This Week is Bear Creek, Baby!

Funk legend Bootsy Collins plays Saturday at 5:15

The music party that's been happening at Live Oak, Florida's  Spirit of the Suwannee Music Park in a series of festivals since October gets SERIOUS this week when one of the premier funk gatherings on the planet convenes starting Wednesday --- we're talking about  The Bear Creek Music & Art Festival . 

Bears, bears and more bears

This festival is ridiculous fun, packed full of  world beat, jazz, hip hop (The Roots,) cutting-edge funk (from New Orleans and elsewhere), old-school funk (George Porter Jr. of The Meters, Bootsy Collins and Bernie Worrell of Parliament Funkadelic, Ohio Players horn man Ron Haynes, and more), R&B, and DJ electronic dance beats for late night/early morning ragers.

Don't forget your costume

What makes Bear Creek such an absolute gas is the crowd -- the people who come to Bear Creek are there to get down. There’s an infectious vibe, outrageous costumes and it's a booty shaking dance party of epic proportions.

The festival proper runs Friday through Sunday with a standard Weekend Ticket. There is music for two more days for an extra charge -- a special musical benefit 4p.m. to 1:30 a.m. Wednesday night and a pre-party Thursday from 2 p.m. to 2:30 a.m. . 

The Roots -- Jimmy Fallon's house band, play Saturday at 8 p.m.

A Weekend Ticket (includes camping) is $175 advanced (though Nov. 11 at midnight), and $195 at the gate. Weekend Ticket holders can add two more nights of camping and music: $50 for Thursday night and $25 for a special musical benefit Wednesday night. Single-day tickets (no camping) are $80 for Friday, $80 for Saturday, and $50 for Sunday. See VIP ticket options at the website.

Bear Creek's musical offerings expand as the fest goes along -- it starts with one stage Wednesday, three stages on Thursday, and then  five stages run continuously Friday and Saturday. Things get cozy --- and super funky -- for Sunday, when New Orleans' Dumpstaphunk and killer New England funk band Lettuce close out the fest. Throughout the weekend, lots of musical sit-ins provide constant surprises. 

And don't miss a sojourn to take a break and go to the park's beach on the beautiful Suwannee River...

The lineup includes The Roots, Bootsy Collins and the Funk Unity Band, Galactic, Karl Denson's Tiny Universe, Lettuce, Bonobo Live Band, Ivan Neville's Dumpstaphunk, The New Mastersounds, Antibalas, Lee Fields & The Expressions, Zach Deputy, Toubab Krewe, George Porter Jr's Runnin Pardners, The Motet, Jennifer Hartswick Band, Break Science, Mike Dillon Band, Pimps of Joytime, Robert Walter's 20th Congress, Bernie Worrell Orchestra, Roosevelt Collier Band, Dr. Klaw, The Revivalists, Kung Fu, The Werks, The Malah, Space Capone, Nth Power, Flow Tribe, Dopapod, The Legendary JC's, Ron Haynes Game Changers, Brownout, Johnny Sketch & the Dirty Notes, Jaime McLean Band, The Monophonics, Ghost Owl, Greenhouse Lounge, Cope, Chris McCarty and the Underground Movement, The Resolvers, Profit, Suenalo, Lucky Costello, Oteil Burbridge, Skerik, Natalie Cressman, Dave Watts, Joey Porter, Jans Ingber, Clay Watson, and Pee Wee Ellis.

You can check out a general list of who plays which days here and peruse the full schedule here 

Don't forget to thank our hard-working and hosts from Big IV Productions,
Lyle Williams and Paul Levine!

Suwannee Hulaween Delivers Killer Tunes, Art and Spectacle

Spirit Lake 

Leaving the Suwannee Hulaween festival at Spirit of the Suwannee Music Park in Live Oak, Fla., festgrrl’s main take-away is that The String Cheese Incident is a collection of amazingly talented musicians.

The Colorado jam band dazzled with the breadth of it's musical material – from jam to jazz to pop to funk to bluegrass to funk and electronica. All that with lightning fast stops. Oh, and a super-slick nightly light show too.

Michael Kang and Bill Nershi lay down some Cheese

Michael Kang of The String Cheese Incident

Bill Nershi of String Cheese Incident

Thousands showed up sporting outrageous Halloween costumes for the band’s first night, which featured three balls-to-the-wall String Cheese sets.

Spot-on Napoleon Dynamite costume

An "illusion" costume -- homemade!

