2014 XPoNential Music Festival, July 25-27, Wiggins Park (Camden NJ)

Missed WXPN’s annual music festival in 2012 and 2013, but was able to make all three days this year (Friday evening, Saturday and Sunday). Weather held up pretty well – brief shower early Satuday afternoon, sun alternating with clouds Sunday with some threats but no actual rain. (The thunderstorm that would have really disrupted things didn’t come until around 1am Monday morning.) 

Best sets – 

1.  Lake Street Dive – I had been looking forward to this one ever since picking up their latest CD, and they did not disappoint. The crowd, particularly those of us who were standing right in front of the stage, was really into it. Highlights included “Bad Self Portraits” and “Use Me Up” (my current favorite) near the middle of their 45-minute set, and “You Go Down Smooth” at the end. Several of the songs featured notable, but not overly long, instrumental solos on upright bass, guitar, trumpet, and drums. Normally mid-afternoon festival sets don’t get encores, due to the need to stay on schedule, but those of us in front refused to leave, finally organizing a “one more song!” chant. They did reappear, and ended things on a high note with a singalong version of the Hall & Oates (this was Philly, after all) classic “Rich Girl”.

http://thekey.xpn.org/2014/07/27/xpnfest-recap-lake-street-dive-get-soulful-on-the-river-stage/

 

2.  Ingrid Michaelson – She’s certainly grown up some musically since I saw her at the festival several years ago; full band this time, which she used well. Had a nice mix of songs from her latest album, notably “Girls Chase Boys” and “Afterlife”, along with older classics such as “Way I Am” and “Be OK”. Great crowd rapport throughout, as well.

http://thekey.xpn.org/2014/07/26/xpnfest-recap-ingrid-michaelson-dazzled-the-river-stage/

 

3.  Rodrigo y Gabriela – The visuals are a big part of the attraction with this acoustic guitar duo; if you ever go to see them, get as close as you can. (Pit seats at Wolf Trap might even be worth the hefty price.) Gabriela was the bouncier of the two, moving all over the stage and frequently jumping up and down while playing, while Rodrigo tended more to take up one stance for the duration of a song and let his fingers do the talking. Everything I had ever heard by them had been instrumental, so I was taken by surprise when during the second half of the set they proclaimed a “karaoke” portion of the show and Rodrigo led the crowd in singalong versions of rock classics by Red Hot Chili Peppers, Radiohead, and Pink Floyd. Hopefully the fact that a few of the lyrics were not suitable for the live radio broadcast won’t prevent them from being invited back in the future.   ;-)

http://thekey.xpn.org/2014/07/26/xpnfest-recap-rodrigo-y-gabriela-bring-the-first-day-of-xpnfest-to-a-close-on-the-river-stage/

 

4.  Marah – I wandered over to the Marina Stage Sunday afternoon to see Marah, since they had been cult favorites around Philadelphia for a long time. Since I hadn’t kept up with them, I wasn’t aware of their latest project (Mountain Minstrelsy of Pennsylvania), which involved arranging, recording (in an old church) and performing old songs that had been collected in 1931 by folklorist Harry Shoemaker. Quite a different sound, featuring banjo and fiddle (and, on one song, bagpipes), along with guitar and keyboards. Also noteworthy was that the fiddle work and some cigar box guitar was performed by 10-year-old prodigy Gus Tritsch, probably the youngest band member in XPN Festival history (although his younger brother did join the band for the last couple of songs). Interestingly enough, the final Marina Stage act on Friday night featured 79-year-old blues harmonica player James Cotton.

http://thekey.xpn.org/2014/07/26/xpnfest-recap-marah-showed-off-some-serious-skills-on-the-marina-stage/

 

5.  Dawes – Dawes performed at the 2012 festival (which I wasn’t able to attend), and were also at the 2013 festival (which I also didn’t attend), but got rained out. Those were also the first two years that WXPN (for financial reasons, apparently) partnered with the next-door Susquehanna Bank Center (formerly known as the Tweeter Center) on the evening portion of the festival. SBC schedules evening shows on Saturday and Sunday featuring WXPN-type artists, and festival attendees with “go-anywhere” tickets get lawn seats for the evening shows at SBC, as well as first crack at purchasing inside reserved-seat tickets. So, when I heard that Dawes would be on the Saturday night bill, along with Jenny Lewis and Ryan Adams, I decided to spring for an in-house ticket for Saturday.

Although I did finally get to see Dawes (more or less), the nearly $60 I spent on the ticket did not turn out to be a particularly good investment. For starters, when the full festival lineup was posted, I saw that Dawes was only getting a 30-minute set; I had figured the division of time among the three acts would be somewhat more equitable than that. I was also not particularly overwhelmed by the SBC experience (yes, I’m spoiled by Wolf Trap). The venue seems to exist primarily to sell beer and liquor (and also cigars). To give them some credit, there did seem to be plenty of tables outside where the beverages and food could be consumed. (Needless to say, you couldn’t bring anything in except water.) The final straw was when I got to my seat -- 104/C/17, in case anyone would like to avoid it in the future. The theater portion of SBC is extremely wide, with 104 being on the far left side, and 17 being the leftmost seat in that section. From that position, not only could I not see the drummer at all due to the stage monitors (and was also blocked for a portion of the show from seeing the keyboard player by someone doing video), but the sound was truly atrocious. Due to the brevity of the set, the band was limited to 5 songs, which meant that they did only one tune from Nothing Is Wrong, which is by far their best album. All of which means that next year I will probably vote with my credit card for the cheaper 3-day pass that does not include the SBC shows, and get more sleep to boot.

