As a fan of a wide variety of popular (and not-so-popular) music from the 1950s (and sometimes even earlier) up through the present, one of my bucket list projects for years has been to put together a list of my 100 favorite songs of all time. At some point I decided that, once I got around to figuring that out, I could put it out on a blog, for the infinitesimally small proportion of the Internet world that might be interested. So, here we are. While the Top 100 will be a major focus, I also plan to post on a variety of other musical (and occasionally non-musical) topics, in which you may or may not be interested. (If a particular posting doesn’t ring your bell, you’re only a few clicks away from a dancing cat video on YouTube.)

Thursday, July 30, 2015

2015 XPoNential Music Festival, July 24-26, Wiggins Park (Camden NJ)


A few highlights of this year’s three-day extravaganza are noted below. Note that the WXPN folks do a fine job of covering and archiving the festival – the artist links below contain more information, including photos and set lists, and complete audio archives for the Indigo Girls and JD McPherson.
 
Dawes (closing act Friday night) – On the festival schedule for the fourth straight year (almost certainly a record), the guys finally got to do a full set uninterrupted by rain, and they didn’t disappoint. Although a little shorter than their Warner Theatre show in June, the energy level was even higher. (Standing in a throng of other rabid fans right in front of the stage probably didn’t hurt.) “Somewhere Along The Way” was again an early standout, as were their three big hits from Nothing Is Wrong (“Time Spent In Los Angeles”, “If I Wanted Someone”, and “A Little Bit Of Everything”), and of course the iconic “When My Time Comes.” The festival organizers seemed to be discouraging encores this year in order to stay on schedule, but as the last band of the day Dawes was able to come back, giving the fans a special treat with Griffin doing the vocal honors on Billy Joel’s “Big Shot”, prior to closing with “From A Windowseat.”
 
Indigo Girls (final act on the River Stage, Sunday afternoon) – The Indigo Girls were a late but welcome addition to the festival schedule; they wound up playing a set from 5:30-6:30, starting at the same time as Rayland Baxter was going on at Susquehanna Bank Center, and ending just as the Wailers were scheduled to start over there. (Perhaps to make amends for the competition, WXPN invited Baxter onto the morning show to perform a couple songs on Monday.) Backed by a 4-piece band (drums, keyboards, bass, violin), their short but memorable set started out with crowd favorites “Shame On You” and “Get Out The Map”, and ended with the usual “Galileo”. Since they had allowed for encores, they then returned to do “Land Of Canaan” and of course “Closer To Fine”. “Least Complicated” and “Go” were also standouts, as well as “Happy In The Sorrow Key”, one of 4 tracks from their recently-released One Lost Day album.
 
JD McPherson (Friday evening) – I found it interesting that Delta Rae, an XPN-type act that’s not exactly a household word, headlined Rockville’s annual Hometown Holidays this May, and also played at XPNFest this summer. The Rockville folks might do well to consider McPherson for next year’s Memorial Day weekend festivities, as his high-energy neo-rockabilly should play well even with audiences who are unfamiliar with his work. McPherson’s 45-minute set kept the crowd rocking, despite leaving out a couple of his best-known songs (“Let The Good Times Roll” and “North Side Gal”). Highlights included “Head Over Heels” (his current single), “Rome Wasn’t Built In A Day” (a great Nick Lowe cover), and “You Must Have Met Little Caroline”.
 
The Lone Bellow (Sunday afternoon) – Great vocal work and harmonies from this Brooklyn trio, especially on “You Never Need Nobody” (which had previously found its way into my iTunes library), “Watch Over Us”, and the title track from their latest CD, “Then Came The Morning”.
 
First Aid Kit (Saturday afternoon) – While the roster of acts at Wiggins Park on Saturday wasn’t quite as strong as on the other two days of the festival, this pair of sisters from Sweden (along with their two bandmates from Scotland and England) provided a nice highlight for the afternoon, as the pedal-steel work throughout and their choice of a closing song (“Emmylou”, in honor of Emmylou Harris, Gram Parsons, Johnny Cash, and June Carter) proudly showed off their country music influences. Their singles “My Silver Lining” and “Stay Gold” were both warmly received, but the most notable reaction was to their cover version of Simon and Garfunkel’s “America”, which hushed the normally-talkative crowd on the lawn for one of the few times during the weekend.
 
It was hard to complain about the weather – warm, as could be expected, but with relatively low humidity on Friday and Saturday, and the extra humidity on Sunday was somewhat offset by stronger breezes, with rain holding off until early Monday morning. Traffic on Friday both coming and going (especially exiting the parking garage) was much worse than usual, due to a sold-out Florida Georgia Line show at the Susquehanna Bank Center next door. Saturday and Sunday was not a problem, although parts of Federal Street were closed both days, requiring some improvisation (and GPS help on Sunday) to get out of Camden. I did notice that people seem to be arriving earlier than in past years; I got there an hour before the gates opened on both Saturday and Sunday, and the line already extended well beyond the Children’s Garden entrance.
 

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