Sunday Afternoon in East Williamsburg: JellyNYC Rock Yard presents The Growlers, Japanther, The Death Set, Cerebral Ballzy, The Soso Glows and CSC Funk Band at The Morgan

Videos courtesy Sixdust/NYC Music

Late Saturday Afternoon in Williamsburg: Bikes in the Kitchen show w/ Ninjasonik, Death Set, Snakes Say Hisss, Dope Body, Bloor, etc. at the Rock Yard

Today's Bikes in the Kitchen fifth anniversary show at the Rock Yardproved so dynamic that it made us recall the now-legendary McCarren Pool summer Sunday shows in a way that the current Pool Parties never have.

With a lineup that featured Ninjasonik,

The Death Set, Snakes Say Hisss, Dope Body, Bloor, DJ Sega, DJ Dirty Finger and more,

the Rock Yard seemed - even though we couldn't stay for more than about ninety minutes - far more energetic during that time than we'd seen during any similar period at the East River State Park concerts this summer or last.

Maybe it's being in a confined space, like the McCarren Pool.

The Rock Yard is relatively spacious,

but it's not a gigantic venue and it's got a big fence around it, and so the vibes from the crowd

don't dissipate the way they can on the Williamsburg waterfront, where even when there are lots of people, there are often huge expanses of empty space that can drain that high-octane feel from even the best crowd reaction to the dopest band.


Instead it's got more of a block-party feel.


Anyway, we had a good time and a lot of other people seemed to be having an even better time.

We got there in the middle of this band's set and really liked them, but can't figure out who they were. If anyone knows, please tell us.






We don't know if the Rock Yard shows will be back next summer, but 2011 in Williamsburg will be better if they are.

Sunday Afternoon in Williamsburg: Delorean at the Last 2010 Pool Party at East River State Park

We were tired after a little too much beach this morning and early afternoon, but naps - which we only learned to take after we hit 57 - are good, and we thought we'd stroll over to the last Pool Party of 2010 (itself barely rescued from cancellation) just to catch one band's set.

Luckily, we got there around 4 p.m. when Delorean was just coming on. They're really superb, even on a blisteringly hot day like today. As Pitchfork wrote in reviewing the band's new album Subiza, released in the spring:

Delorean helped define the bright, beachside vibe of last summer's indie landscape, but they also deserve to be placed in a broader context. On their new album, Subiza, the Spanish four-piece deploys the build-and-burst tempos of 90s house and techno music, and they do so explicitly, never shying away from arms-in-the-air piano bridges or incandescent raves.

This music is proudly informed by the resiliency and vigor of classic club music, and its title (named after the Basque town in which the album was recorded) recalls the famously nightclub-centric Ibiza and the Balearic dance music that originated there.

What surprised us today was how easy it was to get into East River State Park. We remember the old days of the McCarren Pool, when we sometimes couldn't get in (like to MGMT) or had to wait in line for half an hour or more. Even at the waterfront, there were some long lines along Kent Avenue last year.

But we actually got berated for not going in faster before the few people ahead of us. "Sir! You have no bag! Go right in!" the security guard snapped.

Just before Delorean - guitarist Guillermo Astrain, drummer Igor Escudeo, keyboardist Unai Lazcano, and bassist/vocalist Ekhi Lopetegi - came on, when there were DJs on stage, we stood in pretty much the middle of the midway before the stage and there was nobody within about thirty or forty feet around us.

And we had put on fresh deodorant after our post-beach shower. We swear!

Delorean was really killing it, but the mood - and maybe it's easy for us, two generations older than most of the audience to misread this - seemed weirdly subdued.

Maybe it was just so sultry that even the dancing and volleyball seemed desultory.

We still think that given how excellent the band was, there would have been more people there and more excitement and energy at the old McCarren Pool circa 2006 or 2007.

It probably got a lot more vibrant once we left for our old folks' early bird special.

Anyway, it looks like next year's Williamsburg Waterfront Pool Parties will be different.

The Open Space Alliance has been talking in the press about "more varied programming" (read: for non-hipsters).

Change is inevitable - hey, our mom entered a nursing home last night, which is freaking us out even though she's had Alzheimer's for many years - and anyone who's lived two weeks in Brooklyn knows nothing stays the same.

