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ShareThe cofounders of the Wanderlust Festival organized the event as half music/half yoga, and attendees could buy tickets for one part or the other or both. But it does seem that Jeff Krasno and Schuyler Grant may have been more interested in the yoga than the music. The duo sponsored a meet and greet with the press during Kaki King’s set and hyped the 800-person yoga class being taught when Rogue Wave performed. The organizers also sponsored an organic gourmet dinner during Jenny Lewis’s set. Yoga adherents may have been willing to skip Lewis to feed their bodies, but music lovers would choose the redheaded songstress.
Unlike Friday, to see the music Saturday one had to take the Funitel to the Gold Coast Stage, which is well over 8,000 feet high. The 15-minute ride through the mountains in a gondola made me feel like I was going to some important destination, rather than a sandy, shadeless area with a nice view.
The steady groove of jam rock band Big Light opened the afternoon festivities to a small, but appreciative crowd at 12:30pm as the temperature began to climb into the 90s. Groups of people steadily arrived from the lifts so that by the time Kaki King played, there were large pockets of crowds dotted across the dusty basin. King, shredding her electric guitar as part of a power trio offered the most controversial and funny statements of the day, “I’ll be a hippie, but I’m not doing that barefoot dancing thing. I won’t drink the moldy water. I’m not gonna do yoga, unless you can convince me, and that would be like convincing me there is a god. I don’t think so. I guess I’ve just offended half the audience.” Some, in agreement cheered, but the reaction was mostly silent from the crowd that loudly clapped for her music.
Rogue Wave followed with their dreamy alternative indie pop and claimed to be locals because of their Oakland, CA roots. The band pandered to the yoga followers (“Namaste, that’s Yoga 101, right people,” the lead singer earnestly said. The electricity level of the crowd jumped when Gillian Welch took the stage. I overheard several people say that this was who they came for most.
David Rawlings accompanied her on guitar as the two performed a litany of her best known songs, including “Miss Ohio”, “Talking Today About Elvis”, “Time (the Revelator)”, and others. Welch, with a pale white complexion and a sleeveless, summer weight robin’s egg blue dress, played both guitar and banjo and remarked how the audience were “my people” because they cheered when she picked up her banjo. Welch offered no comments about the yoga going on, and cheered the people twirling hula hoops to mantra-like rhythms as if they were dancing to her tunes, which they were in a way.
Jenny Lewis joined Rawlings and Welch on “Didn’t Leave Nobody but the Baby”, which Welch wrote and sang with Emmylou Harris and Allison Krauss on the O Brother Where Art Thou movie soundtrack. The sweet harmonies generated a fevered response, that didn’t end even when Rawlings and Welch left the stage after a rollicking version of the country duet, “Jackson”.
Jenny Lewis was backed by a crack five-piece ensemble that also joined her for a five-part harmony on the song “Acid Tongue”. But the focus was always on the diminuitive lead singer whose small height belied her significant stature on the stage. Lewis took turns jumping and dancing besides singing and playing guitar and organ. She also conversed with the crowd. “Who’s your favorite Beatle,” she asked. She then added, “I’m in the George camp. I think he wrote this,” and then she played the Traveling Wilbury’s “Handle With Care,” a song in which Harrison plays guitar and sings, but is most associated with Tom Petty.
Lewis joked about the yoga present. “I went up in a gondola with a bunch of people doing ‘Downward Dog’ and it was a little creepy, sexually strange if you know what I mean.” Lewis and her band mostly played tracks from her two recent solo albums, including “Born Secular” which addresses religious issues first hand in a somewhat critical manner.
The musical highlights for me ended with Lewis, but not for many in the crowd who seemed to be there for mindless body movements, which isn’t all that different from doing yoga exercises. Common, replacing a sick Michael Franti, led the audience in exuberant call and response rap with steamy overtones.
For many, the biggest highlight was DJ Girl Talk, who inspired people to dance along with snippets of tunes like, Tag Team’s “Whoomp, There it is”, Van Halen’s “Jump”. and Paul McCartney’s “Silly Love Songs”. The stage show used some sort of strange toilet paper blower, multi-colored confetti and oversized balls to generate excitement. The TP may have been better used elsewhere, considering the sausage grinder like quality of the dance music.
