After three days of press room pizza and bottomless coffee, yesterday was my final day at Boise’s 2016 Treefort Festival.
First I went to check out Sarah Bethe Nelson at the Gritty Birds Showcase. While I’m infatuated with Nelson’s subdued Americana-folk, her live band drowned out her voice with a tsunami of reverb—I’d love to see her play acoustic someday. Later I stopped by the Band Dialogue, where at least a dozen bands faced each other in a massive circle, taking up an entire city block to play a sort of rock orchestra. The sheer noise itself was impressive, but since the crowd stood on the outside of the circle, all I could really hear was the nearest amp. Those closest to Doug Martsch (of Built to Spill) were doing it right.
After checking out an Amish chorus and dodging a drone (you can’t make this shit up), I went to the Linen Building to see Bed.. The “slow-fi” band remains pretty shy, despite being beloved in their hometown of Portland. Bed., we love you even though your punctuation is confusing! Later I saw Bitch’n, another Portland band that just released their debut, Messed Out. They casually defy what a band should look like (no front-person) while also ignoring the limitations of genre—Bitch’n will be shouting in unison about condos one moment and riding a funk-driven jam the next.
My last show of Treefort was Montana’s BOYS. I went into the show with no expectations, and was pleasantly surprised by their groovy rock ‘n’ roll—my friend described them as “an emo Mac Demarco.” Treefort was amazing, I can’t wait for next year.