Ed. Note: After Friday’s first taste of Voodoo, Kerem Ozkan weighs in on Days 2 and 3 of the Experience below.

Saturday, October 27

Day 2 begins with The Features, an energetic and talented band out of Tennessee. There is no denying they’ve brought their A-game, though they ultimately prove a bit too Kings of Leon-y for our taste.

I head over to the main stage to see an act I’ve never heard of, the atrociously named AWOLNATION. To the crowd’s delight, the band is introduced by Anthony Davis, the New Orleans Hornets’ exciting rookie — dude has legit charisma and effortlessly works the crowd. I have no idea what to expect by the time the band hits the stage, and the first few songs only confuse me more. AWOL incorporates elements of hardcore at times, with deep-throated screaming and thrashy overdriven guitars. I notice a disproportionate amount of teenagers in the crowd, and their reaction to this stuff is palpable. But AWOL is only flirting with the screamo, always returning to pop structures, with hints of hip hop and reggae thrown in. They’re obviously gifted, versatile musicians, yet the whole thing comes across as more than a little insincere, geared toward impressionable teenagers. I make it through five songs before I give up. This band is terrible. Sorry, Anthony Davis.

I make my way to the relatively tiny crowd watching DJ QBert & D-Styles of the Invisibl Skratch Piklz. These guys rock some relatively straightforward scratching — by-the-book at times, with occasional moments of brilliance. The crowd is into it, rocking back and forth to the extent that the music allows. A gigantic man dressed as a bloody chainsaw-wielding clown is shamelessly smoking a joint out in the open.

The crowd at Metallica is huge, maybe twice the size of Neil Young’s. The first thing I notice, sound-wise, is that the guitar sounds remarkably thin and trashy, totally lacking in mids and bass. These guys bring heaps of energy and are, above all else, genuine showmen. It’s hard not to admire their dedication, but it’s also hard not to laugh at times at the silliness of their hyper-masculine bravado. The money-quote from the boys says it all: “We are Green Day! Except a little taller.”

Hats off to Voodoo on their video production. They can get a bit cheesy at times, but Voodoo has obviously invested in getting it right, and it shows. Very solid work throughout the weekend.

The crowd waiting for Justice is much larger than I’d expected, standing in the dark. There’s a hushed excited vibe in the lead-up. The boys open with a synthy rendition of the national anthem — instantly, people are getting down. Their lights show is way cooler than anything we’ve seen all weekend, the sound louder, the bass deeper. The only problem is we have oh-so-little space to dance!

Long instrumental tracks are punctuated by remixes of their singles. It’s interesting to note that this crowd would not be here were it not for the band’s hits. We have united behind their progressive, formless sound, but it took some familiar verse-chorus structures to get us all here.

These guys are experts at build-up. There are several distinct moments of perfect tension, the crowd ready to flip as soon as the bass drops. Each time, Justice withholds, demanding a little more nuance out of their listeners, letting the tension build further. In a genre that can often seem formulaic, their relative unpredictability is refreshing.

Sunday, October 28

It’s hard to reconcile the cognitive dissonance of hearing Nas rap about the hood at such a white festival, especially in a city with such a strong tradition of African American music. I spot a ton of white girls booty dancing with beers in hand as I work my way toward the front of the crowd.

“It’s good to come all over the world with hip hop,” Nas says between songs. “Good to be in New Orleans so close to Halloween! Shit is crazy.” No question that Nas is engaged and excited — as he should be, considering that Life is Good is his most accomplished album in years. Nas is touring with a seven-piece band these days. They back him competently, but hearing these songs built in the studio recreated live feels somehow off. At one point, Nas throws some heavy, dramatic delay on his mic, and his defiant call for the crowd to throw their “middle fingers up for all the haters right now” comes across as a little cheesy. We all do it, nonetheless.

Nas is generally a rapper most poignant in his quiet moments. Despite great energy and an impressive band, his music simply does not translate to this stage, as he spends most of the set yelling his lyrics. The lone exception is the closer, “One Mic,” which offers some much-needed moments of intimacy and hushed tension.

There are no words when Jack White begins his set. After a long lead-up, it seems that White’s full-throated rock ‘n’ roll begins all at once. If there were any lingering questions about White’s suitability for closing Voodoo, they have now vanished. There is absolutely no question he is the perfect act for this medium.

It’s hard to think of any musician who has made better use of a single sonic effect than Jack White’s employment of the Electro-Harmonix Polyphonic Octave Generator. It’s on just about every single song; on “Seven Nation Army,” it is responsible for both the bass sounds, and the piercing solo. In this gigantic crowd, it makes for an absolutely huge, instantly recognizable sound.

Moreover, there is no denying White and his band’s energy. There’s a sense of immediacy and presence that was lacking with Metallica and Neil Young. White plays a generous share of crowd-pleasers, among them “Dead Leaves and the Dirty Ground” and “Steady As She Goes” — though White takes considerable artistic liberties with each, incorporating a full band’s worth of piano, violin and pedal steel guitar. He changes the chord progression completely on “Fell In Love With A Girl,” transforming the tune into a Nashville-ian sing-a-long.

The climax of the entire festival is doubtlessly White’s closer, “Seven Nation Army.” The entire crowd sings the guitar riff, totally unprompted, on the final verse. White silences the band, and we sing along to only a kick drum for a couple extra measures. I find myself thinking of a European soccer crowd’s chants. When White eventually begins to sing the final verse, I am reminded that these lyrics have nothing to do with anything, really. There’s no political or artistic sentiment behind this intense moment of unity — just a simple, infectious riff. It is entirely appropriate that Voodoo Experience 2012’s most memorable moment comes in this form, as the only true common denominator in pop culture these days is pure, unadulterated catchiness.

–Kerem Ozkan