Following the success of the spring edition of the festival, Boston Calling made its return to City Hall Plaza September 7-8. Once again featuring two stages of music split between two days, the sophomore running of the festival brought some of the country’s most popular alternative, indie, pop, and electronic acts to Boston.
Day 1 was highlighted by Massachusetts natives, Deer Tick, who played their upcoming album, “Negativity” in full. They were followed by The Airborne Toxic Event, one of the more popular bands in the alternative/indie rock scene at the moment. Their music blends with orchestral bits to provide them with a unique sound that has begun to catch on throughout the country and was certainly a big hit at the festival. Later on in the evening just prior to Local Natives set, Mayor Menino took the stage and addressed the crowd, saying how pleased he was with the festival and its first two productions. As the sun disappeared, rock n’ rollers The Gaslight Anthem took the stage and played a mix of their older favorites, along with new songs off of their latest release, “Handwritten.” Their set lasted upwards of an hour before they called it a night and handed the festival over to Vampire Weekend to close out the first day. Fresh off of their new album “Modern Vampires of The City,” the indie rock veterans finished up night one in front of their flashy backdrop with a mix of new and old songs.
Day 2 was quite a bit different from day one. The alt-rock and indie acts of day one handed the reigns over to EDM (electronic dance music) and indie-pop acts for the second day. Big Black Delta, Flume, Flosstradamus, Wolfgang Gartner, and Major Lazer brought plenty of bass to City Hall Plaza and gave the crowd reason to dance. Rapper Kendrick Lamar drew what was probably the largest crowd of the entire weekend for his 7:30pm set. Lamar was recently announced as direct support for Kanye West (on his upcoming tour for the newly released “Yeezus”), along with being nominated for plenty of awards, including a win of BET’s Best New Artist. The festival grounds cleared out a bit for festival closers, Passion Pit, but they still played to a substantial crowd. The Cambridge-natives released their synth-pop prowess on their hometown fans with plenty of old favorites that the band wrote while they were still Boston residents.
Boston Calling has since announced that there will be a spring 2014 festival that will take place during Memorial Day Weekend, May 24-25. Keep on the lookout for the spring lineup, and enjoy our photos!
Photos from @Boston_Calling are live on @BlastMagazine’s site. Go check them out! http://t.co/Ob87h8CyiP