NYS Music 20​15

Tag: McDowell Mountain Music Festival

  • Best of NYS Music 2015: Staff Picks for Out-of-State Festivals

    While most might dream of tropical getaways when it comes to vacation time, music fans accrue their days to travel across the country—or world—for weekends jam-packed with live performances, indulgent food and experimental fun. From the east to the west coasts to the Midwest, NYSMusic staffers traveled near and far throughout the year to see their favorite groups in action. Here we give you our top picks for out-of-state festivals of 2015.

    2015 festivalsBest Small Festival: Arise Music Festival, East Coast Tsunami Festival, Grand Point North Festival and The Werk Out Music and Arts Festival

    With the growing number of small-scale festivals that seem to pop up each year, it’s no wonder that our team could not pick just one or two as their favorite—so we decided to include the ones we felt deserved an honorable mention. First up is Arise Music Festival, an event in Loveland, CO, that according to Andrew Wyatt “offers a spicy jambalaya of multi-cultural live music, electronic performances, art presentations, along with numerous workshops centered around eco-activism, social justice, and spirituality practice.” With nearly 100 musical acts, the three-day festival now in its third year featured the likes of the Polish Ambassador, Rising Appalachia, Sister Sparrow and the Dirty Birds, Lukas Nelson, Turkuaz, Giant Panda Guerilla Dub Squad, Trevor Hall, Emancipator Ensemble, Ozomatli and Joe Russo’s Almost Dead, among others.

    Headlined by Wu-Tang Clan and Life Of Agony, the East Coast Tsunami Festival held in Reading, PA, treated hip hop, hardcore and metal fans to two full days of shows, including favorited groups Body Count, Mobb Deep, Murphy’s Law, Madball and more. And despite sound issues during day one, Jay Saint G. still dubbed the festival as “a wave of brutality that every music lover should experience.”

    Up next is the Grand Point North Festival held in Burlington’s Waterfront Park with views of Lake Champlain and the Adirondacks. Headlined by Vermont’s sweetheart Grace Potter, the fifth annual installment boasted two nights of music featuring Phish’s Mike Gordon, the Flaming Lips, Shakey Graves, Greensky Bluegrass, Amy Helm and the Handsome Strangers, among others, and special guests like Kenny Chesney who joined Potter to perform their single, “Wild Child.” Alexandra Provost and Laura Carbone noted that “as Potter walked onto the stage, her skin glistening from raindrops, the audience went wild” and that she “put on an astounding performance, showing off her piano, guitar and bluesy vocal skills.”

    And finally the Werk Out Music and Arts Festival at Legend Valley, a venue favorited by the Grateful Dead in the ’80s. With a stacked lineup featuring the Werks, Papadosio, Dopapod, Lettuce, Umphrey’s McGee, the Floozies, Consider The Source, Break Science and Tauk, the sixth year for the Thornville, OH, festival “was as always a ridiculously good time for all who made the journey,” according to Ben Landsman. With three stages, a silent disco and one fan wedding,Landsman noted that “between the beauty of Legend Valley, the bright spirit of the fans, the innovative music, this festival is one of the treasures of the Midwest.”

    Best Midsize Festival: Green River Festival
    Honorable Mention: Aura Music and Arts Festival, Boston Calling, Camp Bisco, DelFest, McDowell Mountain Music Festival

    Held at Greenfield Community College in Greenfield, MA, the sold-out 29th annual Green River Festival was “fresh, exciting and invigorating,” according to Eli Stein. Featuring four hot air balloon launches, the family-friendly July event pulled out all the stops with a craft tent, Frisbee dog show, acrobats, karate demonstrations, swimming, a Mardi Gras-style parade and exotic local fare like elk, boar and venison burgers, a Korean food truck and kabob vendors. Throughout the three-day weekend, more than 40 performers ranging from Americana to dance, blues and jam graced the event’s three stages nestled in the foothills of the Berkshires, including Eilen Jewell, the Wood Brothers, Rubblebucket, Marco Benevento, MAKU Sound System, Langhorne Slim and the Law, the Punch Brothers and tUnE-yArDs, which Stein noted was the perfect mixture:

    Musically, the festival served up a heaping slab of New England comfort food. The rest aforementioned activity, as they say, was just the gravy. Not only were the band selections great, they were clearly hand-picked and not just pulled off the nearest passing festival train. The music flowed wonderfully from set to set, and built to a nice peak at the perfect times. There was an evenness to the passion and approach of the musicians that made for a smooth transition no matter where you went.”

