The Most Epic Part of The Wrecking Ball ATL Festival: Deerhunter's Bradford Cox Going Off

There were a whole lot of magical moments at this years Wrecking Ball ATL Fest held this past Saturday and Sunday (Aug. 13-14) and each and every special moment was automatically magnified by 100 because the iconic Masquerade, the home of the WBF will soon be reduced to a pile of rubble (at least most of it will be). In fact, last I heard the tentative plan was to relocate to the new expansive building at 1421 Fairmont Ave this coming weekend.

The plan is to eventually put up a residential / mixed use development while retaining some of the historic elements (or a wall or two) of the historic Dupre Excelsior Mill built in the 1890's. The new configuration like the Ponce Market across the way should be just the sort of place that appeals to the upwardly mobile and mostly white hipster set.

Now again, this very last hurrah for the Masquerade and the large lawn that accompanied the largest stages of the festival was full of killer performances and probably 75% of the acts eluded to the sad fact that the Masquerade would be no more.

Among all these special moments my favorite part of the entire festival was the roughly 1 minute and 42 seconds coming from Georgia's own Deerhunter and I don't mean the music as awesome as it was. The most epic part of the entire festival was Bradford Cox making some off the cuff remarks about the Masquerade's demise. His biting often sardonic commentary was not only about the demise of an iconic neighborhood club but of the cause of it's demise too. His diatribe skewered gentrification and each and everyone of us who gleefully participates in this practice despite whomever this blockbusting affects. After reflecting on some of the killer acts he saw at the Masquerade and the fact that this was the first time Deerhunter played at this venue (sort of) he said:

"Yeah neighborhoods change man, shit changes and everybody's thinking 'What's happened to my neighborhood?'  Well, it's not your neighborhood. it's not my neighborhood, it's not the Masquerade's neighborhood. It's not the families who lived here before that got pushed out so we could come in in the 70's or the families that got pushed out so those people could come in before that.

It's an endless draining cesspool. And that's just... American life. Venture capitalism, commodity fascism. The BeltLine.... Welcome to it. Welcome to the Fucking BeltLine. Goodbye Masquerade! Hello BeltLine! Hello Apple store! Yeah, hello Google fiber.

C'mon, don't forget that Coca Cola built this fucking city. You owe all of your presence here to corporations. Bow down to them right now and drink their feted cum. Take a Big gulp and then go on your Iphone and Tweet about it."

(Great more in depth and heavy article here : "With Gentrification, Black People are becoming Outsiders in their Own Communities" by David Love)