tagged: Art, Event, Ferrin Gallery, Festival, Food & Dinning, Mass MoCA, Music & Night Life, Wilco

Mass MoCA – Wilco Solid Sound Festival

Posted by Kaitlyn in Arts & Culture, Events, Music & Night Life

Entering Mass MoCA

No matter how many stories and detailed accounts I’ve heard about Mass MoCA in North Adams I still could not quite visualize what this infamous place would really be like. I had hoped to get the chance to visit before the summer was over but I couldn’t have imagine the way I would get to experience it for the first time.

I was very fortunate to be the one to receive a free pair of tickets to the Wilco Solid Sound Music Festivalfrom a very generous person who had received an extra pair. I had never really had much experience with Wilco other than my time working as a manager in a music store but I was very excited to see them perform. The festival lineup included some great local bands, different food and alcohol as well as some extremely vivid art. I wasn’t able to bring my camera because they only allowed cell phone and point and shoot cameras so these are a combination of my iPhone and my mother’s Nikon cool pix!

Day One – Kick off Party

The Upside down trees

Friday the 13th was the kick off party so Tom and I set the GPS for Mass MoCA, estimated time of arrival was 35 minutes. It was abeautiful scenic drive from Pittsfield through Lanesborough, Cheshire and Adams. Now even though I grew up in the Berkshires North Adams is a very unfamiliar place for me so I wasn’t sure what to expect for parking or how to deal with the somewhat complicated intersections. Our GPS was helpful but not needed because as soon as we came over the bridge we saw the Mass MoCA sign straight ahead, only this time stood giant letters fastened to the letters of Mass MoCA spelling out “WILCO”.

We had downloaded a parking map and printed it before leaving so we had an idea where to park. We ended up finding a spot the first night in a parking lot behind Big Y only a block away from the museum. There was another parking lot across the street that was already full.

Our guide for the weekend!

As we walked through the gates there were 5 or 6 trees growing upside down lit with different colors. After making our way through the short line we found our way into the gift shop and main lobby which was full of people eating in the cafe and checking out all of the things for sale, programs for the weekend and chatting about what was lined up for the evening.

The crowd enjoying the Deep Blue Organ Trio

We found ourselves in a courtyard which was between 2 or 3 buildings all connected by obscure bridges. There was a stage set up bellow the pavilion of food and drinks where a band called The Blue Organ Trio (Audio clip – Deep Blue Organ Trio) was just taking the stage. The crowd lined the pavement in front of the stage with blankets and chairs all bathed in different colors of light. The air was warm with a nice soft breeze and the stars starting to twinkle. The band played for a while while I enjoyed my delicious Magic Hat beer and took in my surroundings before heading to the next show. We went back through the main lobby down a hallway which brought us into an auditorium where were quickly found seats before people began to pack inside for the next band.

The Books

The Books took the stage while videos played behind them on a giant projection screen substituting for lyrics. The room filled up quickly and after about 30 minutes of enjoying the music we left to get some more drinks and some food  just before the end.  The court yard was full of people dancing and eating which is what we did for a little while before heading back home around 11:30. We unfortunately were not able to camp or stay in town due to work on Tom’s end. Thankfully we are only in Pittsfield so we are only one scenic drive away <3

Day Two – Wilco

The wall across the water from the Wilco stage

Saturday things started much earlier than I was able to get there. I had to photograph a beautiful wedding at the Crowne Plaza in Pittsfield in the afternoon so we left the house at 6:30 to head back up to the hills of North Adams. This time around parking was much more of a task because it was the night of Wilco. I hadn’t heard much from them but I was excited to get to see them perform. I personally really like live music and I can get a much better feel for a band in a setting such as the one we were about to arrive at. We ended up parking at the airport about 3 miles away where we got a shuttle bus directly to the entrance of Mass MoCA.

The cresent moon over the trees and the setting sun behind the stage.

We checked our IDs and got our wrist bands before following the sound of the music and the flow of the crowd to a field beyond both court yards. We crossed a bridge over some water that had the reflection of the lights from the Wilco stage and the purple lit wall on the other side. The bridge was also full of spiders that had made their webs between the steel beams of the bridge which was beautiful but also made my skin crawl.

