Over the weekend I attended another Jibberjazz productions music festival, Madsummer Meltdown 7. This was my fourth Jibberjazz fest, but the first time I've been able to make it to the Summer entry in their festival line-up. Overall the weather was beautiful - thunderstorms threatened but never quite arrived Friday evening; the rest of the weekend was blue skies, fluffy clouds, breezes and temperatures in the 80s. Perfect for an outdoor music festival.
Jibberjazz fests are 3 days (4 if you go to the Thursday night preshow) at the Schuylkill county fairgrounds near Reading, PA. It's a beautiful place with plenty of camping space, three stages around the grounds (the main bandshell stage, a big tent in one camping area and a flatbed truck in a side pavilion), plus a fourth stage in a warehouse for late-night shows. Music runs from 11am each day until the last late-night band decides to call it quits around sunrise, usually with multiple bands playing different stages at the same time. Many bands do two or three sets, but it's still almost impossible to see them all.
Despite the beautiful weather and great band line-up, attendance was only around two thirds what Jibberjazz fests normally get. One reason might be that last year's Summer show got heavy rains, keeping people away this year. I thought there'd be a ton of college kids, but instead it was just the opposite. A good percentage of the patrons were middle aged folks like myself and even retirees. It made for a somewhat mellower atmosphere than usual (except at the late-night shows where it seemed like the heavy drug users crawled out of the woodwork). As usual, a lot of people stayed at their camp sites all day and didn't go see bands until around sunset - there were two bands this weekend where the entire audience, at least for a song or two, was just me and the sound guy. I felt bad for the bands that were playing for next to no one.
Enough generalities - here are some of the bands that might be of interest to prog fans:
Red Baraat (Brooklyn, NY) - the top-billed band of the festival, these guys played the Saturday night headliner slot on the main stage. A mix of percussionists and a big horn section, according to the program they play "north Indian Bhangra mixed with elements of go-go, rock and jazz". Whatever it was, it drew one of the biggest audiences of the weekend and had them on their feet and dancing. All instrumental, great stuff. For the headliner bands the festival adds a side-show of fire jugglers, and they were a perfect match for the music.
Chris Forsyth & the Solar Motel Band (Philadelphia, PA) - due to a scheduling quirk, there were three bands playing their only set of the weekend at the same time and I wasn't sure which one to go see. After checking out the other two for about half an hour each, I finally walked over to the Solar Motel band and wished I had just started with them in the first place. I don't quite know how to describe them - long, psychedelic songs that were often repetitive to the point of being hypnotic, loud, noisy, and seemingly largely improvised. One song I thought was starting out as a cover of Pink Floyd's "Interstellar Overdrive", but it quickly veered off into other territory. They kind of reminded me of a band I saw at ProgDay years ago - The Spacious Mind. Noisy, chaotic improv with a method behind the madness. I caught the last 45 minutes of their set just as the sun was setting, and the time flew by - I was kind of surprised walk out of the pavilion and realize it was dark out.
Haewa (Rochester, NY) - this is the second time I've seen them (they played one of the festivals last year) and they keep getting better. They started out as a jam/cover band but have grown into a bit of a proggy/fusiony monster. All three guys in the band (drums, bass, guitar) are excellent musicians, with the guitarist (who looks like he's fresh out of junior high) being just outstanding. While they're playing, the guitarist's girlfriend sometimes does these amazing gymnastic routines with a hula-hoop in front of the stage, inspired by the music. They're quite the experience - I'm really hoping they come back again next year.
Agent Moosehead (Philadelphia, PA) - a mostly jazz band that frequently crossed over into fusion and proggy sounding music, with a good keyboardist. They were one of the first bands to play on Friday afternoon and while I remember really liking them, most of the details of their set have been blurred from my memory due to seeing so many other bands after them. I'm hoping the guy who records the festival and posts some of the recordings to archive.org puts up a recording of this set - I'd really like to hear it again.
