The Noisettes Rock Coney Island Siren Music Festival 2007
As someone that’s thoroughly repulsed by today’s mainstream music, it’s like an early Christmas every summer when the Village Voice’s Siren Music Festival sets Coney Island aflame. The Siren Music Festival, for those outside of the tristate area, is a celebration of indie music from the alternative to the hippity to the hop to the classic rock. Stages are constructed at the base of two boardwalk ramps where thousands gather to hear the free tunes. Generally, the music is superb, although indie scene novices such as myself need a program to remember most of the obscure names (although The Donnas performed in 2002 and The Dirtbombs in 2003).
So the prodigal son returned to the home of the Mermaid Parade and Nathan’s Hot Dog Eating Contest to take in the seaside sounds. While the Twilight Sad and Dr. Dog rocked their respective sets, it was The Noisettes – a British rock trio – that renewed my faith in music. Fronted by the spunky, bass-playing Shingai Shoniwa (best described as a Black, pre-ghetto Gwen Stefani circa the Tragic Kingdom album), the band played a fun, lively set that was simultaneously ass-shake worthy and featured the best elements of what makes a good rock song: wicked guitar work, thumping bass, and a drummer that played so furiously that he ran off the stage to relieve his stomach of its contents. John Bonham be damned!
After the jump, more photos of The Noisettes laying the rock down on southern Brooklyn. – Jay Wilson
*12/710/13*
