The tenth annual Siren Music Festival, held by the Village Voice, is an event built around up and coming indie acts. This festival is free to the public and boasts spectacular acts picked from the ether of the indie music scene. Held each summer right along side the historic Cyclone roller coaster in Coney Island Brooklyn, you will find throngs of fashionable young music fanatics. The masses crowded
the two stage event, sweeting, shirtless and eager to see their favorites of the fourteen bands that played this year on this 90+ degree day.
Matt & Kim headlined alongside Holy Fuck, other acts included; Ted Leo and the Pharmacists, Cymbals Eat Guitars, The Pains of Being Pure at Heart, Harlem, Night Marchers, Earl Greyhound, Surfer Blood, Ponytail, Screaming Females, Wye Oak, DOM and ApacheBeat.
Matt & Kim, a Brooklyn based duo, was visibly ecstatic to be playing in front of thousands in their home borough. They ate it up and I’m not sure I’ve ever seen performers so happy to be on stage. Impromptu bootie dancing on top of the crowd and many verbal “thank you’s” to the audience along side their apparent ecstasy on stage made for a wonderful show.
Other highlights included, Toronto based Holy Fuck playing on a stage filled with tropical plants that made it appear an oasis in the midst of a amusement park. Cymbals Eat Guitars, from Staten Island, left a puddle of sweet and energy on stage that must have had the stage crew scrambling for mops. Harlem, out of Austin texas, had the security’s hands full with a performance that had the audience over powering the barriers. The baltimore act Ponytail simply blew peoples minds open with front woman, Molly Siegel, falling in and out of trances on stage and screaming her heart out. Screaming Females started things early whipping the audience into a frenzy with hard hitting guitar and rock and roll than anyone could appreciate.
Text and photos by christopher g. smith
Be sure to check out next years Siren Festival.
Find info on the event and the bands HERE.