Serendipity #18

Someday, Someway – Marshall Crenshaw

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_sgQYHQSqjQ

Heard 7/23/2014 around 6:00pm, at California Tortilla (downtown Rockville)

#39 Don't Worry Baby -- The Beach Boys (1964)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lW0YGC68qP4

My iTunes library contains more songs by the Beach Boys than by any other artist except Springsteen (although the ones by the Boss are considerably longer), ranging from big hits such as “Help Me Rhonda” and “Barbara Ann” through some relative obscurities – you probably didn’t know they recorded a version of “Cottonfields” that made the top 5 in the UK. This one fits somewhere in the middle of the continuum; a lot of people know it even though it wasn’t a huge hit. It’s always had a deeper resonance for me than a song that superficially is just about young love and drag racing.

#40 Don't Ask Me Questions -- Graham Parker (1976)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pJVlrhWaZhA

Graham Parker has put out a lot of great material over the years, but I consider his first album, Howlin’ Wind, to be his finest work. While the LP contains a number of memorable uptempo songs, “Don’t Ask Me Questions” winds things up with a snarling, incredibly powerful blast of righteous anger. Not necessarily for the faint of heart, but well worth a listen.

Huey Lewis & The News w/ Marc Broussard, Wolf Trap Filene Center, 7/20/2014

Lewis and band put on a very professional show – if it sounded like they’d done the whole thing a thousand or so times before, it’s probably because they had – with the main set running from about 9:05-10:15, followed by a three-song encore (“Power Of Love”, “Doing It All For My Baby”, and “Workin’ For A Livin”). They didn’t pull any punches from the beginning, starting the show with “The Heart Of Rock & Roll”, the little-known but excellent “My Other Woman”, “If This It It”, and “I Want A New Drug”. They also threw in such other hits as “Jacob’s Ladder” and “Heart And Soul”, with a pair of “a cappella” numbers (vocal harmonies were featured, but there was some accompaniment) in “Um, Um, Um, Um, Um, Um” (a 1964 hit for Major Lance) and “Little Bitty Pretty One” (Thurston Harris, 1957) midway through. They ended their main set with an extended version of “We're Not Here for a Long Time (We're Here for a Good Time)”, from the neglected 2001 Plan B album.

(Note – if you haven’t seen Lewis before, be aware that he has the largest, blackest eyebrows you are ever likely to see.)

Marc Broussard, who has one of the greatest blue-eyed soul voices of our time, did a nice 40-minute opening set, playing acoustic and electric guitar and accompanied by a bass player and a percussionist. His set featured “Try Me” and “Lonely Night In Georgia”, as well as a couple of songs (“Weight Of The World” and “Hurricane Heart”) from his about-to-be-released album. He ended with his breakout hit “Home” from his 2004 major-label debut CD.

#41 Never Surrender -- Corey Hart (1985)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-4pg6Jh94Lo 

I fell in love with many of the songs on this list the first time I heard them. This one does not fall into that category. I hadn’t particularly liked Hart’s first big hit (“Sunglasses at Night”), and so his subsequent efforts just sort of went past me at the time. However, I used to watch “Cold Case” on TV fairly regularly, and “Never Surrender” ran over the closing credits in one of the episodes. That did it. I’m still not all that fond of “Sunglasses”, or any of Hart’s other stuff, but this one is great.

Shuffle #20 (July 20, 2014)

Pumped Up Kicks – Foster The People

Runaway – Del Shannon

Angel – Aretha Franklin

Boot-Leg – Booker T. & The MG’s

Dedicated Follower Of Fashion – The Kinks

Get Off Of My Cloud – The Rolling Stones

Sweet City Women – The Stampeders

Private Life – The Pretenders

Shuffle #19 (July 19, 2014)

Fat Boy – Billy Stewart

Don’t Know Why – Norah Jones

Throwing Stones – Grateful Dead

Be My Downfall – Del Amitri

You’ve Got It – Simply Red

Never Be Anyone Else But You – Ricky Nelson

Morningtown Ride – The Seekers

Holiday – Madonna

Only The Strong Survive – Jerry Butler

Goodbye Train – Grayson Hugh

Shuffle #18 (July 17, 2014)

Monterey – The Animals

Strange I Know – The Marvelettes

I Want To Make The World Turn Around – Steve Miller Band

Who Let The Love Out – Swing Out Sister

Fall On Me – R.E.M.

Baby Workout – Jackie Wilson

Light Shine – Jesse Colin Young

Can’t Help Falling In Love – Elvis Presley

Angel From Montgomery – Bonnie Raitt w/ John Prine

Fade Like A Shadow – KT Tunstall

Don’t Sleep In The Subway – Petula Clark

Chasing Pavements – Adele

#42 Harvest For The World -- The Isley Brothers (1976)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yz_OsEISBGo

The Isley Brothers covered a wide variety of stylistic territory during their lengthy career – it’s hard to find a lot of similarities between “Shout”, “This Old Heart Of Mine”, and “That Lady”, for instance – but this mid-tempo plea for a better world is my personal favorite (although it was by no means an easy decision).