Believe in Music festival

[PaulyT]

Going to this today!

:text-link:

Taking the whole family, should be fun. We're going primarily to see Rodrigo y Gabriela, and Lake Street Dive. I'm not familiar with Thievery Corporation or the other bands, we'll see. It's an outdoor all-afternoon thing, we've never done something like this before. (But ironically we're going to another one at this same park in mid-august, to see Nickel Creek and others.)

Will try to take a few pics - I believe cameras are allowed, just not video.

 

[Zing]

How cool! I like Lake Street Dive. Great cause too.

Have a blast!

 

[PaulyT]

Just got back - we were there from ~12:30-9:30. Long day, but we had a great time, and the kids loved it. Highlight for me was without a doubt seeing Rodrigo y Gabriela. Got some pics, I'll go through them and write more about it tomorrow, I'm beat.

 

[PaulyT]

Pics are here:

:text-link:


Many of them are severely cropped, since I definitely wasn't close enough in to the stage to get full-frame shots with my 22mm lens...

 

[PaulyT]

So we get there a little after noon, beautiful day - not cool but horrifically hot, mid 80's.

We spent much of the heat of the afternoon in the shade of the VIP tent - yeah we paid a little (not that much) extra for a quieter place to sit, some food, and a short beer line. But we can walk up to the stage anytime, so we'd wander back and forth, and let the kids have a chance to see some of the performers up close.


This is it later in the evening:

Pretty good size crowd, I think this was taken during RyG's set.

 

[PaulyT]

So the first band was a local group called The Bridge. Kinda southern rock feel, a little blues, a little country. They were quite good but we only caught about half their set. Didn't get any pics.

The second band was BoomBox, a hip-hop electronica duo, completely uninteresting to me - basically one played synth and drum tracks, long continuous jams, and one guy plinked a few notes on a guitar and sang a bit. Meh.


Then came Lake Street Dive, one of the two main attractions for me. Great group, and the lead singer (Rachael Price) has a fantastic voice with a unique style. I highly recommend their first self-named album. Their second album... well... doesn't do it for me so much, but it's good.

These guys are pretty good live. I won't say great. They did some vocal harmonizing which was occasionally a bit off-key, and IMHO the trumpeter should stick to trumpet, as his guitar playing is ... adequate. But Rachel's singing was top-notch, and they were having a good time. The crowd responded well. I was able to get near the front for a bit:

They came out to the merch tent afterwards to sign autographs, which was cool. They were posing for someone else here... Gotta say - hopefully Eileen's not reading this - Rachel is one fine-looking girl, IMHO.

 

[PaulyT]

Then the big highlight for me was Rodrigo y Gabriela. I went up early and got right up to the fence, though kinda off on the side. I was probably ~30' away from the front center of the stage.

(Note you can see Rachael Price there watching from side stage :handgestures-thumbup: )

 

[PaulyT]

I've been a fan of Rodrigo y Gabriela for a long time - ever since Towen7 introduced me to them at his GTG several years ago. They are terrific musicians and obviously impressive guitar players. Watching Gabriela in particular was amazing - seeing her hand fly in her unique percussive style was a blast. And the sound they get out of two guitars - wow! It would be interesting to study their instruments and electronics. When Gabriela slapped her guitar in a particular spot in the middle, it was every bit as big as a kick drum - the stacks of subwoofers were working hard. (The sound system here was generally very good, clearly audible even far up the hill behind.)

These guys have a tremendous energy on stage, they we so much fun to watch. And they don't hold back. What we heard live was every bit as fast and rhythmically intense as what you hear on their albums, they are REAL players, not just studio overdubbers. They did break out of their usual zone a bit though, as they both did a few solo spots, and a couple of covers. They even did Radiohead's Creep - which was ... credible. Rodrigo even sang lead, he's got a decent voice, who knew. In any case, it was interesting to see them doing some stuff outside their normal style of what you get on the albums. They did some quieter more introspective songs from their latest album, too, very nicely done if not the usual whip-up-the-crowd style.

Anyway, I got a big emotional kick from this performance, one of the best live performances I've seen (not that I've seen all that many). This set alone was far and away worth the price of admission for me.

My only gripe was that every other band stuck pretty closely to the published schedule. But RyG game out ~15 minutes late don't know why, and so only played for ~1:15 rather than their allotted hour and a half. Oh well it was still great.

 

[Huey]

Looks like a good time Pauly! :music-rockout:

 

[PaulyT]

The last band was a DC-area group called Thievery Corporation. They were kinda pop/club rock with a bit of an Indian twist - one guy played a sitar, and the bassist and a couple of the female vocalists seemed to be Indian. They were competent I guess but musically uninteresting to me. And in this case, the sound was just awful, don't know what they did, but all you could hear clearly was a booming bass line - which may not have been so bad except it was completely uninspired, he'd just play a single one or two measure riff over and over and over during the whole song. Ugh. You could barely hear the vocals, let alone any of the many other instruments, over the bass. I guess it was more of a "party band" - it was quite the mob scene up by the stage, and definitely more than a couple joints being smoked.

We left after only ~1/3 of their set. But it was getting late anyway, girls were tired, and we wanted to get out before the entire mob all tried to get out of the parking lot and onto the narrow local road all at once.


Overall it was a great experience. Decent food vendors, good beer (Flying Dog), and while it was crowded it wasn't insane, restrooms were clean, and people were having fun. I enjoyed just walking around doing some people watching, especially up front by the stage, watching people move and dance and respond to the music.

Good day.

 

[PaulyT]

Whoops! Completely forgot to mention one other band - Jimmy Cliff, a native Jamaican with his reggae-pop style band. Not my usual type of music, but they were excellent musicians, and were a lot of fun to watch. A couple guitars and keyboards, drums, trumpet, sax, backup vocalists. Jimmy was quite the performer and was having fun interacting with the crowd. I don't know why I didn't get any pictures, guess I didn't bring my camera when I went down to the stage during this one... I enjoyed this set a lot.

 

[Botch]

:scared-eek: Jimmy Cliff would've been the high point for me!

Great pics and story, Paul.

 

[Babs]

Nice share, Pauly! Looks like an awesome event! I bet the girls had a blast!

I REALLY like the 'Believe in Music' title for the event!!!! Also, :text-coolphotos:

 

[Batman]

Looks like an amazing day, glad you and the family enjoyed it!

 

[malsackj]

That was also one hot afternoon. 88 degrees with heat index close to 100. Did my festival of 3 bands in Annapolis that afternoon.