Indie-rockers  Van Ghost and souped-up bluegrass pickers  Larry and Jenny Keel owned the Thursday late night stages which kept everyone up and grooving until the wee hours, where we prowled the psychedelic Spirit Lake art and light installation – wow!

There were 30-foot-tall metal sculptures – one a three-faced bull and one phoenix -- which breathed fire. A giant geodesic dome was made up to look like a jellyfish and was filled with jellyfish swings for anyone to use. Artists painted a beautiful mural which came alive under black lights. Hammocks hung beneath black-light string sculptures suspended from the trees. There was an infinity mirror installation and giant, glowing Alice in Wonderland mushrooms. The cypress lake at the park is always gorgeous – for the Spirit Lake installation it was ringed with lights and the center fountain had a color-changing light show. Add a Spirit Lake performance stage with bands, fire dancers, hoopers and a burlesque show -- seriously the most amazing lake area ever at Spirit of the Suwannee.

The Spirit Lake bull sculpture

Spirit Lake stage

Spirit Lake dancer

Black light string sculpture

Spirit Lake phoenix

Spirit Lake dancer

Friday featured sets by Tallahassee's fun  hip-hop rockers Catfish Alliance (featuring Big E the Sexual Manatee,) jam band Comeback Alice and Van Ghost. Steve Kimock and Friends took the stage at 4 p.m. Friday for an excellent show that showcased Kimock’s killer guitar skills.

Catfish Alliance

 At Friday’s evening two-set String Cheese show, lightning flashed in the distance and it started raining. The rain held off for the most part during the String Cheese show but let loose afterward, as the funky Main Squeeze band from Chicago was killin’ it in the ampitheater.

And wow, it rained hard. Sadly, flooding ended up cancelling the much-anticipated performances by Big Gigantic and Conspirator..

Vince Herman of Leftover Salmon

Thankfully, the rain was gone by Saturday, and everybody’s soaked stuff was able to dry out. Fans had a full slate of daytime music featuring Brock Butler (formerly of Perpetual Groove), Latin-funk-reggae-jam Savi Fernandez Band out of Orlando, The Heard (BLISTERING full-on funk band from Chicago,) a high-energy show by Colorado’s Leftover Salmon, and in the early evening, an excellent psychedelic-jam-kickass-bluegrass “Leftover Cheese” -- collaboration between String Cheese and Leftover Salmon.

Trumpeter Jennifer Hartswick  and Trombonist Natalie Cressman
sit in with The Heard for a killer set

Live electronica band Sound Tribe Sector 9 hit the stage at 10:45 p.m. to a colorful, packed-out crowd, followed by trip-hop DJ Emancipator. Tampa Bluegrass-funk-jam band Applebutter Express hosted a late night jam with lots of sit-ins by festival musicians  at the Spirit Lake campground stage and then the silent disco raged until dawn.

Overall, Suwannee Hulaween had a nice mix of bluegrass, funk, jam and live electronic. Having a ferris wheel and Gravitron in the field by the main stage was a new twist for Spirit of the Suwannee Music Park and it was great.

Aside from the rain event, the sets all ran on time, and it was nice that no sets overlapped so everybody had a chance to see everything at the same time. The crowd was just great, with the exception of people lighting fireworks Saturday night in the middle of the dancing audience (Seriously people?)

On Saturday night, multi-instrumentalist Michael Kang of String Cheese announced from the stage that this inaugural Suwannee Hulaween is going to become a recurring event. And THAT was great to hear.

Gone Festing!

Gone festing at Suwannee Hulaween.

Check out photos and updates on the festgrrl page on Facebook

Suwannee Hulaween Band Spotlight: The Heard

The Heard. Photo by Soundfuse.

festgrrl is going to assume y'all are familiar with the big acts playing  Suwannee Hulaween this Thursday-Sunday at Spirit of the Suwannee Music Park in Live Oak, Fl. -- Colorado jam-funk-jazz-bluegrass-electronica masters The String Cheese Incident,  the popular live electronica band  Sound Tribe Sector 9,  Colorado hillbilly stompgrass band Leftover Salmon, , live electronica band  Emancipator and Disco Biscuits side project Conspirator. If not, see me after class. (Oh wait -- I forgot flatpicking guitar master Larry Keel and his wife, Jenny Keel, absolute treasures of the bluegrass-roots community. They play twice on Thursday.)

Here's a band playing Saturday that you may not have (no pun intended) heard of: The Heard, a  6-piece band out of Chicago. if you like down and dirty horn-driven funk, you're going to love The Heard. This band  is getting some major buzz, and with good reason. They are killin' it!

