The 2014 BUKU Music + Art Project

Mardi Gras World

New Orleans, LAMarch 21 and 22

FRIDAY, MARCH 21, 2014

It’s usually around year three when a new player on the American festival circuit begins to fully form its identity and fans can start to get a sense of whether the event will be around for the long haul or not. For over a decade the trio of Jazz Fest, French Quarter Fest and the Voodoo Experience have stood out as NOLA’s three major events on a crowded festival landscape. After the weekend we just enjoyed in the Big Easy, it’d be a big surprise to not see this return in 2015 and continue to stake a viable claim as a worthy event overflowing with youthful exuberance and boundary-pushing artists.

With a fantastic setting near the Warehouse District of NOLA, The BUKU Music + Art Project has a lot of things going for it and this year’s event was once again staged in a bucolic early-Spring setting along the Mississippi River and graced with a pair of picture perfect days. The lineup once again boasted several of the biggest and most exciting names in the electronic, hip-hop, and indie scenes over the course of two days at Blaine Kern’s Mardi Gras World. Continue below for a rundown of some of the more memorable sets at BUKU 2014.

Bone Thugs-n-Harmony

It’s been a long time since Bone Thugs had a hit record or landed a song on the charts. Given the fact that the Cleveland quartet is now celebrating their 20th Anniversary (making those in attendance familiar with the rap collective feel very old), the late afternoon set was exactly what it was intended to be: one hell of a quick and bawdy nostalgia trip. Their unmistakable melodic, fiery style was on full display right out of the gate as the live quartet came out guns blazing and the set served as the first substantial main stage draw of the weekend. Hits like “Mo Murda”, “Tha Crossroads” and “Budsmokers Only” and tributes to Biggie and Eazy E engendered a jovial atmosphere and the endless barrage of hits reminded us of why this group was and still is one of the most influential hip-hop acts of all-time.

NAS

Nostalgia is a powerful drug, and when a rapper like NAS flows onstage with his hits from as far back as the 90’s – including ‘You Can Hate Me Now’ – the nostalgia kicks in royally. The Power Plant Stage served as a perfect setting for the real depth that NAS’ lyricism has to offer, those which convey some sort of problem-child transcendence into success in the face of an otherwise tarnished offering of the American Dream. Basically, NAS proved that he still has the power of hype and the essence of self-affirmation, the combination of which made for a pretty colossal show.

Sleigh Bells

Truth: sound is energy and energy can be used to influence the behavior of others to act in a particular way. Thankfully for us, Sleigh Bells utilized its classic punch of overdriven Marshall stacks along with Alexis Krauss’s prodigious pipes to amass mighty amounts of energy, thus forcing those in the crowd to rage gallantly beyond expectation. Visceral, jarring and highly danceable, Sleigh Bells brought a heaviness and raw intensity that wouldn’t be matched during the weekend. The Float Den (a huge warehouse containing a number of massive Mardi Gras floats) was easily the coolest venue at BUKU, adding to the allure of this set. Honestly, I’ll sign up to be the band’s own personal voodoo doll if it means I’ll be continuously prompted to thrash like a triumphant madman, and after this particularly epic show in New Orleans, perhaps the voodoo concept isn’t too farfetched.

SATURDAY, MARCH 22

Thundercat

Belonging in the conversation with mega talented bassists like Les Claypool and Victor Wooten, Thundercat was perhaps the most exciting artist to play the main stage all the uber-tight trio immediately started channeling fusion forefathers like Stanley Clarke’s outfits or Weather Report with an absolutely stunning display of blindingly fast fretwork on the early extended “Daylight,” a tune from his 2013 album Apocalypse that sounded as inspired by space watchers like Carl Sagan as cosmic funkateers like Funkadelic. The familial connection between Stephen Bruner (bass) and Ronald Bruner Jr. (drums) was palpable and downright electric. For as much love as the band-fronting bassist gets, his GRAMMY-winning brother deserves just as much praise and it was hard to pay attention to just one as they traded jaw-dropping solo after jaw-dropping solo.

Dan Deacon

There are few artists who are better at playing the ‘master of ceremonies’ role than Dan Deacon. Always encouraging the highest level of participatory lawlessness, the party starting DJ was perhaps the artist who encapsulated the spirit of this BUKU Fest more than anyone. Setting up his turntables on the floor in the crowd, he immediately began encouraging dance circles, break dancing, full crowd high fives and an overall thought bubble hanging above the crowd that read: “I can’t believe all of this is really happening!” Limbs flailed, people lost their minds and every second was enjoyable. It was as fun, entertaining and carefree as live music gets, truly capturing the essence of what a music festival should be.

Preservation Hall featuring The Gaslamp Killer

There are a few guaranteed ways to rock a boat on the Mississippi River, and one of those occurs when you get a performance of funky New Orleans jazz mixed with the whirling luster of deep-thought DJ-ing. So clear is the result of a VIP on-board show with the Preservation Hall Jazz Band featuring The Gaslamp Killer, which at BUKU Fest 2014 was a pleasure scene of instrumental canticles composed of smooth brass and drums alongside some purposeful DJ minimalism at its finest. Fear not, music lovers, tradition and innovation were proven again and again to go hand in hand and Pres Hall’s attempts at pushing envelopes yet again delivered something both fresh and forward-looking.

The Flaming Lips

Flaming Lips live shows can be a mixed bag musically and Saturday night’s set was just that, unsurprising given the fact it was their first full show in over four months. Given that takeaway, it should be said that the performance is deserving of an A+ for the quality of the visual spectacle. The stage was accented by a series of stringy light-up ropes hanging above the band and piled into a pulpit for Wayne Coyne to preach from. The LED wall behind the famed Oklahoma band was constantly providing jarring visuals to accent the psychedelia beaming across the festival grounds. Albeit a tad uneven and lacking in overall flow, the set hit some very high points during impressive covers of The Beatles’ “Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds” and Devo’s “Gates of Steel” and Lips originals like “The Terror” and “A Spoonful Weighs A Ton”. The set bogged down a bit during the drudgingly slow rendering of “Race For The Prize” and the bizarre “Virgo Self-Esteem Broadcast” portion. Overall, it was a good set and further proof that The Flaming Lips are always full of surprises.

Explosions in the Sky

Nothing blows the mind quite as completely as a set that manages to climax over and over, the kind of performance that right when you think the sound couldn’t get any more enrapturing, the band grabs you yet again by the vertebrae’s ears and delivers you into the realm of golden awe. This was the formula for the Explosions in the Sky set in The Ballroom at this year’s BUKU, certainly one of the most affecting shows of the weekend and one that had fellow festival-goers floating about the firmament air of their own grooving inner-space.