Kilby Block Party: Day Two Recap
Written and photographed by Birdy Francis
While many cities have opened up, and events are slated to continue, we are still living through a pandemic. Sunstroke urges our readers to keep wearing masks, practice social distance and stay safe!
While Salt Lake City has a thriving music scene, festivals haven’t been common within the city. For the third time — and the first since the onset of the pandemic — Kilby Block Party was booked for Library Square, right in the heart of SLC, with some of the biggest names in music.
On May 14, I headed to day two of the festival, and the heat was nearly unbearable, compared to the day prior. However, the excitement in the air compensated for it. It was a killer lineup that I never would have imagined myself seeing, let alone all in one day. So, I passed through the gates, got my camera gear ready and plunged into the festival crowds.
People scattered everywhere. There was something to check out at every corner, with four different musical stages, food trucks and pop-up booths throughout the venue. All kinds of styles and walks of life were represented within the fences of Library Square — from indie kids, to the Mormons, to granola dads.
I walked over to the South Stage, where Soccer Mommy made an appearance. Singer-songwriter Sophie Allison’s live sound is as soft and emotional as it is on her recordings, yet her and the band’s stage presence mesmerized me. They played some of my favorite songs, taking me back to my early-college-heartbreak era, and making me feel nostalgic and fuzzy inside.
I moved my way to the North Stage to get ready for Alvvays, a Canadian indie pop band. After taking the stage, they jumped right into it, playing their most beloved tracks, from “In Undertow” to “Archie, Marry Me.” I looked to my left and saw a father with his young daughter, both covered head to toe in Alvvays merch. She climbed onto his shoulders and sang her heart out. During the band’s set, lead singer Molly Rankin pointed out Salt Lake’s huge roads, electric scooters and bucket hats — specific details a band as eccentric as theirs would pick up on. After entrancing the crowd with music, Rankin asked, “Can we use you as guinea pigs to test out some new songs?”
Animal Collective was the perfect transition into the evening ahead. The crowd rumbled as the group of DILFs — sorry! — started playing through their experimental, psychedelic discography.
Now, I’ve never seen anything quite like Steve Lacy. The California musician commanded the stage and put a spell on his crowd. At the front of the audience, fans (who had been waiting at the barrier all day) dressed up in Lacy-inspired costumes jumped and screamed when he finally took the stage. Lacy walked out in the grooviest white bedazzled jumpsuit, and the crowd went wild. He danced hard, he ripped his guitar and he stole the show.
As the night grew darker, the audience became more restless. But then the waiting music came to a halt. The other press photographers and I locked eyes — a look that read like, “Can you believe this is about to happen?” — and Phoebe Bridgers comes out from the shadows in an all-black suit, planting herself just a few feet away. She jumps right into “Motion Sickness,” a beloved track from her 2017 debut album Stranger in the Alps.
I scrambled to get a few perfect shots in while I could, but had to take moments to stop, look up, and shed a tear before returning behind the lens again. A few songs later, she sets aside her acoustic guitar and brings out a gothic black electric guitar with what could only be described as sharp edges. When I turned around, I realized I had never seen a crowd so hypnotized and so emotional.
I walked home alone and took it all in — my shoulders in agony from holding two cameras for six hours straight, my feet aching from standing and walking around — but I had the biggest smile on my face. ♦
