Moogfest 2010 was held in downtown Asheville in order to celebrate the relocation and opening of Moog Music. The event took place on Halloween weekend and consisted of musical performances by a variety of international and local artists, as well as film showings, art exhibitions and musical workshops.

The festival took place at locations throughout downtown Asheville in venues that included the Orange Peel, Thomas Wolfe Auditorium and Asheville Civic Center.

Big Boi, MGMT, Panda Bear and Jónsi gave the weekend’s best performances.

Big Boi’s performance consisted of songs from his new album, “Sir Lucious Left Foot: The Son of Chico Dusty,” as well as Outkast hits, including “Ms. Jackson,” “So Fresh, So Clean” and “Rosa Parks.” MGMT performed songs from both Congratulations and Oracular Spectacular, while Noah Lennox (a.k.a. Panda Bear) played songs from Tomboy and Person Pitch, Jónsi’s set, of the Icelandic band Sigur Ros consisted of songs from his solo album, “Go.”

I considered this show the highest-ranking out of all the weekend’s performances, both visually and aurally.

Though many of the bands at Moogfest did an excellent job drawing in large audiences and keeping them entertained, there were a few performances that flopped, namely Sleigh Bells and Girl Talk. Sleigh Bells did draw in a larger crowd, due to their recent MTV status, but their lack of musical ability became fairly clear during a live performance.

Combined with vocalist Alexis Krauss’s screechy attempts at sounding like Karen O, the show was a huge letdown.

DJ Greg Michael Gillis, of Girl Talk, was another disappointment in terms of the lack of sampling variety during his set.

In addition to these performances, I was also a little let-down to know that I wouldn’t be able to see either Cee-Lo Green or Devo due to Cee-Lo’s last minute cancelation and Devo’s inability to play an entire set because of a hand injury to guitarist Bob Mothersbaugh.

Despite the weekend’s few disappointments, I thought Moogfest was very successful overall.

There’s nothing like a weekend filled with awesome musical performances, interesting films and affordable art combined with a large variety of Halloween costumes and pretty good venue food, I thought Moogfest 2010 went off with a bang. The festival is scheduled to take place again in 2011, with tickets going on sale sometime next summer.

For more information, visit their website at www.moogfest.com.

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