Across the bridge people covered the lawn on a small hill with blankets and chairs while people stood as the hill sloped down to the stage. It was another beautiful sunset, crescent moon, and warm starry night with a slight breeze. Wilco’s sound was very mellowing and one that pulled you into it’s trance. (Audio Clip – Wilco – Singing) We were hungry so we checked out a good samosa stand where I filled up on sweet potato fries and chicken and cheese samosas while sitting near another wall lit with different color light.

What an amazing light show and performance

After food we headed back to the field as the sun was completely setting. Tom and I laid on my coat and looked up at the starry sky looking for remaining meteors left over from the passing shower a couple of days before. We saw satellites shooting stars, and constellations through the different color hues of the spectacular light show that was part of Wilco’s set. After playing a few songs the band stopped and addressed the crowd and commented on how much they love the Berkshires and a few other things relating to events earlier in the day. (Audio Clip -Wilco – Addressing the crowd)

Wilco and their amazing stage and light show!

We counted 4 satellites and 6 shooting stars while we were laying on the lawn listening to the music. About 3 or 4 songs passed before they played a song that everyone went wild for. The audience sang more than half of the song themselves much to the delight of the front man of Wilco. (Audio clip - Wilco – Fans Sing) The light show on the stage was a work of art in itself. The lights danced across the textures of the background on stage in sync with the music. I honestly had one of the best time’s I can remember in a long time and I will be checking out the Wilco section at the music store the next time I am there. We left shortly before the show ended to head back to the shuttle bus which took us back to our car at the airport around 11:30pm.

Day Three – The Galleries of Mass MoCA

Mass MoCA was also wired for the weekend!

Day three was probably the mellowest of the all. We headed back up to North Adams at about 3pm to enjoy the solo work of Jeff Tweedy, the front man of Wilco, and finally get to check out all of the interesting buildings and vivid art. We parked near where we did for day one and headed over to the museum. Earlier that day they had held a group yoga session as well as other performances in the courtyards. The weather wasn’t as ideal for the third day but provided us with some much needed rain.

One of the bridges connecting buildings inside of the museum

Before the rain really started was a solo performance by John Tweedy, the front man of Wilco on the same stage that they had performed on the night before. There were about half as many people but the energy was still great and the overcast skies kept us cool. The music had the same soulful relaxing sound as Wilco but was only him and his guitar which gave us a wonderful acoustic set. We grabbed some food and it started to rain so we finished it up on the pavilion under the tent before heading inside to explore the galleries.

This was created with fishing line and a light, AMAZING!

I have never been to a contemporary art museum before so I was very excited to check it out. Inside the lobby was an “ask me” desk with the times of the tours listed. We joined the last tour and made out way into the gallery. The first exhibit we visited was by a woman named Petah Coyne who used various things such as candle wax, statues, recycled fibers, and birds no longer on display at museums to create beautiful sculptures and hanging displays. The tour guide was an art history major so she was extremely informative and really helped us to better understand what we were seeing and the stories behind them.

part of the "Material World: Sculpture to Environment" exhibit

After spending some time on the first floor viewing the work of Petah Coyne we walked up the stairs to the second floor where my brain wasn’t sure what to make of what I was seeing. As part of an exhibit called “Material World: Sculpture to Environment” there were hundreds of strings of fishing line strung from one end of the large room to the other and then lit with a large flood light. The light appeared in spots on each individual fishing line forming an arch. I wasn’t sure by looking at it the distance between me and the fishing line so I cautiously walked over and tom and I took a walk underneath to examine it further, it really is something you should see!

The giant trees made of paper

Also part of this exhibit was an installation created with 100 miles of knotted rope by Orly Genger. In one part of the room was a small boxed in area with the back wall made of this rope and it then exploded through the side of the wall to pile and fill the rest of the room. Wade Kavanaugh and Stephen B. Nguyen were behind these amazing trees made of paper. The roots started on the second floor and sored up into the third floor with the roots wrapping and twisting around to form path ways to walk through. As our guide pointed out is that once of the most interesting things about these trees were the material that was used to make them, they are represented by a product that comes from them which I also though was pretty cool.

