Sunday afternoon was a triumphant moment for Strand of Oaks' Timothy Showalter. "The Pacific Northwest has been so good to this band," the long-haired frontman sincerely stated. "We love being here so much." He wasn't kidding. Showalter wore a glowing grin through almost of all of the set, which is appropriate, considering how significant the last year has been for him. Although the circumstances that led him to make 2014's excellent HEAL were difficult to say the least, the album and its ensuing tour has brought Showalter the most success he's had to date, and the band played exactly like a group coming out on the other side of catharsis would: loud, hard, and anthemic. From "Goshen '97" to "Same Emotion" to "Shut In", the rocked-up HEAL tracks hit more immediately than their studio counterparts, making the afternoon set the first, and maybe best, of the rock-heavy afternoon. As Showalter noted, Sasquatch was the first festival to book Strand of Oaks, and their Bigfoot stage appearance was nothing less than a triumphant vote of confidence in that move.
Friends of the station Of Monsters And Men have come a long way since KEXP filmed them playing in a living room in Reykjavik, Iceland in 2010. In fact, they've come a long way even since the station filmed them playing on a bluff at Sasquatch in 2012. KEXP was one of the earliest to discover this b…