Background Orcs (Boston, Mass) - while I was at the "Some Kind of Jam" fest in April I saw a poster announcing the bands that would be playing Madsummer Metldown, and the name Background Orcs jumped out at me. I just had a feeling that a band with that name would be the proggy kind of thing that I'd like, and that's exactly what they were. A guitar, bass, drums and keyboards line-up, they played all instrumental music that fell in the fusiony/proggy category. I could definitely see this band going over well at a prog festival. The keyboardist sat in with other bands, and the whole group formed a musical partnership with a guy named Hairy Dudini who usually plays as a one-man-band using loops, but somehow the two acts really gelled and the Orcs became Hairy's backing band for a couple of his sets and Dudini sat in as a second guitarist for the Orcs. All through the Orcs' Sunday afternoon set, they kept encouraging people to come up and buy a CD from a box they had sitting in front of the stage, and at least a dozen people (myself included) did so. When they finished packing up their gear, the guys in the band went around the audience and personally thanked everyone who had bought a CD. Great guys.
Other bands of interest:
Agori Tribe (Memphis, TN) - the program described them as "progressive, psychedelic rock", so I actually skipped the headliner (Deep Banana Blackout) Friday night and took a nap, hoping to stay up until 3am to see these guys. I did manage to catch the first hour...but to be honest I don't remember that much about it. Other than it wasn't enough to keep me awake past 4am. I wish the festival organizers would quit sticking the "proggy" bands with the 3am slot.
Chromatropic (Brooklyn, NY) - this was one of those slots where multiple band were playing at the same time and I wanted to see all of them, so I only stuck around for the first half-hour or so of their set. I liked what I heard though. The program described them as "jazz, funk, house, DnB and ambient", but I heard mostly jazz with lots of tasty keyboards. Kind of wish I could have seen more of them.
The Fritz (Asheville, North Carolina) - pretty decent funky jam band. They had the 3am slot Sat night (Sun morning), and I called it a night around 4:15, so I only dimly remember them. Liked what I heard, although I spent a lot of their set trying to avoid a dancing douchebag who kept crashing into me. The keyboardist wore a t-shirt of the Mona Lisa with Frank Zappa's facial hair, so I was immediately inclined to like them.
The Big Dirty (Shamokin, PA) - a local band that plays a late-night set at every Jibberjazz show. Sax-led jam band that can turn on a dime and seem like they can read each other's minds during improvs. They're always better than I think they're going to be.
The Empire Strikes Brass (Asheville, NC) - saw them last year and loved them. A big brass band plus guitar, keys and drums. They play a great cover of the Who's "Eminence Front", plus New Orleans-style party music. This year's set seemed a little more subdued than last year's. Saturday night after Red Baraat finished, six guys from Empire popped up in the audience and formed a circle to play extra music for the crowd. At one point I wandered into the middle and was surrounded by horns and drums - it was one of the neatest things I've ever heard.
Flat Land (Gainsville, FL) - a good rock, funk and blues party band with strong female vocals. I only caught about half of their set at the campground stage, but a magical moment came as the Empire Strike Brass guys were leading the traditional festival parade past the tent. The vocalist called them over and had the keyboardist from Background Orcs join in and somehow they crammed about a dozen people from three different bands onto that small stage for a cover of the Prince song "Kiss" complete with horn section, extra percussionist and violin. I don't even like Prince and I thought that was easily a highlight of the entire weekend.
Laney Jones & the Spirits (Mount Dora, FL) - I saw them at one of last year's fests and quickly came under the spell of Jone's unique, unusual vocals. The band straddles the line between rock and country, playing a mix of originals and covers by artists like Neil Young and Johnny Cash. Jones alternates between banjo and guitar. Not the type of music I usually listen to, but I like them.
Sidecar Agogo (Brooklyn, NY) - the program described them as "fiddle driven bluegrass", so when I arrived at the campground stage about half-way through their set I thought I had the wrong band. It was three guys (guitar, bass, drums) playing some kick-ass fusion music. Eventually the guitarist switched back to violin and they did play some bluegrassy stuff, but they were all over the map - jazz, rock, etc. Fun band, wish I'd seen more of their set.
Overall it was a very full weekend of music from nearly every genre. I'm looking forward to the Fall "Meeting of the Minds" fest, if it's not too close to ProgDay weekend. I don't think I could survive two in row - I need to get some sleep sometime. If only the ProgDay line-up could play at the Jibberjazz festival grounds...that'd be perfect.
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