    Best Large Festival: Gathering of the Vibes and Summer Camp
    Honorable Mention: Austin City Limits, Bonnaroo, Hangout Music Fest, Lockn’ Music Festival, Peach Festival, Rock Allegiance, Rock On the Range

    Celebrating its 20th year, Gathering of the Vibes offered up an impressive lineup with headliners Wilco, Weezer, Tedeschi/Trucks Band, Dark Star Orchestra, Ben Harper, Greg Allman and the String Cheese Incident. The late summer festival returned to Seaside Park in Bridgeport, CT, and treated fans to a super jam called Vibes 20th Anniversary Spectacular featuring Gov’t Mule guitarist Warren Haynes, saxophonist Branford Marsalis, Meters founding bassist George Porter Jr., Marco Benevento on keys and Joe Russo behind the drum kit, plus Jackie Greene on guitar. Although the four-day festival will take a break in 2016, VibeTribers Julia Wolfe and Steve Olker recounted the last day of the 2015 event and dubbed this run as one that would set the pace going forward:

    As the sun set over Vibes for the last time, [Ben] Harper closed out with his song “Better Way,” and it was finally time to head home. Seeing so many bands perform was both enticing and overwhelming at the same time, making leaving Vibes even more bittersweet. The range of genre, popularity, age and background is what makes Gathering of the Vibes separate from other festivals. After 20 years, Gathering of the Vibes has remained one of Connecticut’s most well-known festivals, and it’s attention to bringing about change while discovering your own inner peace is what will bring success for future gatherings to come. Until next time, thank you vibes for a real good time.”

    With more than 100 bands over four days on seven stages, this year’s installment of Summer Camp Music Festival in Chillicothe, IL, saw a stacked lineup of bands like moe., Umphrey’s McGee, Steve Miller Band, Widespread Panic, STS9, Big Gigantic, John Butler Trio, Krewella, Trampled by Turtles, Keller Williams and Grateful Grass, Yonder Mountain String Band, Violent Femmes and many, many more. Festivalgoers also had access to on-site camping, the infamous late night Red Barn Shows, musician workshops, a nonprofit village, arts and crafts and unique food vendors, plus some impressive improvements. In Pete Mason’s review of the festival’s final day, he detailed what made the perfect ending to the much celebrated event:

    The final set of the night to check out was North American Scum, an LCD Soundsystem cover band who might be the best band to close out Summer Camp. Members of the group are formerly of This Must be the Band, a Talking Heads band from Chicago, who have traditionally played one of the final sets at Summer Camp. This incredible two hour set featured the entire Sound of Silver album and, because everyone else was playing Grateful Dead songs, a spirited version of “Scarlet Begonias” to cap the night.”

    Read more from Summer Camp Day 1, Day 2, Day 3 and Day 4.

  • McDowell Mountain Music Festival in Phoenix, Arizona

    To anyone inside the 53 square mile radius of the Denver International Airport, it was clear that we were going somewhere different. Everyone in an airport are coming and going from any number of locations around the world, but the arched eyebrows, piercing stares and gaping mouths clearly signaled that my finance, Greta, and I, weren’t going to any of the places they all were. I was dressed in a Christmas tree bright full length, red and green, dashiki. The gown was emblazoned on the chest with an elaborate gold flower embroidered pattern. Greta, too, was dressed in a full length purple tie-dyed dashiki. And the stares were correct. We were headed somewhere different, the McDowell Mountain Music Festival. More accurately, the 2-hour plane flight, and following cab ride would drop us off at the hallowed grounds of an abandoned city lot in downtown Phoenix, Arizona that recently had been bulldozed and flattened to accommodate the blinky, LED light-covered, tie-dyed shirt wearing, hula hoop dancing music aficionados camping next to the Margaret T. Hance Park where the festival would be held.

