Ever catch a glimpse of yourself in the corner of your eye? It can feel disorienting. I experienced that during Turnstile’s headlining night at Kilby Block Party, the indie-leaning Salt Lake City festival that truly earns its buzz. Today, a Turnstile live show is a full-scale production, worthy of a genuine festival headliner. The band members are all magnetic tornadoes of charisma, moving with the athletic energy of competitors, yet they recognize that the star of the show isn’t them. The real spectacle is the audience—the churning sea of fans who lose their minds the moment Turnstile steps onto the stage.
By this stage in their狂ishly wild career, Turnstile can’t completely blur the line between band and crowd the way they once could. You can’t stage-dive when the barrier separates the stage and the people at the front row. So Turnstile devise other ways to put the crowd at the center of the celebration. They roll with a top-tier visual crew, including veteran skate photographer Atiba Jefferson, and they surround themselves with towering screens that feed back the chaos in real time, transforming the moment into cinema. That’s how I became the next contestant on that Summer Jam screen.
I’m tall. Like, really tall. When people find themselves behind me, they talk about me as if I’m a weather event, as though I can’t hear their words. Usually I drift toward the back or to the side—zones where folks can maneuver around me if they want, though not in the absolute back where the chatter swamps the music. I don’t hold back for Turnstile, though. For Turnstile I have to be in the mix. My logic is simple: we’re all moving, you’re moving, I’m moving. I’m not going to plant myself somewhere and offer a view of my back to the person behind me. On Sunday night, I found myself amid a crowd of very short women who were just as fired up as everyone else. That probably made me stand out even more.
At the end of a track—can’t recall which one—I had my hands raised toward the sky, a gesture aimed at the heavens, when a looming white monolith appeared on a screen in my peripheral vision. That was me. I was on screen. I froze. The camera cut away to the band, then returned to me. I just held the pose. My mind raced, but I was now part of the show. When I spoke to the video crew after the set, they said they kept putting my image on purpose because they liked my Orioles jersey, so perhaps height wasn’t the only reason I appeared onscreen. Maybe I was on that screen more than I realized? Yikes. Anyway, here’s how I looked. (Shout-out to Stereogum Discord user Souva for taking the photo and letting me use it.)
Over the past decade or so, I’ve seen Turnstile live many times. I’ve written a lot about them. I’m a fan, and it felt electric to watch them rally that massive crowd and ignite countless kids. It’s been a chaotic, unpredictable year for Turnstile. Some lines from last year’s Never Enough read differently to me now, given some of the drama that wasn’t my business at all. Yet even with the TMZ spotlight, Turnstile never slowed down. Today they mostly headline festivals, and they’re booked into a lot of them. I hope each of their sets feels as transcendent as Kilby’s did, and maybe they do. But there’s something uniquely special about Kilby.
Kilby Block Party is a fairly new festival. Its first edition in 2019 was a true block party intended to celebrate Kilby Court’s 20th anniversary, a sturdy local venue. It’s grown since then, moving to the Utah State Fairgrounds in 2023. I’d heard chatter about this fest for a while. The setting is stunning, for one thing. I’d never set foot in Salt Lake City, and it’s extraordinary to watch bands while surrounded by snow-capped peaks, or inside a compact stadium that feels built for rodeos. The programming leans toward indie rock without becoming dogmatic about the term. My friend Ryan Leas covered the festival for Stereogum a couple of years back, and he and the rest made it clear this was worth a visit, even if Salt Lake City isn’t at the top of most people’s lists. Count me in that chorus: Kilby Block Party is one of the good ones. In the current U.S. festival landscape, it could be the good one.
