Kurt Vile covered The Velvet Underground and Bob Dylan's "Knockin' On Heaven's Door," for a mini festival in New York that hosted some of the year's best rock bands including Titus Andronicus, Speedy Ortiz, Screaming Females and many more.
The show was hosted by Ground Control Touring, celebrating its 15 year anniversary, and the Vice music site Noisy, for a five hour extravaganza of music spanning three rooms in Manhattan's Webster Hall. The 18-band lineup was curated from Ground Control's roster and included Superchunk, Waxahatchee, Parquet Courts, Lee Ranaldo, Deer Tick, The Felice Brothers, Torres, Beach Fossils, Woods, Frankie Cosmos, Porches, Rainer Maria and Perfect Pussy.
For the Velvet Underground performance, Kim Gorden and Steve Gunn assisted Vile as they tore through a beautifully noisy rendition of "Sister Ray" that lasted more than 13 minutes.
During the Woods set, Vile joined the stage for a relaxed cover of "Knockin' On Heaven's Door" adding that distinct vocal charm that his 2015 record b'lieve i'm goin down exudes on every song.
Stereogum describes the night as one in which every act was sort of expected to do something fun an interesting with their set, whether that be covers, stripped down versions of songs or featured guest appearances.
Patrick Stickles of Titus Andronicus took the stage as a solo act playing songs from the band's massive 2015 album The Most Lamentable Tragedy and covering Parquet Court's "Black And White." Steve Gunn played an acoustic set which departs from his recent full band setup. Andrew Savage of Parquet Courts also joined Woods at the end of its set for a cover of Neil Young's "Powderfinger."
A video posted by Brooklyn Vegan (@brooklynvegan) on Dec 2, 2015 at 8:54pm PST
