Ahh, the Cure. And, well, 6 other bands. I was happy even though I figured I'd miss somebody good. As it turned out I missed nobody.
They had two stages set up. Mogwai started on the mainstage at 5pm sharp. They were done at 5:35 and then somebody announced that Scarling would be starting on the second stage in five minutes. This pattern continued; a band would play a 35 minute set on one stage and then five minutes later another band would play on the other.
People didn't really start showing up until 7 or 8 so there was never a question of crowding around the second stage (the mainstage was Cricket's normal stage so there was seating [well, a small GA pit upfront and the large GA grass area out back, but I was in the seats]) so I was able to see almost full sets from reasonably close from everyone.
Mogwai did three songs in their 35 minutes, the 2nd was from Happy Songs for Happy People (Hunted by a Freak?), the third was Mogwai Fear Satan (extended guitar feedback version.) Yeah, an extended version of a 16 minute song. Anyway, it was great, but empty.
UPDATE: Ok, I'm a moron. The setlist was: Helicon 1; Hunted by a Freak; My Father, My King. But come on, give me a break. It's Mogwai for crying out loud, it's not terribly unreasonable to mistake one of their epic 16 minute instrumental songs for one of their epic 20 minute instrumental songs (which I haven't heard a studio version of, btw.) Also, just for the record, by "empty" I meant Cricket Pavillion, not Mogwai's songs.
Scarling was ok, the singer sounded something like Elizabeth Elmore (of the Reputation and formerly Sarge.) The band fit it well with the others playing, they were pretty good, I guess.
The Rapture were... well, I hadn't heard them before that I can remember and, well, I don't really care. They played some fun songs, I guess, but nothing special. One of the four guys on stage seemed to be playing only a cowbell and dancing around but he did fiddle with a keyboard before a couple songs and also played sax on a few numbers.
The Cooper Temple Clause were good. They had some minor sound difficulties and the singer seemed rather distracted/unsure for the first several songs but they closed out well. They played Did You Miss Me?; The Same Mistakes; Been Training Dogs; Music Box; Promises, Promises; and one or two others in there somewhere.
Next was Interpol on the mainstage and they were certainly the non-Cure highlight. It was also the longest non-Cure set at 45 minutes. This was the first time the crowd seemed to care much (beyond the odd guy climbing into the pit to dance to the Rapture or the two or three people in the pit who were excited about seeing Mogwai.) The setlist was Obstacle 1; Roland; Evil; NYC; Say Hello to the Angels; Slow Hands; Leif Erikson; "lonely"; PDA[I don't know the name of the second to last song but they said "lonely" a lot.] The new songs were very good; very clearly not from the first album but also very clearly Interpol songs.
UPDATE: The third new song was NARC, also on the upcoming Antics.
Cursive played the final set on the second stage. They are, to me, a weird band live. Or it could be they're just not very good live. Maybe the best way to put it is that I like seeing them live but I always expect that they should be better than they are. They also drew a good sized, enthusiastic crowd. Their setlist included Some Red Handed Slight of Hand; The Martyr; The Recluse; Sierra; Mothership, Mothership Do You Read Me? and some other stuff.
The Cure continue to surprise me with their set lengths. Both times I've seen them (now) they've played past the posted cut-off time; this time they went on for three encores and two and a half hours. Plainsong; Shake Dog Shake; Labyrinth; From the Edge of the Deep Green Sea; The End of the World; Anniversary; Lovesong; Inbetween Days; Push; Sinking; Pictures of You; Maybe Someday; Before Three; alt.end; A Strange Day; One Hundred Years; Disintigration; encore 1: (I Don't Know What's Going) On; Charlotte Sometimes; Just Like Heaven; Boys Don't Cry; encore 2: Close To Me; The Lovecats; Why Can't I Be You; encore 3: A Forest; Forever. Early in the 1st encore Robert said something about having wanted to ask the crowd what they wanted to hear since he never could tell if people preferred their pop side or their dark side - or at least that's how I interpreted what I heard, it was rather difficult to understand what the words were. He went to on say (I surmised) that the issue was already kind of decided - going on to play pop for most of the encores. The closer Forever was, well, very good. Very much not-pop, loud and agressive and, at the end, even fast. The odd thing I found when looking for the song was that they've never released it - not even on their 4 CD b-sides and rarities collection they just put out.
Most of the shirts were $30 (even the Mogwai and Interpol shirts!) but they had TCTC shirts for $15 at a satellite merch booth on the way to the second stage so that was good.
Note: All setlists are from memory except for the Cure's (well, the Interpol is from my phone's memory) which I got at the Cure website. I tried to come up with something earlier in the day and got most of it but in no order at all and missing like 6 songs.
