This year was the L Magazine's third stab at its Williamsburg-based, CMJ-reminiscent Northside Festival. And from all accounts and perspectives, it was its most successful. It was the most Northside has felt like a real thing deserving of real attention, anyway: Instead of individual venues throwing disparate shows with great bands all over town -- which describes past installments of the fest but also every other weekend in Williamsburg every year -- this year's Northside managed a deservedly heightened state of awareness due to a heightened state of show booking. There were concerts held under the Northside banner that felt possible only by virtue of the festival's organization and impetus. So you could see Beirut and Guided By Voices inspire drunken singalongs in McCarren Park, or Atlas Sound and Mount Eerie usher in hour-long sets of hushed reverence in Saint Cecilla's Church. You could catch the first U.S. show of the intensely hyped Danish teenage punk sensations Iceage followed by Prurient's sensual/industrial noise triumph at Public Assembly (both thanks in part to the booking of our Brandon Stosuy), or participate in Light Asylum's bleak new wave dance party in the same space the next night. That's how my Northside shaped up, anyway: Phil Elverum plucking out the final, meandering notes of "Stone's Ode" after a set full of his singularly naturalistic and imagistic stream-of-consciousness Mount Eerie meditations -- many new -- last night at the church was a deep, essentially spiritual punctuation on a successfully realized weekend experience. We had photographer Tommy Lucas Chase run around snapping shots, many from the aforementioned sets, some from other corners of Northside -- his pics are included above, along with some from the Getty Images fleet. You'll also see Courtney Love in there. She was hanging out at McCarren to see either the Babies or Surfer Blood or Wavves or Guided By Voices.