It’s not Pitchfork. It never will be. For many years, the Pitchfork Music Festival stood as a yearly highlight, a figurative checkbox on my calendar. It was the right size, curated by people I knew and collaborated with. If you were a music writer, you’d attend annually, catch up with old colleagues, or make new friends. You’d see acts you adored and others that rubbed you the wrong way. It felt like the best. Kilby Block Party likely sits a touch above Pitchfork in size. It isn’t in Chicago, though it benefits from being in another major city that’s easy to navigate from out of town. There isn’t a vast crowd of critics in the VIP area—though who knows what that could become. Still, Kilby gives me that old Pitchfork vibe—the vibe that vanished when the Pitchfork Festival was overtaken by corporate giants.
Kilby isn’t a boutique festival, one of those narrow-scope events that cater to a specific taste, but it isn’t trying to be Coachella, either. It’s plainly curated by real people, and you can infer a lot about their preferences from the lineup. Not every act at Kilby relies on guitars, but all of them slot into a loosely defined indie-rock spectrum. There are no rappers and no dance DJs, although a few of those could’ve found a home. There’s a healthy hyperpop presence, a dash of heavier music, a hint of nostalgia, and a sharply selected undercard that draws many of the best acts this site tends to spotlight.
In years past, nostalgia played a much larger role in Kilby’s experience. Since relocating to the State Fairgrounds, most headliners have been ’90s icons (Pavement, Weezer) or ’00s staples (Strokes, Yeah Yeah Yeahs, LCD Soundsystem, Justice). Last year treated us to New Order and Devo. This year felt like a more transitional, youth-forward moment. There were veteran acts on the bill—Modest Mouse, American Football, Grandaddy—but they weren’t the centerpiece. One reunion-adjacent act closed the headliners, the xx, and all three members are under 40. I’d peg Turnstile as being in their thirties, if not younger. Lorde is 29. They’ve been around for more than a decade, yet they aren’t nostalgia acts. A few years back you’d have to defend calling any of them “indie rock,” but they all sit comfortably inside that peculiar, ill-defined category today.
The shadow of the ’90s still colored Kilby, at least judging by the Nirvana tees in the crowd. But this edition felt aimed at the kids who sometimes wish they’d grown up in that era. Hacky sack circles sprouted all around, for instance. Is that still a Utah ritual? Hacky sack? Or a self-aware revival of a tradition long past? Either way, it was a treat to see. I’ll take hacky sack over TikTok tents any day. Kilby isn’t meant for folks like me—those who lived through the ’90s and crave festivals like the ones we had back then. I’m glad it isn’t that. You can go to Kilby and feel genuine excitement about music, which I can’t always claim about the bigger, algorithm-driven festival lineups that show up every year.
So let me tell you about some music that got me excited. Early on day one, Die Spitz delivered a joyous rumble. It would’ve been cool to hear some actual metal at the festival, but not many bands in that vein have the same carefree, youthful exuberance. Show Me The Body arrived jagged and celebratory, and they lifted that little rodeo stadium. Father John Misty is a familiar figure, but it’s refreshing to be reminded what a showman he is, how his expansive arrangements spring to life in a setting like this. (In a surprising twist, he might have been the loudest act of the weekend, and he owned it.) Automatic exuded a chilly electroclash cool that held strong even in the midafternoon sun, and Smerz’s playful monotone blossomed with the chance to watch the playfulness unfold. Jane Remover lands with even more impact when she’s got a big crowd that’s really feeling her, as she did here. It was far more thrilling seeing her at this festival than when she opened for Turnstile to a shell of a crowd last year.
The Last Dinner Party are a perfect festival act—visually and musically, they bring an energy that can re-energize you just by watching them. Dehd’s bright, jangly sound brought back Girls-era memories, which I didn’t expect but was thrilled to feel. Ben Kweller made a strong case for himself as one of the finest songwriters working today. Early on Sunday afternoon, I was nursing the worst hangover I’ve had in years, and I wasn’t exactly itching to get excited about anything. But perched in the metal bleachers of the little stadium, This Is Lorelei’s material hit me with more force than ever. That stuff sounded incredible, and it helped me forget the misery for a while.
