Keloha 2013: Matt and Kim Outshine MGMT

Keloha Music and Arts Festival returned to Kelowna’s Waterfront Park this past weekend, and for the second year in a row the indie-rock fest was a great success. As you might guess, I’m a huge fan of Keloha and I think it is a fantastic boon not just for Kelowna’s music fans, but also for the city as a whole.

There were many excellent performances at this year’s Keloha. There were fantastic performances from Matt and Kim, MUTEMATH, The Trews, Capital Cities, and Atlas Genius among others. Local favourites, Wild Son and Fields of Green, performed brilliantly too. I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again, it really is great to see Wet Ape Productions, the team behind Keloha, invite local talent to play at the festival.

Local band Fields of Green on the Keloha Island Stage. Fields of Green were voted #1 band in Best of Kelowna

Wild Son opens the Sandbar Stage on Sunday at Keloha. Wild Son won bronze in Best of Kelowna.

But while the majority of the festival’s big names didn’t disappoint, the festival’s headlining act did. Like many others, I was let down with the overall performance of MGMT. From a technical musical point of view, the band sounded fine. However, their performance lacked enthusiasm and in many ways was the antithesis of Matt and Kim’s spectacular performance (more on that below). I hoped that as headliners of the festival, MGMT would come out and wow the audience to ensure that the weekend ended on the highest of highs. Unfortunately, as we walked out of Waterfront Park and into the night we were left to reflect on a limp performance.

Many were disgruntled that the band didn’t play their hit song “Kids”, something that they have been widely criticized for previously. In fact, the band refuses to play “Kids” at all these days. According to Andrew VanWyngarden, MGMT's lead vocalist, guitarist, and chief songwriter, in an interview with The Stanford Flipside back in May, it's because “today’s youth is just not as deserving of the spirit of enterprise and endeavor which we were tapping into when we released ‘Kids’ five years ago...” In the same interview, the band's keyboardist, Benjamin Goldwasser, stated, “We want to play the music of 2013. No more, no less. Asking us to play ‘Kids’ would be like asking The Rolling Stones to play ‘Gimme Shelter’. Ridiculous, right?” No, what's ridiculous is making a mass generalization about today's youth! That's an extremely large and diverse group of people.

On one level, I can understand the band's desire to play newer material and their resistance to playing the same song from 2005 time and time again. However, what I can't understand is the band punishing their own fans. We're talking about people who have spent a lot of money supporting MGMT. Naturally, from a fan’s point of view, when you go to a concert you want to hear the hit songs. I met one young fan earlier in the weekend who told me her favourite MGMT song was “Kids.” She will have been left disappointed by the band’s failure to play her favourite song. She was not alone. However, for me personally, the biggest disappointment was not MGMT's refusal to play “Kids”, it was their lethargic performance. They just didn’t seem into it.

Thankfully, Matt & Kim’s show on Saturday night was magnificent. The duo put on a show worthy of headlining the festival. They took to the stage with verve and their performance was full of energy; an energy that was relentlessly consistent for their entire set. Performances like Matt and Kim’s on Saturday evening are the very reason people love live music! I was already a Matt and Kim fan prior to Keloha, but they worked their way even further into my heart with a truly outstanding live performance. Put simply, they blew me away. For me, they were the standout performers at Keloha 2013 and I’m sure that they picked up many new fans in Kelowna.

Matt & Kim wow the crowd at Keloha

Overall, the weekend was fantastic. As far as I could tell, the crowd was well behaved and, just like last year, the event seemed very well organized. Art Ave generated a lot of interest and was a hive of activity during the day on Saturday and Sunday. I hope to see Keloha Music & Arts Festival grace Kelowna for many years to come. It’s an excellent event and one that the city can be proud of. I was lucky enough to meet some great people and conduct some really fun interviews over the weekend too. If you haven’t seen them yet here’s a breakdown of who I interviewed (follow the links to watch the interviews):

Scott Emslie – Founder of Keloha

John-Angus – The Trews

Jeff Innes & Brandon Scott- Yukon Blonde

Scott Stanton & Dave Lang – Current Swell

I’d like to take this opportunity to thank KelownaNow.com’s Valaura Vedan, for all her great video work this weekend – I couldn’t have managed my interviews without her help. Thank-you, Valaura! She also took some wonderful pictures at the festival too, you can view them HERE.

Here’s to Keloha – what a fantastic three days!

Do you want to contact Vince? E-mail him at: vince@welcometokelowna.com or connect with him on Twitter, Google+ or LinkedIn. You can also hear Vince play some of Canada's best indie music from emerging artists every Wednesday on the Music City Podcast. You can also catch Vince talking music on CBC Radio West as an on-air music columnist.