We're grateful we saw Delorean.

And we look forward to next year's Pool Parties, whatever they may be like.

Sunday Evening at the Williamsburg Waterfront: No Pool Party at East River State Park

Due to the severe thunderstorm, this week's Pool Party with Cap'n Jazz et al. was moved from East River State Park to the Brooklyn Bowl.

After the rain, it got much cooler and drier, we were eager to get out of the house. Though we would have loved to see Cap'n Jazz, it was beautiful at the park anyway.

Saturday Afternoon in Williamsburg: Dickies & Jelly's Saturdays! at Rock Yard with Thee Oh Sees, The Beets, X-Ray Eyeballs, Gun Outfit, Tough Knuckles

We had an unsettling experience at this afternoon's kickoff of Dickies and Jelly Present Saturdays! at Rock Yard that made us think the people behind this series of six free Shabbos shows in Williamsburg, bringing back the Pool Party slip 'n' slide that's been verboten at East River State Park, must be worried about bad publicity.

Someone talked to us.

So far our age (sixtyish) and nondescript appearance, like the ring found by Dylan and Mingus in The Fortress of Solitude, have given us the superpower of invisibility and kept any hipster from saying a single word to us at the events we go to. We like it that way.

About twenty minutes after our arrival (the Q59 bus - be warned! it's been re-routed - took us from Metropolitan and Union right to the front entrance of the Rock Yard

- is it "the" Rock Yard or just Rock Yard?), a young man came over and asked us if we had the time.

Who doesn't know the time in 2010? Look at your phone, dude! But we're old and slow and said, "3:16." Then he asked us if we lived around here ("Yeah") and where we got the DVD ("Someone gave it to us at the entrance" - we'd thought it was a CD) said, "So what do you think of this?"

Our first thought was actually of the Bible salesman in "Good Country People":

“Mrs. Hopewell,” he began, using her name in a way that sounded almost intimate, “I know you believe in Chrustian service.”

“Well, yes,” she murmured.

“I know,” he said and paused, looking very wise with his head cocked on one side, “that you’re a good woman. Friends have told me.”

Mrs. Hopewell never liked to be taken for a fool. “What are you selling?” she asked.

But instead we said that the first few people to use the Slip 'n' Slide didn't get far in it because the black mat on the gravelly ground of the Rock Yard wasn't long enough to give them an adequate running start. Some people had only gotten about a quarter of the way through it.

Then we said, "What do you think of this?"

He told us it was a great thing for the neighborhood, great music, place to hang out, cheap beer, etc. although he allowed that it was very hot today. Then he said he was actually a friend of "the people putting it on" and he told us his name and asked us ours and shook our hand.

We were so nonplussed that we found a seat in the shade. Was it that in a small crowd a gnomish old man in a Brooklyn Law School T-shirt taking cell phone pics sticks out like Sissy Hackshaw's thumbs? Did the people at Jelly keep photos of bloggers in the back room the way restaurants keep photos of Sam Sifton?

Did they think Gawker is now sending out elderly Jews undercover to gather snarky comments? Did they think we're Anonymous at Brooklyn Vegan? Did they realize this blog covers children's puppet shows, press conferences at synagogues, lectures on African-American history, Christmas shopping at rural Wal-Marts and openings of skating rinks? We'd cover the opening of an envelope! (Even one from Vito Lopez.)

And didn't they realize that we like everything like Larry King or Mikey in the old Life Cereal commercials? That we don't write about the events we go to but have been bored at, walked out on, or were treated badly at (this means you, Union Pool)? That we're old enough and uncool enough to actually wear Dickies? That we use our first-person plural persona only to recite banal fawning superlatives?

Everyone seemed to be having a (genuinely) fine time at Rock Yard, and we think the pics here prove it. The cornbread was tasty. People seemed to be enjoying the beer and other drinks. The DJ was just fine. The portable toilets were spotless (but there weren't many peers who preceded us). All the bands - Thee Oh Sees, The Beets, Xray Eyeballs, Gun Outfit, Tough Knuckles - both the ones we saw and those on after we left - were really, really excellent.

We think you're crazy if you don't get out to Rock Yard on one of the next five Saturdays. Truly. What's not to like?