? Well, that’s just heaven, hipster heaven.

Post/Pictures by Lauren Lomma