The photography exhibit at Mass MoCA

Now being a photographer one of my favorite things was the Leonard Nimoy photography exhibit of secret selves. Each photograph took an average (or not so average) person and represented them as their “secret self” or what they secretly enjoy and wouldn’t normally act on. There were 2 walls full of life sized photos and a back wall full of smaller images. There was also a video playing that showed some behind the scenes with each person as they had their shoot with Leonard Nimoy.

Standing in front of one of the beautiful walls

One of the biggest installations is a 3 floor project of wall drawings by Sol LeWitt which is 105 of LeWitt’s large-scale wall drawings, spanning the artist’s career from 1969 to 2007. On the bottom floor starts the earliest work all the way until his most recent before passing away in 2007.

The amazing wall drawings at Mass MoCA

The drawings are quite vivid and take into consideration the way colors work together to cause us to view them as new colors. We had fun learning about the wall drawings and about the enormous effort that went into producing them. Over 50 different artists and interns worked to meticulously draw each individual line to make up these amazing pieces.

The guest stars of the show were the art presented by Wilco and a member of the band’s Polaroid display. Wilco had a number of concert posters on display and band members each had their own artistic display. Here is a bit about them from the Solid Sound Website

Wilcos Concert Posters on display

Nels Cline – Solid Sound Stompbox Station

The Stompbox Station is a  participatory, interactive sonic playground featuring an array of electric guitar effects pedals or “stompboxes” assembled by Nels Cline for your enjoyment/edification. No conventional musical instruments are involved here. The various pedals are looped together in a chain and respond to each other and to your direct manipulation, creating a delightful and sometimes unpredictable array of electronic sounds.

Some amazing Polaroids

Cassandra C. Jones – Snap Motion

Cassandra C. Jones collects thousands of snapshot photographs from every image exchange known to Google.  Her animated videos are constructed by compiling these found and hunted photographs together in groups of like subject matter.  She then organizes, adjusts, deconstructs, and/or meticulously reconstructs each lot and presents them in ways that tell stories about the power of photographic imagery in our snap happy, contemporary life styles. Jones lives and works in both Ojai. CA and Brooklyn, NY; however considers her laptop and wherever she can find a signal to be her main studio.  Her photography-based work has shown in venues throughout America, Canada and Europe and is currently represented by Baer Ridgway Exhibitions in San Francisco, CA.

The museum was an old factory taken over and restored

Glenn Kotche – Interactive Drumheads

Glenn writes of his interactive installation: “I came up with the idea of preparing a drum head with various materials and contact microphones several years ago while trying to get more non-traditional, non-rhythmic centric sounds out of my drums for use in free-improvising situations.  The initial idea was inspired by John Cage’s prepared piano music as well as certain percussion instruments like the cuica or lion’s roar.   The head that I devised was perfectly suited for my solo piece Monkey Chant that was being written around the same time.  I ended up using the distinct sounds from the prepared drum to represent the main characters from the Ramayana story to which Monkey Chant is set.  In subsequent years I’ve used prepared drum heads in most of my musical outlets but most prominently in my solo shows.  I love that I’m still able to use the drum as a drum and also use it as a resonator for these amazing timbres.  In this exhibit you’ll find several different types of preparations.  I’ve created certain heads with just one type of preparation as well as some with many different types, the latter being similar to ones that I use when performing.”

Patrick Sansone – Polaroids

Photographs taken by Sansone on his various travels, to be featured in his forthcoming book.

More amazing wall drawings at Mass MoCA

I have to say this was quite a long blog to post and I have so many more photos and things I could have shared but hopefully I motivated you to get up there and check it out for yourself!  Click here to check out the calendar of up coming events at Mass MoCA! Thank you to everyone who shows me so much support with this blog, and I am very happy so many of you like it so much and use it to find things to do in the area. See you at Third Thursday!

Kaitlyn