Poppers Don't Preach

That subject doesn't really mean anything, I just like the play on words. Nerdy, I know. But nerdy is perfectly fitting for this gig diary about Popfest! New England 2006.

Northampton was saturated this weekend. There was the Pioneer Valley Arts Festival, James Taylor was playing at the Calvin, it was a three day weekend in the midst of the foliage season, there were a number of other big shows going on, and there was the Popfest.

What that meant was that a big topic of conversation on Saturday evening was about how hard it was to find parking. But it added to the feeling of festival. The fury of cars and pedestrians created an atmosphere of excitement.

The Popfest is put on by Skipping Stones Records and it features many of their bands as well as a whole mess of others. Lesa and I went on Friday and saw some great music. Palomar was adorable with their three front ladies singing in unison. Spouse was as powerful as I've seen them, they played all new songs, but their set was for some sad reason, cut terribly short. I really enjoyed the Butterflies of Love (with special guest Mark Mulcahy). I can't believe it was their first time playing in Northampton. Good stuff.

The only problem Friday was that a lot of the music was mixed too loud and I, sans ear-plugs, had to hide out off and on in the pool room. That was fun, but it would have been nice to have seen more of the bands.

The sound on Saturday was much better. Thank you, Bruce Tull. School for the Dead was playing with an unheard of combination due to the absense of Brian and Ken. Paul Pelis of King Radio and the Caroline Know, agreed to fill in on drums for us. Tony and I played with Paul for years in the band Humbert and we were even able to do some of those same songs (Screen Door, Thug, I Wouldn't Know) at this show. Otherwise, we kept the set fairly simple, opting for the easier to remember songs like Uncomfortable, Photobooth Curtain, This Time It Looks Good, and Something's Taking Over. It would have been nice to bring out a couple of our slightly crazier pop numbers like Journal of Lies or Superhero, but it wouldn't been asking too much of the generous Paul.

Our set turned out pretty good, even though Tony couldn't sing at all do to a loss of voice. I sure missed the harmonies on everything, but we kind of made up for it with our energy. I thought that we may have played a bit too loud, the crowd was somewhat thinner for our set than for the preceding and following sets, but then I realized that a big part of the Popfest crowd all know each other and they support each other very rabidly, while taking a break during acts they are unfamiliar with.

Either way we still had a great audience and a lot of fun. My favorite band of that night was Locas in Love from Germany. All their songs were in German but the lead singer was kind enough to speak to the audience in his broken english. They were one of those bands where you just felt like you wanted to hang out with them. And they were really good.

One nice part of their show came when the main guy said that although there is a lot going on in the world right now and there are a lot of opinions about the United States floating around in the international community, that they were having a wonderful time in the country and that they were particularly moved by the kindness of everyone that night. He said that from now on when they thought of "America", they would think of the people in that room that night.

That was nice to hear.