Later in the day, Hayley Williams played her first festival as a solo artist. She admitted she was nervous about it. I don’t quite buy that. Even just performing songs from her new album, while avoiding the Paramore hits she always keeps in reserve, Williams brought swagger, joy, and towering vocal power, and those new tracks now feel like hits to me. I already liked these acts, but now I realize I like them even more than I realized.
I missed a lot of acts I wanted to catch because festival life is a tangle of conversations you don’t want to cut short, hunger creeping in at inopportune moments, and weather shifts. Sunday grew brutally cold, and the out-of-towners were blindsided. Every merch table ran dry of cold-weather gear. I didn’t fully appreciate the xx’s return because I’d partied too hard, even though they sounded terrific. My fault. A bunch of acts had a way of slipping into the background, while others leaned on gimmicks that didn’t grab me.
I’m developing a theory about a certain strand of bright, polite, shimmering alt-pop that fills a similar role to what Grand Funk Railroad did in the early ’70s. Those early hard-rock outfits were goofy and anarchic, and these contemporary bands aren’t, but they play analogous parts: they’re wildly popular with young audiences, while critics either haven’t heard of them or treat them with condescension. You’d never deduce it from outlets like this one, but the sunlit, young Floridian crew Flipturn is massive. They played a full main stage to widespread astonishment. I don’t quite get it! Which is fine—I don’t hate them or anything. I simply don’t have a doorway in. That’s for someone else.
One of the joys of festivals like Kilby is discovering something for someone else, figuring out whether you’re into it, and moving on with life. I’d never heard of LA electro-pop duo Between Friends, two siblings who reportedly appeared on America’s Got Talent at some point. In conversations with kids in the crowd, Between Friends were a major draw. I assumed they’d sound like Flipturn. They didn’t. Instead they offered a deliberately sleazy electro-pop vibe. I’m not sure how many Gecs enter their equation, but I’d bet it’s a lot—perhaps 60 Gecs? I spoke with someone who called Between Friends the worst group he’d ever heard. I found them pretty enjoyable. They shared a timeslot with Ben Kweller, so I didn’t stay for long, but I wasn’t upset about it for a moment.
When a festival truly lands, it’s not just about the bookings; it’s about how everything fits together. Kilby runs four stages, and the schedule is arranged so there are never two acts on at once in a way that forces tough choices. When the headlining act begins, that’s the sole stage with momentum, so everyone converges near the biggest stage. When the machinery clicks, you notice the smaller details. I appreciated the sign-language interpreters who were actively into their jobs. I enjoyed the presence of seagulls, which was a bit perplexing until I remembered that Salt Lake City earned its name from a nearby salt lake. I liked watching clouds hug the distant mountain peaks as the rain began, and I enjoyed making friends in the beer line and then spending more days with them. The whole experience left me in a good mood, something I don’t always experience at music festivals.
Case in point: Lorde’s headlining set on the final night, which would have felt underwhelming at most fests. I was excited for Lorde, but the show felt more like an arena performance than a set tailored for a festival crowd that might not be her superfan base. For example, performing Royals as the second song and then only singing about 45 seconds of it? Why the dancers up there delivering abstract choreography? Why refer to her career as “my art project”? She played a lot of songs I adore, and hearing them live was thrilling, but the presentation and the rain diminished what could have been some genuinely glorious moments.
Yet, trudging through the soaked exit from the State Fairgrounds—a festival exit is always rough even when everything goes right—I heard a girl gushing about loving Lorde’s set, moved to tears multiple times. Lorde’s concert felt designed for devoted fans, not for me, merely a Melodrama devotee. Still, that girl had a fantastic night, and the rest of us could still sing along to Liability before returning to ordinary life. I’ll take that. If you’ve got the means and the inclination, I’d suggest you check out Kilby next year. Maybe you’ll encounter something extraordinary. Maybe you’ll even catch a glimpse of yourself.
