NYS Music 20​15

Tag: Murphy’s Law

  • 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.

  • East Coast Tsunami Made a Loud Splash In Reading

    When you take some of the best hardcore, metal, and hip hop and throw them into Reading, PA over a course of two days?  You get The East Coast Tsunami Festival. It was beautiful and chaotic that packs a punch to the mouth and ears that gets stuck in your system for days. That occurred to me when Wu-Tang Clan headlined the Santander Arena on Friday, September 25 and Life Of Agony finished everything off the next night over at The Reverb.

    Let me take an opportunity to get the negative out of the way first. And it occurred on day one: sound issues. Never in all my years of attending concerts did I see so many sound issues that kept recurring for EVERY act that played on stage. People paid good, hard earned money to see their idols perform, and for the sound staff over at the Santander Arena should be ashamed of themselves. Countless times, microphones were either turned off or not working, ruining every performance. I give props to all the performers that just continued and not let it get to them. When Body Count was on stage, frontman Ice T was not having it and had to start one of their songs over. It was just obnoxious.

    Day 1:

    The main headliners were Wu Tang Clan, Mobb Deep, and Body Count. The beautiful thing about day one was the variety of fans of every ethnicity, age, and culture gathered for the same purpose. There was mainly hip hop acts, but there was a few hardcore bands and of course Body Count is a mixture of both. Overall a brilliant bill for that night and the floor / pit area was packed.

    Early in the night….the two bands whom I never seen who really stood out to me was Strength For A Reason, because they had the most sound issues than any other band but they handled themselves so well and Wisdom In Chains really made the crowd go bananas. Never seen a band have so much fun on stage yet they kept the atmosphere so brutal. They definitely made a fan out of me that night.I was also really impressed with Gillie The Kid. It was hip hop in it’s finest form. He really knew how to connect with the people on the floor during his performance and his hooks, freestyle, and rhymes were just a blast to behold.

    I was absolute ecstatic to finally see Body Count, I felt awful that I missed them during their run last year at Mayhem Festival, so to me, they were the main attraction. I was also fortunate enough to meet lead guitarist Ernie C before the show, who was such a nice person and a pleasure to meet. The thing that’s so fascinating about Body Count is the chemistry and timing they share on stage, now I was not old enough or lucky enough to have seen the original lineup over twenty years ago, but the current lineup of Body Count still give the old songs justice. They kept their setlist faithful by opening with “Necessary Evil” and “Bowels Of The Devil.” Ice T, who isn’t afraid to speak his mind or show his sense of humor really ripped into masculinity and society before going into “Manslaughter.” But the song that stood out the most was the classic and iconic “There Goes The Neighborhood.” Drummer Ill Will was just insane behind the kit. The spirit of Beat Master V lives on through Ill Will because his timing and speed was just off the chain and that song really showcased that. And what better way to end their ten song set with the controversial anthem “Cop Killer.” If Ice T can manage to find more time for Body Count, a headlining tour must happen.

    Mobb Deep took the stage after Body Count and delivered a knockout punch to the crowd. Now I am not familiar with Mobb Deep’s catalogue, so I can’t honestly tell you much about their setlist, but I can tell you that it was a stellar performance, and even though it was already past midnight, the crowd was at their peak and Mobb Deep owned the crowd.

    Wu-Tang Clan closed out the night and it was one of their better performances that I have seen with them. Each member got their moment on stage, they played a massive set that included not only from the early Wu Tang catalogue like “C.R.E.A.M.” and “Bring The Ruckus” but even some solo material such as Raekwon’s “Criminology”, Ghostface Killah’s “Black Jesus”, and GZA’s “Liquid Swords.” And of course there was plenty of Ol’ Dirty Bastard tributes and highlights during their set.   But hands down, the member that stood out the most was Method Man. Meth is clearly a born performer, entertainer, and is one hell of a lyricist. And the crowd was also treated to some freestyles from Masta Killa and GZA. Another big highlight was the group even had a showcase from DJ Mathematics who went bezerk on the turn tables and really wowed the crowd. In conclusion, Wu-Tang clearly is still bringing their A-game and showing no signs of aging. I would expect great things in the near future from the Wu.

    Day 2:

    The Reverb did an excellent job hosting day two of East Coast Tsunami. It was a really long day and all the bands were clutch, but there was one band that dared to be different. Murphy’s Law totally changed the entire atmosphere of the night. They were bold enough to use humor, go into the crowd, share a few drinks and just be goofy. It was totally refreshing, because all day it was all hardcore bands. Serious hardcore. And as soon as Murphy’s Law hit the stage everything changed. It was also cool to see a saxophonist in a hardcore band. That’s not something you see everyday. Later into the night Doyle hit the stage bringing his spookfest into the club. Also…seeing Doyle made me want to hit the gym. That man is in ridiculous good shape for a man his age. And it was also amusing to see him blowing bubbles from his chewing gum as he is playing his guitar.

    After an amazing set from Walls Of Jericho, Madball put on the performance of a lifetime by wiping the floor with everyone. The pits were fierce and the bodies were continuously flying off the stage and into the crowd. Opening with “Demonstrating My Style” they played all the songs you would expect such as “Set It Off” and “Black And Blue.” Freddy Cricien is one hell of a frontman…I honestly don’t know where he gets the energy to perform at such a high level throughout the whole set. As for the band, you can tell they were having fun with each other and with the crowd as well. Madball is living proof that hardcore still lives.

    The night closed with a special performance with Life Of Agony, who was the ultimate cherry on the brutal sundae that was East Coast Tsunami Fest. Not disappointing what so ever, most of their set consisted of River Runs Red. Opening with the title track off that album, along with “This Time”, and the always catchy “Method Of Groove.” Mina Caputo proves she’s the ultimate frontwoman for the band, and still sings the songs the way they were meant to be heard. Joey Z was an absolute fiend on the guitar and where ever he and the band went, the crowd responded. This was such a treat to behold to see all four original members tearing it up. It would be crime of the century if don’t play more shows around the east coast. The highlight of the show would have to be “Bad Seed.” Never have I seen so much stage diving going on during a show. I was almost worried for the bands safety, but clearly they loved it.   Appropriately, they ended the night with ”Underground.” There is nowhere to go but up for this band. This is why they closed the entire two day festival, Life Of Agony is in a class of their own right now.

    To sum this all up, East Coast Tsunami was a wave of brutality that every music lover should experience. What could make it better? Perhaps, a three day festival in the future? Only time will tell.

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