First Annual Mountain Oasis Festival Successfully Takes Moogfest's Reins

When Asheville heard that our semi-beloved Moogfest would not be taking place this October, we were admittedly not devastated, but never ones to forget the promise of a good party, we collectively wondered: so what's taking its place then? Enter Mountain Oasis Electronic Music Summit, the newborn festival that has successfully greased the path for Moogfest to quietly step out to fulfill its greater life purpose in the springtime. After just a three-year run of the always-a-little-weird (not entirely cool weird) Moogfest, the much more clear-headed Mountain Oasis seems to be just the thing to satisfy Asheville's now desperate need for a pre-Halloween/end of festival season festival fix. 

Photo by AVL's own J Smilanic

The festival ran Fri Oct 25-Sun Oct 27, but having just spent a massive four days in Austin the previous weekend, I only bought a ticket for Saturday night. Also, I was really only intent on seeing electronic music pioneer Gary Numan and Nine Inch Nails, because, well, I didn't think I cared enough for Friday and Sunday's headliners and wasn't familiar with any of the non-headlining acts.

Fifteen minutes late, I calmly walked (cuz I got reprimanded for running) onto the US Cellular Center floor to find a sparse but mostly interested crowd swaying and nodding to Gary Numan. Dressed in a dark graphic tee and black jeans, the legend floated around the smoky stage, strangling the microphone, his trademark yowl slicing through the thick atmosphere. A setlist dominated by his most recent album Splinter, I was surprised at how heavy and, dare I say, gothic his sound has become--no easy tinky synth sounds of old--but the depth of it felt very, very good in my body.

Gary Numan on Saturday night. Photo by someone at NPR

I, probably like 99.99% of the crowd, only really knew his 1979 breakout hit "Cars," but it's Gary goddamn Numan, one of the first musicians to bring electronics to the pop scene, one of the major influences on Trent Reznor and Depeche Mode (and vice versa) and thereby every single electronic artist since. He may have completely fallen off the radar over the last 30 years, but when that man is in town, you go see his fucking show.

And all 12 of us were lucky to be there.

Later that night I spoke to him outside one of his tour buses, his black eyeliner bleeding down his aged but familiar face. Lovely guy. We rapped for a couple minutes before one of his crew pulled him away to do an interview on the bus, and my blood bubbled on medium-high heat with envy.

Nine Inch Nails, touring their first album in five years, was obviously a big draw as headliner (I still made it into the venue and wherever I wanted in the crowd with relative ease). T-Rez is apparently at the top of his game, several years sober and looking damn good, all buff and shit. His new album Hesitation Marks shows he's not as angry as he always famously was, which is fine, but he still delivers his classic material with convincing outrage. My favorite moment was the catharsis of shout-singing "Head Like a Hole." Yerrrrssss.

Saturday night had a very tough, gloomy feel, but in plowing through the darkness, my heart became light.

So I found myself at the festival again on Sunday. I remember PANTyRAiD being ridiculous but having sweet dancers and Disclosure generally blowing my mind, but it was the weekend's closer that fractured us only to glue us all together again in perfect symmetry. Yes of course it was fucking Pretty Lights.

Now I've always felt sort of pffft about Pretty Lights via stereo system, but I am often surrounded by people who are real serious about him, and I was curious to see what all the hullabaloo was about. While under normal circumstances I would never consider standing in the back balcony, that's where my crew was, and WOW! I stood corrected. The sound was fantastic, the view of the madness below (and all around) unparalleled.

Pretty Lights really were...
Photo by J Smilanic

Derek Smith (aka Pretty Lights) and his tight live band threw down with an energy I can't even imagine summoning eight days a week like they do. To me, obviously, it was fresh, a magnetic whirlpool into which the crowd was immediately swept. Best light show I've ever seen. The man himself was noticeably intoxicated, but it only amusingly affected his speech, not his groove. As for my groove? I managed to bust any and all of my moves in that small foot space between seat rows. Success.

A little humbled, a lot awed, and apparently just now recovered from it, I bless the forehead of the newly christened, bouncing baby Mountain Oasis. Let Asheville nurture it, and it will grow.