MoogFest: 10/26 – 27/2012

This was the final MoogFest held in Asheville, which is sad because Asheville was home to the late music innovator, Bob Moog, inventor of the famous Moog Synthesizer. The Moog factory is still here, and every Moog instrument—synthesizer, theremin, and effects pedal—is designed and manufactured right here. So even though this lineup was weak compared to the previous festivals, I went anyway, and did get to see some cool performances that I would never have seen otherwise.

MoogFest is a showcase of electronic music, and has performers from many genres, everything from prog to rap to new wave to DJs. It is really a big celebration of creativity and technology in music. In addition to performances, there were workshops and discussions and exhibits, everything to make a music-nerd’s heart skip beats.

So here are the acts that I recall seeing:

• Santigold
• Thomas Dolby
• Primus (in 3-D)
• Miike Snow
• Morton Subotnick
• Squarepusher
• Divine Fits
• Orbital
• Four Tet

Primus was disappointing. I’m not a Primus fan, but had hoped for a cool show based upon all the hype, but they were barely mediocre. The high points were definitely Santigold, Thomas Dolby, Divine Fits, Miike Snow, and Morton Subotnick. They were all excellent.

I was only able to find a few setlists online, so here they are.

Santigold:

• GO!
• L.E.S. Artistes
• Lights Out
• Say Aha
• Get It Up
• Disparate Youth
• Anne
• The Keepers
• Creator
• Fame
• Shove It
• Freak Like Me
• Big Mouth

Primus:

• Those Damned Blue-Collar Tweekers
• Prelude to a Crawl
• Last Salmon Man
• Southbound Pachyderm
• Eternal Consumption Engine
• Jilly’s on Smack
• Over the Falls
• Hello Skinny
• Lee Van Cleef
• Eyes of the Squirrel
• Groundhog’s Day
• American Life
• Hamburger Train
• Tommy the Cat

Orbital:

• One Big Moment
• Halcyon + On + On
• Beelzedub
• Never
• Wonky
• Where Is It Going?
• Impact (The Earth Is Burning)
• Lush 3

Rush: 2/28/1992

I was a big Rush fan in the 70’s and early 80’s. Some of the later stuff did not speak to me the same way, but the Roll the Bones album was pretty good, and Rush always puts on a great stage show, so I figured I would go and see them again.

Primus was the opening act. I had not heard of them (yet), but the friend I was with was pretty excited about them. They came out, and honestly, I was not impressed. I did not think Les Claypool was that good, personally, but my friend was diggin’ it, so I hung out.

Rush came out, and as always, had a very visual-intensive show. Great lights and videos, and the band was tight. I had not seen them since the Moving Pictures tour (sorry, no stub from that show… gates were crashed and teargas deployed, but got to see them anyway), so it had been a while. They still sounded great and performed well. I would have liked to have heard more older tunes, especially “Working Man,” which was noticeably absent, but it was still a great show.

Afterwards, my friend was convinced that Primus blew Rush off the stage. Personally, I was inclined to disagree. Although it was not the Rush I saw on the Hemispheres tour, they were still great.

Here’s the full setlist.

Setlist:

• Force Ten
• Limelight
• Freewill
• Distant Early Warning
• Time Stand Still
• Dreamline
• Bravado
• Roll the Bones
• Show Don’t Tell
• The Big Money
• Ghost of a Chance
• Subdivisions
• The Pass
• Where’s My Thing?
• Drum Solo
• Closer to the Heart
• Xanadu
• Superconductor
• Tom Sawyer

Encore:

• The Spirit of Radio
• 2112 Part I: Overture > Finding My Way > La Villa Strangiato > Anthem > Red Barchetta