The second Wet Leg finish detonating their little post-punk firecracker set, the bass line off Blood Orange’s “I Wanna C U” comes slithering over from the Mountain stage, like it’s daring you to notice. Devonté Hynes and his crew — drummer, keys, two backup singers who could probably start their own congregation at this point — blow through that minute-long teaser and dump us straight into “Saint,” off Negro Swan. I half-expected some earlier cuts off the new one, Essex Honey, because that’s what you’re supposed to do—promote the new album, but Hynes has never met a rulebook he didn’t want to torch. I see he’s got large over-ear studio headphones on during the whole set — once a producer, always a producer.
At some point I swear I can hear a Björk cover ghost through the mix, though that might’ve just been the edible talking in my inner ear. Hynes starts shredding like he’s got Freddie King’s ghost riding shotgun, all halcyon blues-dad guitar tone, murmuring his lyrics like he’s not sure the crowd deserves to hear them yet. Then the rain shows up right on cue — of course it does — just as the band eases into “Somewhere In Between,” easily the best track off the new record. Hynes drops the guitar for synths and lets his singers take over, and honestly, they’ve got the kinds of range that makes you a little angry on behalf of every band they’re not fronting yet.
Hynes fades into the background for a stretch, content to be a guy on a stage, until he picks up his reverb-drenched electric cello and does something that felt, chemically assisted or not, divine—like poking a hole in the sky and letting a little sun through to say hello. We get one or two more from Essex Honey, including the childlike wonder of “Countryside,” and he finishes with “Champagne Coast,” which is cut off halfway by the festival gods. Blood Orange did start five minutes late, but did you really have to do the man dirty like that? Shit, that was a good set, though. On to the next.
Photos by Tim Snow
