Intonation Music Festival Coverage: Day 2

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Blue Cheer
Continuing the aging rocker theme into Sunday, the Vice people offered up the acid trip that is Blue Cheer, dubbed one of the first bands of heavy metal more than 30 years ago. This 3 piece hippie rock band from San Francisco, pump out a rich sound that caused an orgy last time they played Chicago over 30 years ago. By today's standards of metal, the Blue Cheer sound more like heavier Edgar Winter Group with touches of Hendrix and Old Chicago Blues greats. Lead singer Dickie Peterson, clad in a matted embroidered vest (that was no doubt 40 years old) screamed with his hoarse rocker voice through their bluesy-hippie rock set, bringing a little Woodstock to Intonation. He advocated "Peace and Love" in true hippie style, saying we gotta love each other before getting coherently incoherent. They christened the audience as the fourth member of their band, with their set-closer, a heavy-psych cover of Eddie Cochran's "Summertime Blues", in which they relied on the audience to shout out the refrain, "there ain't no cure for the summertime blues..."

Bloc Party
Closing out the second night of Vice's Intonation Music Festival, was one of U.K.'s finest exports, Bloc Party. These four lads from London, have garnered much acclaim and quite a fan following and deservedly so. These fellas proved worthy of all the hype on Sunday, displaying their mad live performance skills, from Kele Okereke's soaring Cure-ish vocals to Matt Tong's infectious assault on the drums, to the clashing guitars of their booty shaking indie rock anthems, their full sound infiltrated the ground, echoed off the nearby buildings, and was a precursor rumble to the coming thunderstorms. They shuffled through the hits off of their debut album Silent Alarm without a glitch; "This Modern Love" and "Banquet" intoxicated the crowd into screaming fits and dance-offs. They even offered up a few tastes of their yet-to-be released sophomore album, like "Uniform" a tumbling track built on same foundation that made their debut such a hit; a slow meandering opening with XTC-colored vocals, then half way in Tong releases the drums and the Gang of Four references can begin again. Bloc Party's fun, danceable, unabashed set was a great way to end one of the most eclectic festival lineups I ever attended.