I’ve covered Hopscotch for different publications for the past two years, and each festival has so far been memorable in its own way. But this year felt different. “Bigger and better than ever” might normally be an advertising gimmick, but looking back, that cliche sounds just about right.
For one, the addition of three new venues — Memorial Auditorium, Raleigh’s Contemporary Art Museum and the Longview Center — added to the festival significantly.
Not once did I have to struggle to get in like I did in years past, and the crowds were always comfortable — venues were full, but there was still room to breathe. I never made it over to CAM, but managed to catch a couple of hallelujah-inducing sets in the Longview Center chapel.
Having grown up in Raleigh, Memorial Auditorium has always had a formal air to me. It’s where I dressed up in my nice clothes and saw the musical “Grease” as a child. A few years later, it would be the venue that hosted my graduation from Cary High School.
Never in a million years could I have imagined that it would be filled with the powerful, punching rock tones of Liars or the intense metal drone of Sunn 0))). So powerful were the vibrations emanating from Sunn 0))), I thought my kidneys were about to shake loose. It was awesome, to say the absolute least.
And for all the anguish-inducing scheduling conflicts among bands, it was really impossible to have a bad night of festival-going.
I don’t care how good Altar of Plagues, Dan Deacon, Killer Mike and Yo La Tengo were, nothing could have pried me out of my seat at Fletcher Opera Theater on Friday night, where The Mountain Goats played a selection of heavy metal covers on a grand piano.
One of the most significant things this festival made me realize was just how proud I am of the Triangle. At Lilac Shadows’ Thursday night set at Kings, a stranger asked me, “Who is this band? Where are they from? They’re great!”
I dabbed a pride-filled tear from my eye and said, “Carrboro. They’re from Carrboro.”
OK, not quite, but you get the point. I never expected I would be so proud of an area that, for the majority of my teenage years, I thought was the pinnacle of total, permanent lameness.
Hopscotch did an amazing job of showcasing everything the Triangle has to offer: Delicious restaurants, enthusiastic crowds, creative visual artists — not to mention a whole host of musicians whose musical mastery ranges from synthy indie pop to slow-burn metal.
Ultimately, Hopscotch is perhaps one of the best things to happen to Raleigh in recent years. This year’s festival definitely proved that. It was like a family reunion, where I met as many new friends as I saw old ones.
A songbook handed out at Matthew E. White’s performance on Thursday night had a drawing of the burly, bearded crooner on the back, with lyrics adapted from his song “Hot Toddies:” “Lord, we had the best time.” That one sentence sums up, in essence, the whole weekend.
Here’s to its continued growth and success for many more years to come.
Contact the desk editor at diversions@dailytarheel.com.
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