heaven knows it's got to be this time (kilby block party 2025)

I am from the East Coast of the United States of America. My ancestors arrived there from places like Ireland, the Netherlands, and France (via Canada) several hundred years ago. They all made it to upstate New York and thought, here is a good place to settle down. There was a large swathe of land stretching west that would eventually all get brutalized and claimed for the U.S.A., but either these fine people did not know, or did not care. Why go out there, when here was pretty good? The ancestors farmed, and then the industrial revolution happened and they started working at places like mills and printing presses. People got together, had kids, the kids had kids, and eventually a music blogger (me) was born...and it all happened in the northeast United States.

I was thinking about this personal history when my plane landed in Utah, a few hours before Kilby Block Party began last Thursday. I was thinking about it because when I caught sight of the huge snow-capped mountains, they took my breath away. Experiencing geography at such scale was antithetical to my entire heritage, and yet here I was, because of rock and roll music. People invented airplanes and guitar pedals and the internet, and it all brought me to the wide streets of Salt Lake City for a music festival.

You can read last year's Kilby recap here, this post will be a bit more stream o consciousness than the last, but hopefully I will paint a good picture of my time high above sea level.

THURSDAY

For the first time, the fest did a half-day 'day zero' which was so stacked I'm going ahead and calling it a true day one. I saw Future Islands, Devo and New Order back to back. Excuse me??? All acts I've seen before in different contexts, so the pressure of "witnessing the perfect set" was off. My concert history piles up; I am spoiled. Every time I see Samuel T. Herring perform, it makes me want to wear a uniform of black t-shirt and black jeans. He makes it look so good!

A lot of people on Thursday were wearing energy domes, which gave the audience panoramas a zany affect. A local radio host introduced Devo to their stage with a solo cup strapped to his head, and he kept referring to energy domes as "hats" and we kept screaming, "No, they are energy domes." Misinformation is rampant, now is the time to be pedantic.

It's a dream to see songs like "Temptation" and "Blue Monday" live, but the New Order song I have a surprising soft spot for is "Plastic," from their last studio album, which came out in 2015. It's such a banger. You're so special (so special!) So iconic (so iconic!) It's got the 16th note sequencer I crave. Later in the fest I would see Gang of Four play "Natural's Not In It"—between that and seeing New Order do "Ceremony," I went home and ordered a CD copy of the Marie Antoinette soundtrack off Discogs. Can't leave that kind of compilation up to the whims of streaming.

FRIDAY

On the recommendation of a bartender at a bar near our hotel, we got breakfast Friday morning at a place called Ramblin' Roads Family Restaurant (one of seven locations, all in Utah). It was the greatest restaurant I've been to in my life. I got an omelette with bacon, mushrooms, avocado and Swiss cheese. The bacon was crispy, and the mushrooms were too. Oftentimes, omelette mushrooms end up slimy and under-done. One of the sides of carbs on offer was a single, enormous pancake. When I was a kid, I loved pancakes deeply. There was no other choice for me on a breakfast menu. Pancakes were sacred and delicious. Now as an adult, I have to make concessions for concepts like protein and vegetables, otherwise my body feels like garbage...but if the pancake doesn't cost extra? I'm gonna order it.

I found the Kilby attendees to be incredibly inspiring in their attitudes and attire. Kilby is a Comfy Shoe Fest, and more importantly, the fairgrounds showcased wonderful alternative fashion that often looked secondhand, if not homemade/custom. Everyone expressed themselves freely and as a result everyone looked like they gave a shit about something. In high school I battled mall fashion conformity with thrift shopping and sloppy but passionate customization (so many t-shirts, cut into weird shapes) and now it seems like the battle rages on with fast fashion. Plus ça change...The more effort you put into truly being yourself, the more resistant you will be to slop. I took a bunch of photos of people whose looks made me smile.

I got to see Josaleigh Pollett, who I've been a fan of for a minute now, play a tender and dynamic set punctuated with shreddy guitar. Then I went to the press zone to do an interview. My friend Tatiana has a print music magazine called ANTICS that is amazing and she got me and my husband press wristbands so we could Create some Video Content for the mag. This was my first fest with press access, I think? It was neat, I felt official. This was also my first fest with a VIP wristband. KBP is a rare reasonably priced music festival and VIP was only something like $100 more for the whole weekend; it was worth it for the extra seating and bathrooms alone (I have reached the part of pregnancy where peeing has become a whole thing), even though I prefer the GA crowd experience, where people are more likely to throw down w/ gusto.

Wishy ripped, "Love on the Outside" is a number one hit on my Hot 100 and also should be in a CRASS BUT ULTIMATELY ROMANTIC TEEN MOVIE. Perfume Genius had a special orange microphone and cord and moved in such a crazy way with a folding chair that I turned to my husband and said "now this is a guy who has taken a somatic workshop or three." A touch of Momma whose crowd was hype, then off to hey, nothing's set which made me smile from ear 2 ear. Car Seat Headrest placated a thirsty audience with an obligatory "Drunk Drivers / Killer Whales" but everything else was from their new rock opera. I was going to finish that sentence by writing something like "and as New Jerseyans, CSH are going to do whatever the hell they want to do" but I just looked it up and CSH are not...from New Jersey?? Why on earth did I think they were from New Jersey?

