Last weekend, Music Fest Northwest brought acts from all over the world to the biggest music festival in one of the best music cities in the country, Portland, Oregon. This fall and winter, some of the bands featured at the fest will set sail with their fans on concert cruises. The ECR team fanned out to get a taste of these upcoming voyages.

Girl Talk – Saturday at Pioneer Courthouse Square. “It’s Saturday night in Portland,” says Gregg Gillis, aka mashup master Girl Talk, as he stands on his DJ table in front of 5,000 people at the festival’s biggest venue. “We’re going home for a little while after this, so it’s our Saturday night too!”

The crowd takes a little while to warm up to Gillis’ dance party, which finally gets going in full swing in its last hour, once darkness falls (the show has a 10 o’clock noise curfew). Near the stage, it is a sea of raised hands, cheering every 60 seconds or so every time Gillis drops a new artist into the mix. If this is Saturday night, imagine what’s going to happen when Gillis and a few thousand fans are all on vacation together on the SS Coachella this December. The cruisers will be hard pressed, however, to outdo the Portlanders for outrageous fashion choices. Sequined daisy dukes? Enormous superhero boots with tights? These fans would have looked better in the sweat suit Gillis was sporting. -JM

A-Trak – Friday at the Wonder Ballroom.  It’s nearly midnight, and I thread through the sweaty crowd to catch A-Trak’s headlining DJ set, which is already underway. It’s hot and steamy as droves of attractive young hipsters and hip-hop heads are getting down. The dark ballroom flashes with strobes and colored spot lights causing dancers to lose inhibitions and creating a hypnotizing effect. All are lost in the music, but A-Trak is clearly the star and master of ceremonies as he sways the crowd with slow, bass-heavy rap and then seamlessly slides into high-energy rave music.

A-Trak’s true gift is his turntablism. He’s on a one-man mission to prove that scratching isn’t dead as he keeps the beat going while throwing in scribbles, 8-bit sound effects, and novelty records from thrift bins. His mash-ups are impressive as well; I swear I heard Kraftwerk and the Beastie Boys being played simultaneously at one point. A-Trak is one of the rare acts around that holds his own as an artist as well as keeps the party going. He’s got the skills to keep the good times rolling on this year’s Holy Ship!! cruise for sure. - Jake Rose

Jason Isbell & The 400 Unit – Thursday at the Roseland Theater. I’ve heard that even non-English speakers understand the underlying message of most country songs. The sound of longing is universal, apparently, and the traveling song man is always longing for home.

No where feels further from home than the sea, but does that make it a good place for the forlorn stylings of Jason Isbell & The 400 Unit? I ponder this as the Alabama band warms up the crowd for the Old 97′s. The man has skills, that’s for sure–he plays guitar like a heartbroken Stevie Ray Vaughn and sings like a homesick Ryan Adams–but is this the sound track to paradise? Some of the more upbeat acts on the upcoming Cayamo Cruise might be a better fit for the Caribbean. But if the promoters have the foresight to book Isbell and his crew late at night, in say, the casino, that could go just perfectly. - Jason Simms 

Image: Girl Talk tries to find a sea breeze in downtown Portland.