Bigger, louder, brighter: Elkfest kicks off today

If you’ve seen the 1,100 people on Facebook who say they’re planning to attend Elkfest this weekend, don’t get too freaked out.

It’s likely that number will be spread throughout the course of the three-day block party neighboring Coeur d’Alene Park and ArtFest.

Elkfest has grown into a neighborhood fixture in Browne’s Addition at ArtFest time, from a one-day concert with a single band to a long weekend of local and regional live music.

So expect a crowded block on Cannon Street between Pacific and Second avenues, next to the Elk Public House, 1937 W. Pacific Ave.

This year’s Elkfest lineup features four touring headliners, two from Portland, two from Seattle: Sallie Ford and the Sound Outside, Strength, Blood Hot Beat and Shim.

Things kicks off tonight with Seattle co-headliners Shim and Blood Hot Beat.

Known for a blazing live show and brilliant light show – not too many bands show up at club venues with their own custom-built light rig – Seattle stoner-rock veteran Shim has been a favorite at past Elkfests. It dazzles audiences and lures a crowd full of people into singing along to lyrics such as “love me like an animal.”

With 1980s and classic-rock tendencies that pack together influences from Robert Plant, Pink Floyd and Talking Heads, Shim’s music is instantly catchy, yet a little hard to pin down with, the quartet rotating singers every song or two.

Blood Hot Beat plays brazen, swaggering Strokes-esque rock that has tinges of blues-rockin’ grunge. 

The trio has worked its way from playing Elkfest 2010 at noon into a later time slot, thanks largely to its high-energy live performance.

Saturday night’s headliner, Portland dance band Strength, has built up a solid local following over the last couple of years.

The drummerless trio relies on a beat machine for throbbing rhythms that push wavy synth-bass and guitar with multiple vocals. The eight songs on the group’s second full-length album, “Mind Reader,” are a quick flurry of groove-heavy gems that go by in less than 30 minutes of hazy funk-electro-soul-pop.

In the same vein as Ratatat and Chromeo, washed down with bit of Caribou and The XX, Strength’s live set is rump-shaker designed especially for hips and sways.

Closing out Elkfest on Sunday night is Sallie Ford and the Sound Outside, a Portland throwback of a completely different kind.

Accompanied by drums, stand-up bass and surgical guitar slices, Ford’s jazzy swing has a vintage charm that points back to the 1950s, captured in her raw, emotive vocal style.

Like Strength, Ford has a staunch following in town after headlining Terrain in 2009. And the word is starting to get around the country, as she received high praise after an opening slot with the Avett Brothers and a standout performance at the South by Southwest festival in Austin, Texas. 

Also playing Sunday is a part-local, part-out-of-town band, Bully, a new project led by Spokane native Ryan Koontz, formerly of the San Diego retro-rock outfit Dirty Sweet.

In the wake of that group’s breakup, Koontz put together Bully, which features former bandmates playing a more acoustic version of Dirty Sweet’s gritty country rock ’n’ blues.