live review: grizzly bear. serpentine sessions. 28 june 2010

for the past month or more i have been praying for nice weather this week. the reason? on monday the 2010 serpentine sessions opened with grizzly bear. thank you weather gods. you delivered.

the set up of the sessions is a little strange. a sort of evening festival set up frequented by a weird mix of art students in rolled up chinos and brogues and middle aged architects, straight from the office still in their suits. this made a nice change from my more recent festival experiences of 14-year-olds experimenting with poppers for the first time. the crowd was nice. relaxed. ambient. they were there to enjoy some folk music in amongst the picnic benches and bean bags. the acts were split between two stages which seemed a little odd as no two performers overlapped. maybe the size of the big tent would have been too much for the solo stylings of manchester’s magic arm? i caught the end of him on the band stand stage along with some of the wonderful memoryhouse. the main stage opened with danish darlings eftreklang, but we were all here for one band. grizzly bear.

the 75 minute set inside the (what fast became a very sweaty) tent dipped into the back catalogue, but i was unashamably there to hear tracks from veckatimest. the band did not disappoint, opening with ‘southern point’ and ticking off singles ‘cheerleader’ and ‘two weeks’ along the way. clearly a very talented, multi instrument playing bunch they swapped guitars for flutes for one of those werd things with a big pipe bit that i’ve never really know what they are more regularly that other bands i’ve seen perform even interact with the audience. at the end of the set they came on the apologise for not playing longer, but the curfew meant they couldn’t. with the heat inside the tent, and despite the fact that i enjoyed every moment, this came as a relief. festival activity apart, apparently they won’t be back in the uk for some time. i’m very glad i got the chance to see them before this hiatus.