Recap: Yeasayer, Ponytail, Cymbals Eat Guitars, and the Dutchess And The Duke at Memorial Union Terrace

Piggybacking on the tastemaking scenesters to our south, the Memorial Union Terrace once again lured a grab-bag of acts slated for the Pitchfork Music Festival to town Friday night for an event informally, if unfortunately, dubbed "Mad Fork Fest." Especially defensive types love to pile scorn on Pitchfork, but the promising truth is that hardly any of the music on Friday evening's bill fit any stereotypical definition of "indie rock." It instead spanned not only genres but seemingly eras, with The Dutchess And The Duke's winning pastiche of early Rolling Stones in the rearview and the hyperactive, blissfully nonsensical Ponytail seeming like messengers from a hopeful future.

Playing bleary, after-midnight rock 'n' roll to a mostly disinterested audience on a frigid, windswept Terrace is a tough gig by any standards, but few bands put forth less effort to win over the crowd than The Dutchess And The Duke, whose set had all the oomph of a rehearsal. (Kimberly Morrison greeted the crowd with a half-hearted, "Hi everybody, we're The Dutchess and the Duke... Yeah, we don't care either.") But even at their best—as on their excellent debut LP, She's The Dutchess, He's The Duke—they exude jaded carelessness, and had their performance been transposed to a dive bar at last call, it might well have seemed masterful. Fleshed out with organ, bass, and percussion (performed by members of The Ponys), the band's slim but addictive songbook proved durable as well. Singer Jesse Lortz's lyrics trade heavily in meteorology, and as the clouds shifted behind the band, it was tempting to read the set list as a forecast. Indeed, by the time the band played sunny closer "Armageddon Song," the sky had cleared, and the wind was less audible against the microphones. D&D may have been the least of-the-moment of Friday's bands, but maybe its recordings will age the best.

Under the orange and yellow stage lights, Staten Island's Cymbals Eat Guitars looked positively toasty, with drummer Matthew Miller rocking shades and keyboardist Brian Hamilton wearing a furry hunter's cap. As the band kicked its set off with the unpredictably thrilling "And The Hazy Sea" from 2009's Why There Are Mountains, the warmth spread to the crowd. Singer Joseph Ferocious rode the dynamics of the tune, releasing a vocal roller coaster of hushed crooning and ecstatic yelping while shredding up a storm. From the glumly ambling "Tunguska" to the frolicking shimmer of "Wind Phoenix (Proper Name)," Cymbals brought more than enough casual ambition to charm the frozen masses.

But perhaps the most weather-defying of all was Ponytail, which dropped an absolute joy bomb on the crowd. The folks gathered up front obscured all but the top of singer Molly Siegel's head, but her chirps, screams, and nonstop liveliness sent shock waves and smiles into every corner of the Terrace. Pausing only for Siegel to yell things like "It's really beautiful here. That helps a lot," the band's guitar-and-drums attack let loose at a furious pace with the sort of sheer fun that belies the complexity of songs like "Beg Waves" and "Celebrate The Body Electric (It Came From An Angel)." Too keyed-up to be contained, audience members finally spilled onto the stage, all going crazy in their own ways while the band fed off the frenzy.

Yeasayer fights the chills.

“Is it always this fucking cold here?” inquired vocalist/keyboardist Chris Keating of a chilly Yeasayer as the temperature on the Terrace dropped and the wind picked up. While the very un-July-like weather drove many home, it drove even more up to the stage, and the Terrace’s first level became a standing-room-only affair for the night’s finale. Still touring behind its 2007 debut All Hour Cymbals, Yeasayer played a facsimile of what would be its Pitchfork mainstage setlist.

But the band’s sound has changed since it first stepped onto the indie-hype scene in 2008. Instead of mimicking the trippy vocal harmonies and guitar noise found on the album (though the band members were, apparently, smoked up by some Madison locals before they took the stage), Yeasayer matched Ponytail’s energy by adding a touring keyboardist-percussionist to the mix. The changes brought what could be categorized as a dance-pop show to the Terrace stage, and while those up front kept their hands raised and bodies moving, many fans farther away were left scratching their heads and saying, “I don’t recognize this song at all.”

Still, very few people left after Yeasayer started, and more and more rushed the stage with each new song. The band seemed very impressed with the response it got for its newer material, and despite having a 5:15 p.m. scheduled set time the next day in front of thousands in Chicago, Keating raised his glass and ended the show with an enthusiastic “Let’s hit the town!"