Dinner (corn dog) before Rilo Kiley. Tatiana told us our press passes could get us into VIP+ which is how I ended up one row away from rail for Jenny And The Boys, oh my god. I'm glad I saw them in a more traditional atmospheric concert situation at Just Like Heaven, with the crowd aura and video screens and whatnot, but it was wild to see them up close. Then headliner time: Beach House. I have a weird history with Beach House in that I was super, super, suuuuper into Teen Dream in college and then never tapped in in quite the same way again. It was a cool vibe though, I support booking chill headliners. We left a little early to catch a less crowded Trax train, shh don't tell anyone...

SATURDAY

Saturday morning involved a pivot. Basically we were planning on going to the "dirty soda" shop Swig on Sunday, then realized Swigs are closed on Sundays. The clock a-ticking, we Ubered out to the closest Swig location and got Texas Tabs (Dr. Pepper, vanilla, and coconut cream). Now I like sugar, but good god, it turns out that adding multiple sugar syrups to an already sweet soda is too much for even me. I asked our kind soda purveyor how long she'd been working at Swig and she sighed and said "too long." Rushed back to the Fairpark for some more interviews, plus Sloppy Jane on the mainstage, who ended their set with a New Year's countdown: a mid-year timeline cleanse we all could use.

I'd heard a bunch of buzz about George Clanton, he was a delight. Sort of a digital-deep-fried Billy Idol, but making baggy '90s Manchester music. Also he had an amazing drummer, Anya Good, fulfilling my selfish desire to have LIVE DRUMS AT ALL TIMES. Made it to bits of Bartees Strange and Wisp, did more interviews, then poked my head in for iDKHOW in time to hear them do a pitch-perfect cover of Beck's "Debra," one of my all-time favorite songs. Lady...step into my Hyundai.

St. Vincent and Gang of Four was the toughest conflict of the festival but I picked the later and god that set was nuts. The guitars were angular, the drums were lacerating. Ted Leo did the damn thing. Crowd energy was some of the best of the weekend. Okay, is this where I shout out the Nutri-Grain Bar activations? Those fuckers were giving out free Nutri-Grain bars like there was no tomorrow. I had one per day, deploying each as a last resort of energy, like the War Boys in Mad Max spraying their teeth chrome. Weezer were so normal and solid that I fell into a sort of dazed reverie. Wah wah, they didn't play "Tired Of Sex" during the Pinkerton section, time to call the customer complaint line. My favorite part of "In The Garage" is how he pronounces "garage" as one syllable. Grahhj.

SUNDAY

We made it to Sunday. At this point the ol' dogs were barking a little, but my festival friend Susie had told me to get compression socks back before Coachella, and compressing those dogs definitely helped. Also it was pouring rain on Sunday morning, but we would not be deterred. I had waterproof hiking boots. I had a windbreaker and a Tech Towel (LOVE the Tech Towel) to drape around my head. My husband had gotten preventative ponchos. Rain would not delay us.

Poolhouse and Lime Garden bravely soldiered through wet sets, but halfway through Nourished by Time's mix of perfectly wonky AM radio slow jamz, the skies calmed down. The sun even came out by the end of Frost Children, who looked like haunted Gossip Girl characters, and channeled both bedroom emo and demented Vegas pool party club music with aplomb. At least several of their songs reminded me of LMFAO (positive) but they're Gen Z so I guess they would be called IJBOL instead. Have I made this joke already? If so I am sorry.

We'd been plowing through the weekend at breakneck speed but took a chill afternoon, visiting the amazing silent disco (whoever played the KRAS remix of Grizzly Bear's "Two Weeks", wow...Spaz, maybe? thank you), popping over to the skate competition, and eating an extremely normal burger. Geese, sheesh. They take elements of these dinosaur rock acts like Led Zeppelin and the Rolling Stones and run them through a youthful irreverence machine, but in this way where you come off with the impression that they simply think Music Is Cool. Cameron Winter is a star, you all have like four more months of getting into him and Geese before you lose access to your I Listened to Him Before [Star-Making Event] badges.

Justice closed out the fest. We camped pretty early for good spots, along with a crew of friends my husband met through podcast lifestyle who graciously let us glom on for the weekend. I was supposed to see Justice at the Hollywood Bowl last fall but ended up having to cancel, so this was a nice way to close the loop on that. I have no words for what I witnessed. The French men were stance'd up. The lighting rig was bonkers. The Hyperdrama material sounded gorgeous sliced and diced into their historical offerings. But the ending was the best part...

...so last fall was not the first time we experienced iustitia interruptus. We also saw Justice at the now-dead Panorama Festival in New York in 2017. Or, we tried to. They played for 15, maybe 20 minutes, and then their equipment malfunctioned. We waited as long as patience allowed and then decided to make an early break for a good view of Nine Inch Nails instead. The following year, Justice put out Woman Worldwide, a remix album with a similar composition to their 2017 festival sets. I listened to this remix album a lot. It's so good, I like it better than their studio albums if we're being honest.

My favorite part of it is "Chorus" into "Audio, Video, Disco." I was not expecting them to play this at Kilby, but they did. And they played it exactly as it was on WWW. I can't even be wordy about this duo of songs. They're just so sick. Pure speed, total exhilaration, cathartic refrain, everything I like about music and nothing I don't. To be able to dance to those songs, so close to the stage that the lighting blinded me and necessitated sunglasses, it meant quite a bit. Timing is weird, sometimes quite painful, but everything happens when it is supposed to.

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