Treasure Island Music Festival: Day One

Do you like neon?
Have you recently stolen a pair of sunglasses from your grandma?
Do your jeans cut off your circulation?
Do you usually think you’re the best looking person in the room?

If you answered yes to these questions, congratulations, you were probably at Day One of the Treasure Island Music Festival.

With an eclectic indie-electro line-up that included UK rockers Hot Chip, Brazilian crew CSS, and French DJ duo Justice, the hipster kids turned out in droves to dance, D.A.N.C.E., and take pictures of themselves dancing.

Mike Relm’s party set was a highlight of the afternoon as the Bay Area mix-master blended Does It Offend You Yeah’s “We Are Rockstars” with the Beastie Boys’ “Intergalactic,” highlighted the “Peanuts” (“Snoopy”) theme, and dropped a clip from “High Fidelity” about how to make a mix tape.

CSS also titillated the crowd with lead signer Lovefoxxx owning the stage in a crazy puffy/furry poncho/dress and outrageous hair-do. Drawing most of their set from new album Donkey, CSS did make time for their disco-darling “Let’s Make Love and Listen to Death From Above” and dedicated their made-famous-by-iPod-commercials “Music is My Hot, Hot Sex” to Obama (whom they said they would vote for, but they can’t vote).

Brooklyn band TV on the Radio seemed an odd choice for an evening set at the fest, with their live show managing to be both sonically daring (with soaring vocals and interesting percussion) and boring (too often relying on repetitive sounds). Joined for a couple of songs by Antibalas on horns, the band knocked out a few tracks from Dear Science, and ended the set with “Staring at the Sun” – the only time the crowd got really excited during the performance.


The night was truly meant for Justice, who electrified the crowd with lights (displaying their signature cross at the stage’s center) and rigging two massive sets of speakers with white and blue bulbs. Mixing from Cross, the duo proudly played “Genesis” and the requisite “D.A.N.C.E.” – much to the delight of a flock of girls who’d opted to stand on a table in the middle of the huge crowd, blocking the view of everyone behind them. That’s hipsters for you.