Know Your Capitol Hill Block Party Bands: Saturday and Sunday Mainstagers

Looking at the Capitol Hill Block Party schedule, I came to the startling conclusion that this year’s festival has substantially more stages than I remember. And by substantially more, I mean that it has five of them: in addition to the usual mainstage, Neumo’s, and Vera, the Cha Cha’s underground showcase of locals has gone official, as has a selection of evening DJ-type sets at Havana, dramatically expanding your options for making like a sparkleface vampire and avoiding sunlight during the warm weekend.

But today, we continue our march through the mainstage acts, in the hope that a crash course via YouTube will help you decide whether to brave the crowds for the big names or to retreat to smaller stages during the peak festival hours. After the jump, a video-based peek at Saturday and Sunday’s headliners.

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Saturday

Atmosphere is at the summit of the Saturday mainstage experience. A duo from Minnesota featuring Slug (as “the rapper”) and Ant (“the DJ”), their HipHop Underground profile boasts that they are the “most commercially successful and long-lived independent hip hop artists,” which, when you parse out how that string of conditionals allows it to be true, is probably still some kind of impressive. But before heading to their representative clip, let’s try not to hold the photo on their MySpace page of someone in borderline Juggalo makeup too much against them. The video, alas, is devoid of scary clowns:

The Saturday mainstage is definitely heavy on the eclectic, because right before these Minnesota gentlemen bring you their rhyming take on lady problems and domestic troubles, you’ll get to hear Blonde Redhead, a pair of Italian brothers and a Japanese songstress weaving dreamy hypnotic rock while the sun sets over Capitol Hill. Here’s a pretty succinct visual representation of their gauzy aesthetic:

If you like the sounds of this one, but wish that it was slightly more upbeat and inclusive of indie writer/directors, might we also recommend watching Mike Mills directing Miranda July into various poses to one of their tracks (youtube)?

In a way, that fantastic dreamtime should be a merciful comedown, particularly for people swarming the mainstage for !!! (choose your own monosyllabic word to repeat, but “chk chk chk” gets you to their website). Since breaking into the crowded dance-punk revolution of the 2000s with “Me and Giuliani Down By the Schoolyard,” the band’s membership has sprawled, contracted, and never shied away from throwing cowbell and funk into the mix. Those unwilling to at least feign interest into a blacktop dance jam should probably head for the beer gardens during their set.

SUNDAY

The last day of the block party basically exists because of the Dead Weather‘s touring schedule. Festival organizers wanted them on the agenda and Jack White was available on Sunday night. Lobbying, signatures from stakeholders, and other negotiations ensued, et voillà: a third day. I’m sure there was actually a lot more to it, but you get the picture. To give the neighborhood a reprise from all of the commotion this last act of the day starts their set at 7:45 pm. So count on Jack White’s rock and roll spinoff to hit like anvil in your face, but expect them to finish before sundown.

[One of] Seattle’s most esteemed hiphop duos, Blue Scholars have the task of getting thousands of people to get their hands in the air after two and half days of festival-going. Geologic and Sabzi are more than up to the task. I predict that it will require some sort of satellite photography to count the raised arms among the crowds piling in for their late afternoon set.

Now you know your big headliners. There’s plenty more to watch for at the Block Party; we’ll cover the rest in the next edition.