K'naan

I hurried back to the main stage expecting to have missed the start of K'naan's set, only to find that Jimmy Cliff was still dancing with ageless exuberance.  While I went to get myself some free pita chips and humus, a gigantic mass of people converged on the second stage, and I resolved to watch K'naan from a far-flung grassy knoll.  I could barely make out his white shirt when he arrived to the largest pre-performance cheers of the day.  People were excited.

Heck, I was excited, and I wouldn't have been a year before.  I first heard K'naan when Wavin' Flag came out and condemned it as an ultra-international anthem bound for a dusty corner of a FIFA game soundtrack.  But the song's popularity confounded my expectations, and once I read a bit about him I realized that he's been confounding expectations his whole life.  Rock critic Robert Christgau's review of The Dusty Foot Philosopher finally convinced me to listen at least once.  As soon as I'd finished I listened again for the rhymes, then again for the rhythms, then again for the rock.

I loved the first record, and K'naan rocks unabashedly heavy on Troubadour, with as much recourse to guitars as Somali traditional and Ethiopian jazz samples.  Onstage at Osheaga, however, I realized that some of my favourite moments on the new album would have to be left out by the four-piece band.  Chubb Rock's verse on ABCs, for instance, or Adam Levine's inimitable falsetto on Bang Bang (though the band's vocalist tried).  The only guest spot they got to sound like the album was Kirk Hammett's guitar on If Rap Gets Jealous, which left me as nonplussed live as it did on the record (I much prefer the version on Dusty Foot Philosopher).

Hip-hop backing tracks are difficult to replicate live, and I wasn't expecting the band to do so, but early in the set they seemed a little loose, especially on the slower songs.  They picked it up later with energy-filled renditions of Bang Bang and Soobax.  K'naan ended with just the chorus of Wavin' Flag, probably leaving out the verses because Jimmy Cliff had gone overtime.  Or maybe he knew the chorus was all the crowd needed. They certainly needed no encouragement, and in the end neither did I.  I think the sun even came out from behind a cloud for the finale.

Japandroids

Since Owen Pallett was done a bit early, I had a chance to get back to the main stage to catch the end of Sarah Harmer's set.  I stuck around for Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros as well as Jimmy Cliff.  As far as I could tell, they played solid, unremarkable sets.  Leaving Cliff's excellent orange-shirted band to finish another chorus, I ran across the festival grounds to see Japandroids, a Vancouver garage-rock band whose debut Post Nothing I had picked up a few weeks before.

When I got to the stage, I wondered what was wrong.  There were only two guys on stage, a drummer and guitarist.  Where was the rest of the band?  After the first song ended and no one else appeared, I began to realize that I had been duped.  This was not the first time this had happened; the White Stripes and the Black Keys had both fooled me into thinking they were more than duos in the past.  Which, for me, puts Japandroids in pretty good company.

Or perhaps it just puts their album in good company.  Live, I thought they sounded a bit trebley and thin, despite guitarist Brian King's three-amp system (two Fender combos with miked Marshall cabs, and a smaller Fender in the middle).  His and drummer David Prowse's energy was undeniable but uninfectious; listening to the album, I itched for the mosh pit, but the afternoon Osheaga crowd was unmoved.

Maybe there just wasn't room for moshing.  There's no question that Japandroids held the most tightly packed crowd of the day (before the headliners on the main stage) throughout their rapid-fire set.  There was tons of room onstage, but hardly room to clap in the crowd.  I realized I'd be happier just listening to the album on my own, and headed back to the main stage.