Project Pabst may be the most quintessential Portland festival, with its perfect combination of punk and indie music, $5 beers, free pickles, and bike valet parking; it just screams Portland. While the beloved Portland festival had previously ended in 2017, it has now returned for its second year in its current iteration. This year’s lineup was a callout to the millennial and Gen Xers, with headlining acts Iggy Pop and Devo on Saturday and Death Cab For Cutie and Japanese Breakfast on Sunday. While the festival brought in some big names, it still felt distinctly Portland, and its commitment to local was clear.

Project Pabst had local acts Nasalrod and Dustbunny open the festival on Saturday and Sunday, respectively. Though it was early in the day, both bands had a dedicated fan base that showed up early to show their support. Nasalrod quite literally kicked things into gear with the vocalists high kicks and jumps. Local punk fans may have also recognized bassist Mandy Morgan from Portland’s own Berzerk, and Spit Stix of Los Angeles punk band Fear on drums. We also saw the return of the beloved local punk band The Exploding Hearts with its reformed lineup. And while Japanese Breakfast is technically from Philadelphia, the vocalist and front woman grew up in Eugene, Oregon, and talked fondly of her hometown and how crazy it was to be from Eugene and playing a festival in Portland now. She called herself an “Oregon girl at heart” and talked about how the festival lineup felt curated for her — “the two most formative shows of my life were seeing Built to Spill and seeing Death Cab For Cutie on their ‘Transatlanticism’ tour” she told the crowd during her set on Sunday. Death Cab and Built To Spill, being from Seattle and Boise respectively, have also carved their place in the Pacific Northwest music scene and helped add to the festival’s PNW vibes.

Aside from the music, the “love letter to Portland” could be found in the food and vendor options, as well as the homage to Portland’s dive bars seen in the festival’s “Blue Ribbon dive bar.” There, attendees could cool off with $5 tallboys, lounge on velvet couches and chaises, and play pinball or card games. Adorning the walls were album covers and past show posters from bands on the festival lineup, as well as beloved local bands.

On the way between stages, attendees were offered free Yerba Madre drinks and free Grillo’s pickles. The Grillo’s tent offered free trucker hats if you rode their pickle ride, which fans eagerly did with PBRs in hand. The iconic 25-foot silver unicorn statue was recreated last year and returned as the centerpiece of the festival. Each day as the evening sun faded and cast a golden light on the statue, fans stopped to snap photos with their friends in front of the unicorn.

Day one of the festival appealed to the punk rockers with standout performances from Mannequin Pussy and FIDLAR, who jumped into the lineup at the last minute to replace The Damned. Vocalist Zac Carper jokingly introduced themselves as The Damned. FIDLAR were perhaps the perfect band for a last minute substitution, too. Fans raised their PBRs high in the air while they sang “I drink cheap beer! So what? Fuck you!” in true working-class punk style. The festival saw its first crowd surfers of the day, too, and the crowd managed to keep the crowd surfing Grillo’s pickle elevated for almost the entirety of their set. And while FIDLAR originally hails from Los Angeles, they brought a local attitude with them with their song “West Coast,” which Carper proudly declared was written in Oregon. The lyrics encapsulated the spirit of the festival as the crowd sang along that they “got high and ended up in Portland.”

If FIDLAR hadn’t already gotten the punks rowdy in the heat of the day, Mannequin Pussy would have done the job with their charged vocals and powerful energy. Mannequin Pussy also used their platform and kept the political nature of punk alive when vocalist Missy Dabice got on her soapbox and reminded the crowd that music should be political. “If you just want us to entertain you, you can kindly fuck off for a little bit,” she told the crowd to cheers of agreement.

Devo kept things equally political, but brought their new wave aesthetic and satirical comedy after Mannequin Pussy. Devoted fans dressed up in Devo-inspired costumes and donned their iconic energy dome hats, which vocalist Mark Mothersbaugh also tossed out to the crowd. From above, the crowd was almost a sea of red energy domes.

Following Devo, Iggy Pop closed out the first day of Project Pabst and proved that at 78, he’s still got it. He ended the evening with “Punk Rocker,” a fitting song to end the “punk day” of Project Pabst.

Day two of Project Pabst was the indie hipster dream. The female-led Brooklyn-based Say She She got the crowd dancing with their psychedelic soul while the female-fronted alternative rock band Wednesday spoke to the soul in a genre-distorting emotional shoegaze way. Cap’N Jazz, however, got the crowd moshing and screaming into the mic as vocalist Tim Kinsella went out into the crowd throughout the performance. The short-lived band that helped transform the emo genre and is widely considered to be foundational in the development of Midwest emo and indie rock saw a dedicated fanbase, eager to shout the lyrics of songs we once thought we’d never get to hear live again. The energy of the crowd was high as the mosh pit kicked up a huge cloud of dust. Tim Kinsella tossed his tambourine out to the crowd a handful of times, miraculously managing to retrieve it each time, and even got security included in the interaction, handing off the tambourine to a security guard near the stage as he traveled out into the crowd. “Can you imagine if we brought a second tambourine? The fun we would have,” Tim Kinsella commented afterward. For the emo kids at Project Pabst, Cap’n Jazz was a standout of the day.

Later, Death Cab For Cutie tugged at the heartstrings of the iPod generation when vocalist Ben Gibbard led a sing-a-long of the chorus of “I Will Follow You Into The Dark,”, something he said he’d never tried before at a festival. “That went well,” he assured the audience afterward. Though the band is currently touring in support of the 20th anniversary of their album Plans and playing the album in full on their headlining dates, their 17-song set list at Project Pabst spanned their discography, offering the festival crowd a taste of various eras of Death Cab.

After two days of punk and indie legends alongside cherished local artists, Project Pabst proved it is truly back and I’m already looking forward to next year.

A note on accessibility:

As a concert and event photographer that uses a wheelchair, accessibility is often on the forefront of my mind when covering a festival or choosing to attend one as a fan. The terrain and environment at the Waterfront Park location for the festival can often prove challenging in terms of accessibility for festivals held here, and after the accessibility issues I experienced with the Punk In The Park festival held at the Waterfront Park, I was hesitant to return to a festival at this same location. However, I was pleased to find that True West and the Project Pabst team made great efforts in order to increase the accessibility of the festival and implemented accessibility features and resources that made the festival experience more pleasant for everyone. They turned on the sprinklers in the park ahead of time in order to wet the ground and reduce the amount of dust and loose sand, offered various seating options throughout the festival with umbrellas set up to provide shade, and had a misting station tent where participants could cool off. Each stage had an elevated ADA viewing area with clear sight lines to the stage and an accessible port-a-potty nearby which was specifically reserved for those in ADA seating. Additionally, there were ASL interpreters for every act of the festival. Festival security and medical staff were readily available for assistance if needed and the food and drink options were plentiful, including options for gluten-free and vegan and vegetarian diets. Attendees were also allowed to bring two sealed or empty water bottles and could refill water on site, with a water re-fill station located at each end of the festival. Compared to many other festivals held at the waterfront park in Portland, Project Pabst had accessibility in mind much more and I greatly appreciated their ADA accommodations and commitment to ensuring the festival was as accessible as possible.