FIELD REPORT: Solid Sound 1

Submitted by Seth Rogovoy on August 13, 2010 - 4:37pm

SOLID SOUND FESTIVAL 1

MASS MOCA
NORTH ADAMS, Mass.

Text and photos by Seth Rogovoy

(NORTH ADAMS, Mass., August 13, 2010) – While there are a few hours to go yet before the first band takes the stage at this weekend’s SOLID SOUND FESTIVAL at MASS MoCA, the grounds are humming and buzzing with low-key anticipation. The members of Wilco are here, and have been for several days, even though they aren’t scheduled to perform until tomorrow night at 8. Several of them, including leader Jeff Tweedy, took part in a press conference this afternoon, at which Tweedy showed his lighter side, parrying interviewers’ questions with facetious answers whenever he could.

“I didn’t know it’s Friday the thirteenth – we’re cancelling the festival,” he said in response to a question about the band’s superstitions.

“I don’t enjoy playing of them; it’s really hard work,” was his answer to which Wilco song is his favorite to perfom.

“It’s going to be a big hootenanny, even though I don’t like that word,” Tweedy said about his own Sunday afternoon set, billed as Jeff Tweedy +, in which he’s expected to perform with an array of other atists, including members of Wilco and Mavis Staples. “”It’ll be a big open mike, so bring your guitars everybody.”

On a more serious note, Tweedy spoke eloquently about the significance of staging this festival at MASS MoCA and the group’s relationship to art. “It’s what makes us human,” he said. “Everyone likes to make stuff.” Tweedy also paid tribute to the location, saying of North Adams, “It’s amazing ot have a major arts center in a small, isolated community, and have that as its identity; it’s awesome.”

Tweedy said that he views Wilco partly as a ‘collective” of artists. “There are a lot of people in and around the band who make stuff, and this space allows us to show that stuff.”

It’s hard to imagine a festival with a major headliner like Wilco that, so far, is on such a human, low-key scale. While the grounds have yet to welcome the expected 5,000 or so visitors that museum director Joseph Thompson indicated would be here on Saturday, the place seems ready to accommodate the crowd. And Mother Nature seems primed to cooperate.

Seth Rogovoy is Berkshire Living’s award-winning editor-in-chief and cultural critic. He is the author of Bob Dylan: Prophet Mystic Poet.

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