[Our fearless team, Nicci Boots and Ian McNeil spent three days listening to an obscene amount of fantastic music above the stunning Columbia River Gorge in George, Washington. Check out all our coverage here, over 30 sets from a who's who list of indie music.]
One of the many things that defined the 2010 Sasquatch! was the presence of a gigantic number of Canadians. Everywhere we turned we met people from Victoria or Toronto or Vancouver, or some podunk town in the back woods of Manitoba. They were all super friendly, and generally, wonderful people. And that speaks so much to the sound of the Dundas, Ontario boys Caribou. They were yet another magnificent opener to a day of the festival, and they impressively had the crowd shaking their booty like mad at what was breakfast time for most of those attending.
The foursome’s unity was evident in the way they stood in a tight square at the center of the stage, a mere three or four feet apart from each other. Their sound was as compact as their apparent kinship, and the tight grooves they released to the crowd were the perfect medicine to the start of the day. Caribou’s beats were both a little bit ‘80s and a little bit futuristic; when dual drumming began, midway through the set, there was even an awesomely scientific feel to it all.
It was also nice to hear this mostly psychedelic, instrumental group vary sharply from silky smooth sounds to explosive, in-your-face noise. O Canada, indeed.
