Cornerstone '08

Well, I survived my thirteenth Cornerstone Festival. I saw a lot of good music once again. In fact, I think I broke my record for number of shows seen. By my count, I saw at least a part of 73 different sets (I saw a few bands more than once). I believe the weather this year was perhaps the best it's ever been. It got into the low 90s one day, and only had light rain. The rest of the time it was 60s-80s and dry.

One of the noticeable differences in the festival this year was the jump in the number and scope of generator stages. Cornerstone had promoted them a little more this year, and allowed them to register. I think they said they had over forty registrations. I'm not sure quite that many were set up, but pretty much both sides of the main road were just a whole line of these generator stages. John Herrin said they recognized the demand to play when they were getting 250 bands signing up for a few slots on the Impromptu Stage. Anyway, one of the interesting things that the generator stages allowed for is bands playing multiple times. Many smaller bands played two, three, four, even five or six times. Also, it wasn't only new bands playing these side stages. Some of the band which played were ones who were also playing official stages either this year or last.

Other than that, the fest was pretty standard I suppose. There was the 25th anniversary celebration at Main Stage, but that was about the only other thing out of the ordinary. Oh, there was one more thing: there wasn't an art gallery this year. Perhaps in its place was a photo gallery from past Cornerstones.

This year I was thinking about and fascinated by the idea that with Cornerstone, basically it's like a medium sized city pops up overnight, is there for a week, and then disappears again just as quickly. It's kind of like Cornerstone is this mythical otherworld that only exists for one week a year.

We arrived on Tuesday and got a camping spot across the road behind the seminar tents. I had camped there once before in 2002 and think it's a good spot. This year, none of the films they were showing at Flickerings really sounded that interesting to me. Additionally, there were few seminars that really sounded interesting, at least from the description in the program. So, I mainly just went and checked out a bunch of bands as mentioned. I'll take a few minutes to review the ones I thought were best and worth checking out.

First, on Wednesday, I was walking along basically looking for some shade in order to kill some time between concerts. I wondered into a generator stage tent, where the music sounded like something I could live with. It turned out that I thought the band was actually a pretty good hard rock band. They were called After the Anthems. I also discovered a band called Lifestory:Monologue playing a generator stage. Nitengale was a talented indie rock band from Alaska, and they stuck in my head as being one of the best new bands I saw.

Later in the evening, I went to see Max Justus. It was very interesting. He is an electronic dance pop act. The sounds he is using kind of sound like they could be coming from a cheap keyboard, but together the music is infectiously danceable--I mean, you can hardly stand still. It was interesting also, because it looked like much of the crowd which you would typically see at the Underground Stage. But either way, his set was basically the biggest dance party I've seen at Cornerstone in quite a while.

After this, I caught Skillet at Main Stage. They had a lot of special lighting effects, more smoke cannons, and pyro. It was in short the best show visually that I've seen on Main Stage. Other good bands I saw Wednesday were Pilot for Kite, Nevertheless, Thieves and Lairs, Flyleaf, and Cool Hand Luke.

Thursday I saw Deas Vail, and I think they are getting even better than when I saw them last year. I also caught part of Dear Future's set again. They are another band I discovered last year and was glad to see them again. Along with them I was really happy to see All the Day Holiday once again as well. Later that night it was interesting to catch DeGarmo & Key play for the first time in nearly 15 years.

On Friday I was finally able to see Ilia play. I had tried to catch their show last year, but some how didn't make it until the end of the last song. I thought the music sounded alright, and I give them props for being the first all girl band I've witnessed who actually rocks. Later I saw the band Shirock. I thought they sounded good and tight. They seem to have all of their stuff together. They actually reminded me of U2. After watching the fireworks at midnight, I stopped by Mewithoutyou briefly. For some reason in the past, I had gotten the idea that they were a hardcore band. But I keep hearing people talk so much about them that I wanted to check them out. I wasn't really impressed by what I heard, but didn't stay for long. Perhaps they are cool but on a musical level I didn't like the fact that the front man didn't really sing, but rather sounded like some cross between yelling, talking and singing. The tent (Encore 2) was not surprisingly pretty full. However what was surprising was that it wasn't that packed for Living Sacrifice. For those who are fans, they are back together, not just doing a single show.

Saturday, I happened to be walking by the Impromptu Stage on my way back to camp from the showers. I wasn't even that close, but was captured by the sound I heard coming from that direction. It turns out it was the band named B., who had unsuccessfully tried to get onto the New Band Showcase. I'm definitely going to try and check them out some more. Later in the day, I saw both Deas Vail and Cool Hand Luke again, and they were good as always. Then I happened to overhear another band on a generator stage which caught my attention. They were Icon for Hire, and were a hard rock band with a cool chick with pink hair as their lead singer. There was another good, tight rock band playing the Underground stage called School Boy Humor. Then I watched part of the Lost Dogs' set, and while I wanted to stay, I also wanted to catch Sanctum playing. You don't get to see them everyday as they are from Sweden. I also saw some of the Awakening, who are from South Africa. While not really my favorite thing, I appreciate the fact that they were playing Cornerstone.