Davis Music Festival – 6/25/11

From everything that I have heard, the first annual Davis Music Festival was quite the success and what I saw on the ground can confirm that. I have to admit that I was a bit skeptical about the festival. The line-up was mostly composed of locals that I had seen already and none of the out-of-town acts really thrilled me. That said, when the festival came around, the atmosphere was absolutely great and made this bland little town feel like it had place and meaning, if just for one night. The bands that I saw rocked their sets and the audiences were attentive and appreciative. Congratulations to everyone who worked so hard to make it happen on a successful start and I hope to see it again next year.

I really can’t let this write-up go without mentioning the diversity of sound of the bands. I started with classic americana-rock, move though folk and DIY, and ended up with a more crafted pop sound. If I had wondered around more I could have heard DJ sets of electronica and bands playing country music. I really can’t stress who nice it was to have a diverse choice of sound as for most weeks all I get to choose between is DIY and folk. Some groups claim to have diverse taste [ED: *cough* KDVS *cough*], but really only present one of the two categories. Also some times, as much as I love Sophia’s, there are weeks were I can just to stomach another indie folk band on the deck. Having a night where I can have my pick made me feel like I lived in a place where music was happening and playing to tastes across the board. It felt good and I hope it’s the start of something very new in town, diversity. [ED: Now if we can just get some hip-hop/rap around here.] Anywho, on to the bands.

I started out the night with Jake Mann & The Upper Hand over at Sophia’s. The patio was absolutely packed for the Crossbill Records artist which was quite the feat considering the 8 o’clock start for his set. Seeing Jake Mann up close, with better sound, and after having plowed through a few of his albums made this time a much more memorable one than the last. The man really knows how to write a good rock ‘n’ roll tune and even rocked through a George Harrison song like it was nothing. Can someone make this guy famous already?

Garrett Pierce was the next stop of the night all the way over at Little Prague. I didn’t intend to start the night with two Crossbill artists back to back, but that’s how it ended up. One of favorite parts, besides the music itself, was the highly out-of-place disco/club/dance lights that were twirling around during Garrett’s whole depresso-folk set. I haven’t seen him play in a while and it was good to see the pink-paisley Telecaster, good story telling, and, the thing I respect him for the most, live drummer. Love it when a folk song has a beat.

I’ve seen G. Green a few times now at various places and I think I enjoyed this one the most. Delta of Venus may have not been the most sonically sound venue as I heard many complaining about high-pitched reverberation, but standing next to the P.A. with my ear-plugs in, made the sound okay enough for me. The Sacramento bubble-punk band was playing with a slightly different line up that they seemed to not be that confident in, but from my end it sounded great. High energy, cool riffs, and a singing drummer, what more could you want?

New Heirlooms came on after G. Green and pulled off a set that wiped my memory clean of the little missteps had plagued their first show with the new line-up. “Black Road”, “Loose Lips”, and “Summer” came off without a hitch, at least from my perspective, and made for a memorable performance from the epic-folk band. One of the old members of the band even felt compelled to come up and take over on drums for the last song. I wasn’t planning to, as I expected to catch Shayna & The Bulldog who started during New Heirlooms set, but I stayed for the whole thing and ended up late for the next band. I think that says it all.

In all honesty by the time I got to Shayna & The Bulldog at Sophia’s my plan of supporting the venues/bars where the shows were held by buying a drink for each set was starting to backfire. While I’m not saying I was blackout bound, though some of the people there were, I certainly was far enough along that I couldn’t be my fully attentive self. I was a bit disappointed in myself for not being able to give the band my full attention, in addition to showing up late, as I wanted to give them a fair shake. However, once the band started into a cover of David Bowie’s “Man Who Sold the World” [ED: LOVE DAVID BOWIE, LOVE IT], I was sold. Hopefully next time I’ll be able to give my full attention to them.

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