Holy Zola
I was lucky enough to get in to this year’s Capitol Hill Block Party for free for a few hours, thanks to a friend’s unexpected +1 pass. The lineup wasn’t good enough to justify paying for a ticket, but I’ll happily show up to just about anything for free, cheapskate that I am. Sadly, Blonde Redhead ended up cancelling due to illness, but getting to see !!! do their thing was pretty fun.
I also got to see a cool little old-school goth band called Zola Jesus, holding court on the Vera stage to a small-ish but enraptured audience. The front woman paced and crooned, stalking the stage and singing intensely while her bandmate pumped out layers of dark, dreamy synths and drum machine beats. It was an unexpected experience, and the rest of the crowd seemed to agree. After all, they demanded an encore from the duo, who happily (if a goth band can be described this way) obliged.
I assumed this was a local group, considering they were playing on the small Vera stage, against the headlining set by Atmosphere over on the main Neumo’s stage, and I was looking forward to seeing them play around town again. But suddenly they started showing up in all sorts of places – the KEXP song of the day podcast, RCRD LBL’s newsletter, in my twitter feed being mentioned by folks from faraway places. Turns out this band is actually a big deal, or at least on the verge of becoming one. After all, they’re touring in support of Fever Ray, and can count Lady Gaga as a fan.
I guess I was wrong to write off Block Party this year, but I did end up finding something worthwhile and unexpected anyways.
