CoS at Wakarusa (Day 1)
In our pursuit to provide the best festival coverage on the web, Consequence of Sound is live and on-site at this weekend’s Wakarusa Music Festival to provide you with details of all the highlights, low points, and everything else Wakarusa…
After a windy Wednesday night, I awoke Thursday to more wind and a cloudy sky. This was welcomed through out the day because it kept most of the heat off the people as they moved from stage to stage. The lineup on this day was in no way the biggest draw of the weekend, but there were some highlights, as well as opportunities to check out the festival grounds and find new bands to enjoy.
Fatty Lumpkin was the first band I checked out and was a group I had never heard of before. Due to an unknown schedule change they were not the band that was listed to play, but did offer up some fun mid morning jam music that everyone could be comfortable with. Punched up by a deep blues influenced harder rock style, which frequently built up to an energizing crescendo. It was those moments within Fatty Lumpkin’s performance that hinted that the band is still searching for their unique place in the jam scene
As the day went on the storm warnings became more regular, calling for 70mph winds, hail, rain, and possible Tornadoes. This caused my group and I to make frequent trips back to the campsite to make sure our castle of a tent had not blown away as the winds gusted on and off through out day one.
We did manage to catch two more bands however before festival officials were forced to call off the nights headlining performances by Buckethead, Lotus, DVJ Mike Relm, and a late night show by Future Rock.
Apollo Sunshine, thankfully, was scheduled before the dark skies set in, and even though they went on 15 minutes late with periodic technical issues (the bass amp blew out), they played a tight performance that sounded great inside of the Sun Up tent. Mostly new songs were featured in a set that also included from the older catalog, “Today is the Day”, “Magnolia”, and the closer “Lord”. Each of the older songs featured an extensive jam that at one point had the three members showing their percussive skills over the drum kit. Having been slated to play Friday of the festival as well, there will be no shortage of Apollo Sunshine who was clearly one of the crowed favorites of the day.
After the set and a quick dinner I went back to the Sun Up tent to catch New Orleans natives Trombone Shorty. Shorty offers a break from the usual jam sound that seemed to dominate yesterdays lineup by adding a southern jazz and blues rock twist with a horns section that include a trombone, and saxophone. This made for an energetic set that included a Lenny Kravits cover and complex jazz infused horn solos in every jam, as well as heavy blues guitar solos. Sprinkled off with a funky bass and driving drums, Trombone Shorty gave the festival a taste of the bayou that packed the tent.
It was at this point the announcements were being made concerning the weather, so my group and I decided to go check the tent and make some decisions on how to handle what was to come. Luckily there was no hail and no tornadoes, but the storm did give us an incredible lightning show, and ended just in rain. And even though they had to cancel the night top acts, most of them, with the exception of Lotus and everyone of the smaller bands that were slated to play into the early hours of the next morning, will be playing second sets on day two.
While Thursday turned for the worst as mother nature set in, the rest of the weekend is set to be sunny, hot, and humid just the was Kansas likes it. Hopefully the weather holds out, although it would be fun to find my self in Oz at some point.
Jun 16th, 2008 at 12:12 pm
[...] were no tornadoes (a la Wakarusa), yet one did stumble across many tents washed out of the flooded campsites after the storm settled [...]
Jun 10th, 2008 at 12:11 am
[...] of Sound - Day 1 and Day 2 up and [...]