LIVE REVIEW: BFD @ Shoreline Amphitheatre
Sure the obvious acts like the Yeah Yeah Yeahs and Metric dominated Live 105’s BFD at the Shoreline on Saturday with an unprecedented amount of drunk teeny boppers bouncing up and down like kids on Christmas, but when all was said and done, one of the festival’s four stages completely blew the crowd away.
The Subsonic Tent located in the C-Lot at The Shoreline was riddled with mostly DJ acts from both local and afar, but they all had one thing in common: Non. Stop. Party. We saw four straight acts there and we didn’t stop moving, not even once. First up, LA’s super DJ, Steve Aoki was spinning hard, pulsating beats alongside some familiar, and some new dance tunes. We tried to pull ourselves out of the party tent to watch Metric perform literally right next door on The Festival Stage, but we only lasted about 15 minutes before giving in to our hips’ demands and gyrating on back to Aoki. Dripping with sweat and not really expecting a better set than we just saw, on came Oakland-based crew, Zion I. And bring it they did. Showcasing African rhythms and Bay Area slang left and right, the duo of MC Zumbi and DJ AmpLive, brought in the heavy bass, the kind where your brain just shakes in your skull and some hard rhymes, the kind that reigned the 90s, but with more success. Crowd favorite of the night clearly being “Geek To The Beat” off the new album The Takeover.
We took a short beer break before pumping ourselves back up to witness the legends that are Designer Drugs. Although they did feature some songs that Aoki bumped, Designer Drugs were all about building up the crowd slow, slow then bam, in your face trancey-type beats complete with raver circles, glow sticks, the works, and all while it was still light out. To close out The Subsonic Tent for the night were Canadian electronic super duo, Crystal Castles. Known more for their chaotic live show than anything, CC delivered just what was expected. Lead singer Alice Glass clearly wasted on something, repeatedly falling to the floor where she spends a good chunk of her set screaming inaudible lyrics only to get up, attempt to sort of crowd surf then stumble back to the stage. Rinse, wash, repeat. The other half of Crystal Castles clearly had it more together.
Multi-instrumentalist, Ethan Kath, served up remixes and hits that had the crowd screaming for more. While not the strongest finish to an amazing line-up in the tent, it was nothing short of extremely entertaining.
Aside from Subsonic, the locals, like Wallpaper were representing BFD pretty heavily. Supported by his live drummer and sparkly, well, everything, Wallpaper played his juicy club hits as well as Bell Biv DeVoe’s “Poison,” which had the kiddies grinding all sorts of 80s style. It was wrong in so many ways, but oh, so right.
BFD was a mixed feeling of angsty teens and young 20-somethings re-living their childhood angst through acts like Alkaline Trio and Taking Back Sunday and pure emerging indie and electronic talent like Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Metric, Zion I, and Steve Aoki. While the line-up was pretty hit or miss, the hits this year were definitely well worth the trip to a random parking lot in Mountain View. Live 105, we say mission accomplished.