    McDowell Mountain Music Festival

    I had a number of reasons to feel Christmas tree bright. For one, I soon would be slipping into my red sequin Santa suit. It would the first time in two years that I would be donning my official work clothes at a music festival. It would be the first time in three years that I was handed a photo assignment to work a music festival. I may have been temporarily trapped in the serpentine purgatory that most people call an airport security line, but adrenaline shot through my limbs with fire hose force.

    Still, I wasn’t quite ready for liftoff. My return to the outdoor music scene bore more than a moment’s worth of self-reflection. A week before one my favorite music festivarians active particularly in the Northeast music scene had accidentally died of an overdose. He was still in his 20s. His heart roared with the power of a V-8 engine and his dancing feet could outlast the Energizer Bunny. (He would die the last night of the festival.) So, as we entered the festival gates for the first time, I knew this return to the music festival world would be a wake-up call. Henry David Thoreau put it best, “Our truest life is when we are in our dreams awake.” McDowell Mountain Music Fest would become a reminder to hold onto the music, the people, and the places I love.

    McDowell Mountain Music Festival

    Many public places, like airport terminals, are difficult to love. In modern times there seems to many spaces where anonymous people are packed together, but no one feels like they are bound together. Music festival grounds are unique, in that, even in a space where few people may know each other by name, they seem to know each other by heart. McDowell Mountain was a quick reminder of this truth. As soon as the green taxi unceremoniously lurched away from Greta, I, and our lone duffel bag in a shadeless dirt lot, baked to 97 degree perfection, we were approached by new neighbors who offered cold beverages, food, air-conditioning, and even more cold beverages. In addition, they all were adorned in Christmas tree bright apparel brighter than ours. We were but two small fish in the middle of a desert swimming pool swirling in crimson, magenta, fuchsia, bronze, and vermillion. Welcome Home didn’t become a festival cliché by mistake.

    A key element contributing to the openness of the scene for musicians and fans alike, was that McDowell is a completely non-profit festival. Festival organizers were hoping to raise $100,000 this year for the Arizona Children’s Hospital. Welcome Home, indeed. The steady parade of top-tier acts played with reckless abandon for modest sized crowds. Among the early night headliners Passion Pit and Portugal the Man spent the evening belting out songs that often hit notes on the Mariah Carey-like high register. Passion Pit’s Michael Angelakos, in particular delivered wineglass-shattering falsetto notes while zig-zagging in front of his bandmates like a single kernel of popcorn jumping on a hot iron skillet stage.

    McDowell Mountain Music Festival

    Saturday’s music proved wildly eclectic, veering from the likes of Trombone Shorty’s testosterone-infused New Orleans funk to Phantogram’s ethereal guitar-driven electronica. Finally, Sunday’s line-up delivered hippie friendly acts like the bluegrass Trampled By Turtles, and jam band favorites Widespread Panic. One Phoenix area reporter overheard a conversation about Panic’s lead guitarist Jimmy Herring that went something like this, “That guitar playing is nastier than the lunch I just threw up.” Even Panic’s lead in, Beats Antique seemed to take a page from the Primus playbook by ending their show with a inflatable cyclops cat that was over 20 feet tall. A threesome from Beats Antique donned animal masks and enacted a ritual battle with the one-eyed cat till it was completely deflated.

    McDowell Mountain Music Festival

    The cyclops creature may have been defeated, but the Arizona crowd was elated. And as Widespread Panic closed their set and the last of Jo Jo Hermann tinkling keyboard notes skittered into the night sky like wild mice, a new feeling began tugging at my sleeve. It felt like the bittersweet pang from the farewell of an old friend. I could almost hear the sinewy roar of a V-8 engine rise in my heart as it carried the rusty, dented dreams of my truest self and all my long lost friends into the infinite star-strewn highway over an ancient desert floor.

    • McDowell Mountain Music Festival