Moon Block Party 2014: Spoon highlights a long day of the weird, wonky and wonderful in Pomona

1

20-Spoon-06

Britt Daniel gazed out over what was probably the smallest festival crowd to which Spoon has played in recent memory and marveled, “This is a pretty cool deal, right?

“This is my kind of festival – there’s people right there I can almost touch,” he said, then pointing toward the horizon and adding, “Usually you’re, like, back there.”

Yes, the Moon Block Party arrived Saturday with bigger aspirations and a modest (at best) turnout, the latter despite a lineup that should have had psychedelic-rock fans bursting at their bell bottoms. Newly relocated to the spacious Pomona Fairplex (home to the L.A. County Fair, the Warped Tour, horse racing, etc.), the Moon Block Party offered 19 bands on three stages (for a reasonable $45) and, as it turned out, an easy-to-navigate festival experience.

Fans came dressed as friars, zombies, cheerleaders, zombie cheerleaders and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles – if you can imagine the latter as beer-chugging, chain-smoking bros. Along with the rank-and-file, they enjoyed virtually every shade of what can be described as psych, from the Saharan folk of Tinariwen to punk high jinks of Black Lips to the hardcore screeds of Metz to the blissful drone of the Black Angels.

Downsides included occasional sound glitches on the two small stages, the meager carnival food offerings, one major set-time conflict that forced attendees to choose between Tinariwen and Band of Skulls and the unfortunate last-minute cancellation of Black Rebel Motorcycle Club (along with the lack of a blast communicating the revised set times, which had some festival-goers confused).

Maybe it was the moonless night.

There were upsides aplenty, though – for one thing, no beer gardens. That’s right, you could carry your 24-ouncer all over the festival grounds. Consider that if you were suffering from festival fatigue or couldn’t find a road map to Pomona. The weather was pretty too, even if some of the hair wasn’t.

That said, here are my Top 8 memorable moments of the Moon Block Party:

Gallery: The Block Stage

Gallery: The Party Stage

Orchestra of Spheres – Playing to a sparse crowd of early arrivals, these New Zealand weirdos proved both trippy and melodic, steering clear of some of the wonky indulgences of some of the other bands playing afternoon sets.

Death Hymn Number 9 – The inimitable punk rabble-rousers, who look like they lost a paintball battle with the red-and-white team (they’re actually going for the zombie look), blasted through a half-hour of Cramps-inspired thrash, shouting out to the aforementioned Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and providing some comic relief when frontman Paul’e’wog draped the mic stand over his back and shoulders and mimicked Jesus dragging the cross.

Corners – The songs on the L.A. quartet’s new “Maxed Out on Distractions” made them the most sonically interesting local band on the bill. Breaking out of the surf- and garage-rock pack, Corners are playing the dynamic of prickly guitar lines against the icy synths of the ’80s eyeliner bands. It’s a cool dichotomy, and songs like “Love Letters,” “The Spaceship” and “We’re Changing” would have been just at home at a post-punk show as at a psych-rock party.

Tinariwen – From the Sahara to … Pomona? The six-piece from northern Mali didn’t look the least bit nonplussed to be playing to a small crowd at a racetrack. Singer-guitarist Ibrahim Ag Alhabib was all smiles, handclaps and finger-snaps in leading the band through its hypnotic, mellifluous songs. On a bright, breezy afternoon, it was positively incantational. And so transfixing that I missed almost all of what was, from all reports, a bombastically good Band of Skulls set.

Deap Vally – The duo of singer-guitarist Lindsey Troy and drummer Julie Edwards delivered 45 minutes of scorching two-piece blues to a crowd that swelled in size partially because the other two stages were dark at the time. Fans got their money’s worth, including a taste of a couple of new songs on the to-be-announced follow-up to 2013’s album “Sistrionix.”

Metz – After Morgan Delt’s sleepy set** on the Block Stage, the Canadian trio shook fans out of their lethargy with the loudest set of the day on the Party Stage. Hard and angular, they inspired a smidgen of moshing on a day when it was virtually absent (except for the Black Lips’ set).

** How sleepy? After the band ended early, Delt confessed, “We don’t have any more songs right now … so we’re gonna play one we’ve done, which you probably don’t remember, ’cause it was 10 minutes ago.”

The Black Angels – The long-running Austinites mixed old and new (they just released a fine EP “Clear Lake Meadow”) to put the big crowd in one of those glazed-eyes trances. They haven’t toured with Roky Erickson for nothing; their vocals and guitar tones seemed to bypass your ears and seep straight into your veins. Maybe it was me, but there was a drone overhead that I swear was watching me.

Spoon – Arriving as the best-dressed crew at Moon Block Party, Spoon played a set worthy of the entire festival admission by itself. Daniel made nice with the crowd, stalked the stage from front to back and led the band through a career-spanning set. On a day that so many bands played so many notes, Spoon’s comparably minimalist approach – think 2002’s “The Way We Get By” – seemed almost an anomaly. Could the lyric “we seek out the taciturn” be a coded message? The songs from Spoon’s new album “They Want My Soul” sounded great, and thankfully Daniel still sounded like he believes it when, between the vicious guitar solos in 2005’s “The Beast and Dragon, Adored,” he spit out “When you don’t feel it, it shows / they tear out your soul / And when you believe they call it rock and roll.”