Jonny Numb

Take a breath.

You’ve earned it. Hopefully you got something out of this recap, even if it was simply acclimating to my long-windedness.

On that note, I shall proceed with the details of the final day of DFF.

If Saturday was a gauntlet, then Sunday (April 2) was downright leisurely in its schedule: 9 bands in total, with the headliner closing things out by 9pm.

Because people have work the next day, darn it!

We arrived in time for genCAB‘s 2:30 set on the small stage, but technical difficulties pushed their start time to 3. That said, once everything was squared away, they put on a great show (drummer Tim Van Horn is a beast!). Like Josie Pace, I saw genCAB on tour with Aesthetic Perfection last year, and highly recommend their 2 albums, Thoughts Beyond Words and Il transMuter. Band brainchild David Dutton’s indie side-project, Crown of Pity, is also very good, but very different from his Industrial stuff. In any case – wander on over to their Bandcamp and pick up some music and merch; you won’t be sorry.

We hung out for a little bit of Interface before heading over to the GB for Bootblacks.

Now…those who’ve been keeping up with my posts since the Olden Days of January 2023 know that I sometimes buy more tickets to shows than I have the actual motivation to get in my car and drive out to see. (In the end, I figure at least some of that money is going to the bands, even if I don’t physically show up.)

Bootblacks is a band I discovered in the midst of the pandemic, became quickly smitten with, and was prepared to see live in fall of 2021 (if I recall correctly). However, for a variety of reasons, I wound up not going.

So, I saw this as a chance to right a wrong and get my Bootblacks fix. I really dig their post-punk sound, and the between-song banter by messianic lead singer Panther Almqvist was like amusing mumblecore poetry. I enjoyed their set (and, wonder of wonders, it wasn’t sidelined by sound-system SNAFUs).

In November 2019, me and Lizard saw Pigface play at Baltimore Soundstage (yeah, all roads seem to point back to Baltimore and/or Pigface). The support act was unfamiliar to us; all we had was a name – I Ya Toyah. After the self-described “one woman army” took the stage for an all-too-brief set (maybe 20 minutes), we looked at each other in a shared “eureka!” moment of discovery.

I stand by what I said in Part 4…showing up early can turn you on to exciting new sounds!

Unfortunately, with the pandemic scuttling many live-music plans, the next time I got to see I Ya Toyah was in Philly in February 2022 (opening for Komrads). I remember it being chilly outside, but I also considered that show (at Ortlieb’s, a great intimate venue) something of an early birthday present. Her performance brought the fire on a cold winter’s night.

So yeah…when I saw she’d been added to the DFF lineup, I got excited all over again.

In a weird bit of cosmic synchronicity, I overheard two guys behind me; neither one of them had heard I Ya Toyah before, and I flashed back to that Pigface show in 2019 and having no idea what to expect. I certainly hope her set made them fans.

And here’s the thing about I Ya Toyah: she really is a one woman army – from singing to playing the keys to periodically strapping on a guitar, she makes other acts look lazy by comparison. Add to this a very physical and impassioned approach to live performance, and you have an act that’s impossible to look away from. It also bears noting: her stage costumes are the best.

During her half-hour set at DFF, you could practically feel the energy exchange occurring between her and the crowd. I loved it, and was glad to be part of an audience that was so clearly digging her sound.

We caught the last 2 songs from Rosegarden Funeral Party on the main stage. I liked what I heard.

Solar Fake was another band that recently toured the U.S., that I had tickets for, that I flaked on seeing. (I must have been wrestling with some low-level depression last year; perhaps an adjustment to an increased medication dosage?) This seemed more unforgivable since they’d come to the States from fucking Germany.

In any event, as with Bootblacks, I looked to Solar Fake’s performance at DFF as a chance to right a wrong.

I enjoyed their set, though at this point, I’m hard-pressed to remember much about it. The aches in my feet were overriding all else, and I was in the early stages of a bad sinus infection (which I’m only now starting to feel better from).

Suicide Commando closed out the festival. This was at least my third time seeing Johan live, so I took the opportunity to have a seat. While he omitted some popular choices from the setlist (you haven’t lived until you’ve been in an audience chanting the chorus to “Bind, Torture, Kill”), and while I was playing Wordscapes on my phone once an upright chair became available, I gotta say I admire the man’s ability to mine audience movement from the most morbid of subjects, and the most bottom-feeding of humanity.

We were quick to leave once the set wrapped, and encountered little traffic when exiting the hotel parking lot. I wouldn’t be surprised if the folks who’d secured rooms planned on making a more leisurely exit on Monday morning.

Being the speed demon that he is – and with Sunday-night traffic being what it is – Lizard got us back to our version of Civilization in about 2 hours. And while my vocal chords were scorched from screaming too much, I took that as a sign of a weekend well spent. (Though that sinus infection sucked some serious elephantine testicles…)

Yes, I have my editorials on what could be improved for DFF 2024, and while I hope the organizers take the problems into consideration (instead of pretending they didn’t happen), I still appreciate what the festival had to offer, and its potential to grow – and improve – with subsequent editions.

Thanks for reading! (Now…do the chant!)

(Featured image of Suicide Commando from side-line.com)