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By Tiffany Razzano
The Siren Festival is one of those things that can be viewed from both sides of the coin. True, it is a free music festival, drawing major names from the indie rock scene. And Coney Island, with its colorful sights, sounds and smells, is always a fun way to spend the occasional Saturday afternoon.
However, Coney Island is also dirty and seedy. The festival is also over crowded, usually hot and the sound is generally pretty crappy. Plus, you have to pay a quarter to use the closest bathroom.
But it's free. That's the key selling point here. So the kids come pouring in from all over the tri-state area.
The Rogers Sisters, Brooklyn's finest, sounding like a mix of the White Stripes, the Yeah Yeah Yeahs and Sonic Youth played early in the day on the main stage.
Priestess, a Canadian metal/indie rock band, also had an early slot, but on the Stillwell stage. With their long hair and headbanging tunes, they probably seemed a surprising choice to the sparse crowd watching them, but they definitely held their own.
England's The Cribs enjoyed a successful, energetic set that seemed to set the audience on fire, mostly because of their powerful stage presence.
She Wants Revenge was the victim of classic indie rock snobbery. The group's dancey, new wave, Goth rock failed to satisfy the audience. The group often gets crap for attempting to sound like Interpol and Joy Division.
Art Brut's lively set was one of the highlights of the day. Their playful, modern sounding, British garage punk rock invigorated the audience, especially when frontman Eddie Argos hopped off the stage and ran through the audience barefoot.
Unsure of who to watch, many people chose to hop back and forth between the final two bands of the evening, Canada's Stars and England's Scissor Sisters.
Stars' melodic, lushly arranged indie rock was beautiful, as usual, especially with the addition of a live violinist.
Scissor Sisters, despite having to cut their set short because of a power outage, ended the night on a bang. Their dance rock, both adored and inspired by Elton John, got the audience moving, despite a long and harrowing day at Coney Island.
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he 6th Annual Village Voice Siren Music Festival drew a record crowd this year, with an assortment of over 150,000 hipsters, indie kids, punkers and bohemians of all sorts clamoring to Coney Island for the free eight-hour music fest.
