Northside Festival Days 1 & 2, 6/24-25/10

The L Magazine’s second annual Northside Festival took place this past Thursday-Sunday, taking over the Williamsburg and Greenpoint neighborhoods of Brooklyn with an exciting program of music, art, film and theater.

THURSDAY

Shark? seems to be one of the Brooklyn bands playing the most shows during the festival. Most of their straightforward rock songs have a definite ’90s sound, but they kept things current with a tune about the recent oil spill and a garage-surf theme song that’s very “Brooklyn in 2010.”

Ball of Flame Shoots Fire played quirky pop featuring piano, horns and three rotating singers.

The idea behind Thao and Mirah with the Most of All, Thao said during their set, was to “smash our bands together and go on tour,” playing both singers’ songs. It was great to see the two hugely talented ladies on stage together, cooking up a rollicking good time.

FRIDAY

Brooklyn six-piece Psychic‘s carefully composed songs have a classic western movie soundtrack feel, moving effortlessly from smoky to stormy.

Fresh off a tour with MGMT, Australian psych rockers Tame Impala drew a sold-out crowd, played barefoot and indugled in lengthy jams.

After taking an hour to set up, Amazing Baby played newly keyboard-heavy arrangements of their intense, danceable songs.

The songs on DOM‘s excellent EP lost their reverb-filled, beachy feel when played live, making the band sound more like a punk band until they piped in the synthesizers for the sublime “Burn Bridges” and “Living in America” at the end of their set.