The Heard plays Suwannee Hulaween at 3 pm. Saturday in the ampitheater. Here's a taste of what you're gonna see::

Today's Suwannee Hulaween Band Spotlight: Van Ghost

Today's Suwannee Hulaween band spotlight is on Van Ghost, a six-piece  alt/rock/Americana band out of Chicago. Veterans of the Bear Creek Music and Art Festival and Jam Cruise will be familiar with Van Ghost's powerhouse singer/trumpeter Jennifer Hartswick, who has been an artist-at-large over the years, sitting in with various bands.

This alt rock indie band was founded by Chicago concert promoter/band manager Michael Berg. One minute they are sweet soft harmonies and the next they are raging rock guitars. One thing's for sure: The critics have some serious love for Van Ghost.

Glide magazine praised the band's "exquisite pedal steel guitars and guy girl harmonies that reflect a Ryan Adams/Whiskeytown/early Wilco Americana vibe."

Our friends at Jambase write:

"With an exquisite 6-piece band flavored with pedal steel and psychedelic guitars, an earth shattering rhythm section, and haunting guy/girl harmonies, the band played it's debut show before a packed audience at Chicago's revered Metro in January 2008. It was an auspicious beginning for one of Chicago's most promising new acts.

Following up their debut record, "Melodies For Lovers", on Split Red Records, the band headed down to Nashville, TN to begin the tracking of their next release. With 2009 Grammy award winning Producer/Engineer/Mixer, Justin Niebank at the helm the bands sound continues to develop and expand. Berg has established that he is as comfortable operating under the spotlight as he is behind the curtain. With Van Ghost he sets out to inspire music fans the same as other artists have inspired him - one song at a time."

Van Ghost plays the ampitheater stage on Thursday night at 12:15 a.m. And here's a video of them performing their song "Fortune Teller" at the Chicago Bluegrass & Blues Fest: 

Suwannee Hulaweeen Band Spotlight: The Main Squeeze

The Main Squeeze. Photo By Soundfuse magazine.

festgrrl is going to assume that festival goers who will be at Suwannee Hulaween next week (Oct. 31-Nov. 2 at Spirit of the Suwannee Music Park in Live Oak, Fla, ---(get your costumes ready, y'all) are familiar with national touring act The String Cheese Incident, our talented hosts for Suwannee Hulaween and the band which will preside each night. if not, check out this fantastic summer's show at Red Rocks Ampitheater to see their incredible diversity and musical chops

Aside from the String Cheese shows each night, Hulaween also has a nice mix of electronica, funk and bluegrass bands which will play during the weekend. Let's take a look at a few of them as we count down the days to our Halloween dance-a-thon in paradise.

Today, the spotlight is on The Main Squeeze , a hellaciously funky outfit born in Bloomington, Indiana in 2009, who now reside in Chicago.

This young funk band is known for their many covers-- from Stevie Wonder to Jimi Hendrix to Sly and the Family Stone and the Grateful Dead. Their originals are in-the-pocket goodness.

The Main Squeeze plays in the amphitheater at 9:45 p.m. Saturday, right after String Cheese's set.

Here's their cover of the Grateful Dead's Eyes of the World:

Alabama Shakes Touring Florida -- Get Your Tix While You Can

Breakout roots rockers The Alabama Shakes will tour the South in December -- the Alabama shows are sold out, but tickets for four Florida shows are still available. (See dates below)

This powerhouse 5-piece band emerged out of Athens, Alabama in 2009 and had a meteoric rise after they were showcased at a music industry conference and caught the eye of a New York Times writer, among others. They have since toured sold-out shows around the world, hooked up with Jack White  for recordings, gone on Conan, David Letterman, Jimmy Kimmel and Saturday Night Live and -- coolest of all -- shared the stage with Stevie Wonder at a festival in England.

The Shakes got three Grammy nominations in 2013, including Best New Artist, Best Rock Performance ("Hold On" --which is absolutely a-MAZING, see video below), and Best Recording Package for their debut album, Boys & Girls.

Much of the acclaim swirls around lead singer and guitarist Brittany Howard, who  is just the Real Deal -- raw talent, passion, and a serious set of chops. She sounds like the love child of Otis Redding and Janis Joplin.

Here are the dates:

Dec.3 - Orlando's Hard Rock Live
Dec.4 - Miami's The Fillmore
Dec. 6- St. Petersburg's Jannus Live
Dec. 7- St. Augustine Ampitheater

And here's Hold On: