The Walker Art Center and 89.3 The Current present Rock the Garden 2010 with guests The Retribution Gospel Choir, OK Go, Sharon Jones and the Dap-Kings, and MGMT.Saturday, June 19, 2010
What happens when 10,000 people gather on a hillside to hear four of the hottest modern-rock acts of the year? Not Woodstock, certainly (unless you count the longish waits for porta-johns). But no one seemed disappointed that Rock the Garden 2010, held at the Walker Art Center on June 19 and sponsored by 89.3 The Current, didn’t turn into a muddy jamfest. It was, in three words, good clean fun. After all, in lieu of getting drunk or stoned beforehand, the lead singer of headliners MGMT went vintage-clothes shopping. It’s a new era of rock ’n’ roll, folks. And yet, as Current deejay Mark Wheat noted at the end, the meaty lineup of Retribution Gospel Choir (Low frontman Alan Sparhawk’s heavy side project), OK Go, Sharon Jones and the Dap-Kings, and MGMT put the rock back in Rock the Garden. Of course, many people came as much for the fashion as the music. And only one word is sufficient to describe the look: 1984, the year as well as the novel. What have we wrought, folks? Madras shorts, rolled-up jean shorts, Ray Ban sunglasses. Judge for yourself in the images that follow: Those of us who lived through the 1980s, did we deserve their return? And enjoy.
—TIM GIHRING
