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FeedRockin' returns to the Knox with Rufus and the National
After a year off, Rockin’ at the Knox is back in a big way. Scheduled for June 18th at Elmwood Avenue's venerable Albright-Knox Art Gallery, the 2010 model is headlined by two internationally acclaimed acts: cerebral indie rock faves the National and the wildly eclectic Rufus Wainwright.
Rufus’s sister Martha Wainwright, an accomplished, offbeat singer herself, will also perform, as will Atlas Sound, Deerhunter frontman Bradford Cox’s solo act, and several local acts.
Gates open at 5 p.m., with the National plunging in around 8 p.m., followed immediately by Rufus. The main stage will be in the gallery’s front parking lot adjacent to Elmwood, but the gallery itself will be open up until the National’s set, giving music lovers the chance to explore the gallery until that time.
“We’re going for a multi-faceted art experience—a real festival-like atmosphere” says Maria Morreale, the gallery’s public relations and marketing director. "People like to wander about and bump into things … We’re going to have something for everyone—you can have a drink in the garden, see local acts playing in the courtyard, explore the collection, or go outside and have a real rock concert experience.”
A cash bar will be available inside the gallery, and concession stands will be in the parking lot along with a beer truck.
The Albright-Knox started an annual concert series back in the nineties as an indoor event inside the gallery spotlighting local acts. But it grew so much in popularity that the coordinators had to start removing all the art from the gallery to make room for all the guests. This, Morreale says, was an impediment to the whole purpose of using music to “spark people’s relationship with visual art.”
So in 2005 the current festival format of Rockin’ at the Knox was conceived, as the concert was moved outdoors to allow room for the collection to be displayed in the gallery while the music played outside.
Sponsors like M&T Bank and Independent Health also helped make today’s version of Rockin’ possible. “Without them, we would never be able to bring in the talent that we’ve gotten,” Morreale says. “Booking talent has always been the hardest part of coordinating this event.”
She says promoter Chris Kaskie of Pitchfork Media was a key component in bringing in the National and Rufus Wainwright, two names that continue the trend of unique, acclaimed past performers like Wilco, My Morning Jacket, Feist, and Elvis Costello.
The timing couldn’t be better, as the National has become one of the best known indie bands in the country thanks to the enormous critical exaltation that greeted its 2007 album Boxer. The band received another boost when the album’s first track “Fake Empire” became the informal theme song for Barack Obama’s presidential campaign and was played at numerous ’08 rallies.
The March release of High Violet, the band’s newest album, was by greeted with huge expectations, but met with universal approval, and charted at number three in America.
Meanwhile, Rufus Wainwright’s music is as experimental as the contemporary pieces in the gallery’s collection—his newest album includes three of Shakespeare’s Sonnet’s set to music—and his performances are, to say the least, hugely compelling.
The new album, All Days are Nights: Songs for Lulu, is a piano and voice elegy to his mother, who was dying of cancer while it was being written.
Tickets for this Rockin’ at the knox can be had for $40 in advance and $45 at the door. All proceeds go towards benefitting the gallery. More information both about this event and the artists can be found on the AKAG website.
