Entertainment

FORT WORTH – Aurally, the third Wall of Sound Festival lived up to its moniker.

Nan Coulter / Special to DMN

Chelsea Callahan blisses out at the Wall of Sound Festival.

A fair share of the 40 bands that performed at Spune Productions' 13-hour, three-stage indie-music extravaganza at LaGrave Field supplied tunes that inarguably overwhelmed all else in their path.

The obvious selections: the Swords' cranial and ferocious heritage metal (most of what the Austin band played was new material), Pinback's unusually punchy meta-pop presentation, and Om's cacophonous and fuzz-busting bass-and-drums assault (the ornery San Francisco act, which is the rhythm section for sludge-metal titans Sleep, may well be the heaviest duo on the planet).

The unexpectedly solid: Denton mainstay the Paper Chase's unusually hard and funky turn; Massachusetts duo the Books' dramatic and ethereal video-assisted set with just an acoustic guitar, an electric cello and a sampler; and Austin-sourced headliner Explosions in the Sky's cracking and mood-jacking shoe-gazer instrumentals.

But Wall of Sound also lived up to its reputation for delays, sound-equipment failures and limited ancillary amenities.

Denton indie-pop heroes Midlake flip-flopped stage times with freaky-good Austin electro-rockers Ghostland Observatory because of an unspecified personnel issue (Midlake guitarist Eric Pulido vaguely cited "a really late night" at a Friday homecoming gig in Denton). Midlake overcame thin sound on Stage One to deliver a pretty, albeit abbreviated, set.

By then, the main stages were an hour behind schedule.

Stage Three, set up outside the stadium behind the home-plate wall, had been lagging since about 6 p.m., when a blown public-address speaker caused L.A.-by-way-of-Austin band Oliver Future to delay its appearance (it ended up playing "in mono," sick of waiting for a replacement speaker to arrive). And though LaGrave Field's concessions booths were open, only one type of beer was sold and food was practically nonexistent.

Despite a welcome and promising change of scenery from the drab-roofed confines of the Ridglea Theater to the manicured sporting grounds of LaGrave – the side-by-side main stages took up most of center field on the minor-league baseball diamond – ticket sales didn't come close to making the event feel anything but lightly attended.

Nan Coulter / Special to DMN

The Sword at Wall of Sound

In fact, Wall of Sound felt more like an exclusive lawn party for the area's indie community more than an open-to-the-public music fest.

Flying disc-throwing and soccer ball-kicking sessions were common in right field, which ideally would have been clogged with blankets and lawn chairs.

Only 700 or so advance tickets were sold, and walk-ups were negligible; at $35 a person and featuring music that appeals mostly to financially challenged current and recent collegians, that's little wonder.

For Wall of Sound to grow into what Spune head Lance Yocom envisions – a communal and hipster-targeted version of Coachella – it needs to fix the delays, entice more popular indie-flavored acts (maybe some higher-profile alums from Austin City Limits a week earlier: Spoon, Wilco, My Morning Jacket, Arcade Fire, even Crowded House) and market itself more broadly and with a larger geographic scope.

The move outside was appropriate, but the move into a bigger and more complete event has to follow soon.