Musicfest Northwest 2015

Yet another glorious Portland summer music festival season draws to a close this weekend with Musicfest Northwest taking place on the Tom McCall Waterfront. MFNW is closing the season out with a bang as well with intriguing acts like Beirut, Danny Brown, Lady Lamb, Strand of Oaks, Battles and Modest Mouse peppering the bill during the day, and a bevy of unique late night shows all around town.

Modest Mouse will be playing their first Portland show since releasing their excellent Strangers To Ourselves in March… and the first since Issac Brock called us all “a collection of human turds” while being interviewed in Poland recently. As a Portland Human Turd himself, it shocked some of our community that Mr. Brock would rag on his fair city so hard, but this is the perpetually grouchy/sauced Issac Brock here people; he’s basically the Charles Bukowski of indie rock. And yeah I guess I get what he means, but God who’d wanna be, God who’d wanna be, such an asshole?

https://youtu.be/weG3tC7na-g

In addition to the usually well-curated music, there will be delicious food offerings from local carts around town like the Dump Truck, PDX Sliders and Bunk Sandwiches, among others. Beyond the tastiness offered, less traditional distractions will also be on the festival grounds, ranging from free haircuts from Rudy’s Barbershop to some sort of crazy-sounding virtual reality thing-a-ma-bob that is sure to illicit more than a couple of stoned “Whoa”‘s from concert goers (I guess… I’m still not clear on what this contraption is all about). We here at Eleven PDX Magazine are getting involved this year and put together a Live Art Tent featuring local artists like Tripper Dungan (Saturday 3pm – 6pm) and Ashley Montague (Sunday 3pm – 6pm) painting live at the tent, art from past issues, a series of concert posters by local artists, a gallery curated by our own Mercy McNabb and of course, tons of free issues of the magazine.

Gorgeous nature, amazing food, art everywhere, non-stop quality music and a virtual reality machine all sounds like a very Portland-esque weekend down by the river, we’ll see y’all out there. Tickets are still available (and quite affordable), you can snag one here, and you can check out the full schedule right here.