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The UMS, Day 1: "They make the good time happen" — stories, slideshows and more

By John Hendrickson | July 23rd, 2010 | No Comments »

The UMS: Day 1, by Cassandra Schoon, Reverb

With so many bands breaking up last year, and so many new bands on the table, planning the rounds at this year’s UMS has been a weird exercise for me. I can’t help but admit to feeling pretty out-of-the-loop when I didn’t recognize so many artist. But in one case, I’m happy to report, the method of just picking a band because their name sounded cool turned out to be a very rewarding one.

After a quick brew at Sputnik to survey the territory and get acclimated to the sticky heat of Thursday’s post-storm weather, I wandered over to check out the triumphant return of Porlolo at the Irish Rover. Though I was glad to see former Hot IQ Eli Mishkin and a few other familiar, mid-2000s faces in the crowd, the heat in the packed bar was just too oppressive to stick around for long. I headed back north to join the boy at Hi-Dive, where he was taking in Shapes Stars Make. He’d picked them purely based on their unique, ethereal name. Good choice.

Shapes Stars Make makes fuzzy, relentlessly beautiful post rock, with all the ambient grace of Explosions in the Sky with the slightly mechanical edge of Mogwai. There must be something in the water in Texas that causes boys with guitars to decide to make such symphonic, elegant sounds.

Onward to 3 Kings, where the crowd was thick with heat, sweat, and metal fans (a bit of a contrast from the rather staid crowd at Hi-Dive) for Omens and Kingdom of Magic. The Omens are a band I’ve always known of, but have always missed. And I love that they’re doing something really off the wall, mixing sped-up surf rock with a kind of screechy, early punk vocal sound. Perhaps this will be the UMS where I finally get around to seeing all the bands I’ve heard about — and finally put a sound to their names.

I ended the night observing the absolutely amazing mosh pit in front of Kingdom of Magic, who were even louder, tougher and tighter than I remembered. While the mass of dreadlocks and fingers folded into devil horns flew to the harshly melodic songs, I realized that it had been a very, very long time that being at a rock show at midnight felt like an incredible new beginning, rather than time to go home.

Check back at Reverb for more UMS coverage all weekend long. Festival wristbands are on sale at The UMS Box Office, which sits at Broadway and West Archer Place next to the Baker neighborhood’s Goodwill store. The festival continues today from 5:30 p.m. to 2 a.m. — and it runs all day Saturday and Sunday on the walkable stretch of Broadway between Alameda and Sixth avenues.

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