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We already know about a healthy dose of live music action on Portland’s waterfront, but up in Bangor (about 2 hours away), the summer is even more packed with waterfront shows. Besides KahBang and the American Folk Festival, Waterfront Concerts has a whole series of events happening on their temporary stage, starting this weekend. Here’s their full schedule (as currently announced, there will be more added): 4/30 Bumstock featuring the Avalanche Tour Check out a look at the 5 day stage-building process, below. Read on… Now THIS is the kind of festival I want to see!
For its third year, Bangor’s KahBang Festival really seems to be finding a good niche. They’ve been flirting with indie rock, hip hop, and crowd-friendly rock bands, (all while finding a great audience for one of our favorites, The Gay Blades, who seem to be a staple of the festival) and have figured out the magic formula to put those genres together to create a strong festival experience. Check out the flyer above for the lineup so far (which also includes Lady Lamb The Beekeeper and Blueprint) for the My Morning Jacket-headlined festival, happening August 5-13. We’re especially looking forward to the party that Chromeo will bring to the waterfront, and Surfer Blood have been a festival favorite for the past few years at CMJ and SXSW.  Surfer Blood during SXSW 2011 - Austin, TX Of course, this is all in addition to the Maine State Pier shows put on by KahBang all summer. Though I had an amazing time at the first annual KahBang Festival in Bangor, Maine last year, I wasn’t able to make it up this time around. HillyTown photographer Conall O’Brien was, and he’ll be sending us some great photos from today’s full day of music. Here’s a taste of what’s happening up there from rap legend Biz Markie‘s set last night (which for some reason started way early – Conall missed The Gay Blades for that reason, so if you have photos of them and want to see them here, get in touch!).
Read on for the rest of the Biz Markie photos and if you’re in the area, get out to the Bangor Waterfront for a big day with great local bands all afternoon and OK Go, Free Energy, and B.o.B tonight! Read on… The first batch of bands for this year’s (expanded!) KahBang Festival in Bangor (August 6-14) has been announced and it’s definitely off to a strong start! This year you can expect to see OK Go, Biz Markie, Free Energy, The Gay Blades (thankfully returning after melting faces last year), Bad Rabbits, The Aviation Orange, Hey Marseilles, Ros Raskin and The Rice Cakes, Holy Boys Danger Club, In the Audience, Grand Hotel, and Good Kids Sprouting Horns (one of my new favorite Maine bands). Already some Portland and other Maine locals in the mix with big national acts – who else do you think they might add?
Now in its second year, Bangor’s KahBang Festival is already expanding. They’ve announced the dates as August 6th through the 14th for the festival, which will now include films and art exhibits in addition to the music portion. With this change, even their name is growing: the event is now called KahBang: Music, Art, Film. More details tba. Check out the HillyTown coverage of their first festival here. We had a great time at the first KahBang Music & Art Festival up in Bangor, Maine this weekend (Saturday, August 15, 2009). Check out the full photo gallery (it’s a big one, 90 photos strong) here.
It was no surprise that Matt & Kim would be a highlight (if you haven’t seen them, they put on a fun, highly energized show, always full of crowd-pleasing interaction and mile-wide-smiles), but they weren’t the only memorable act of the day. I was personally very impressed by The Gay Blades (all promotional associations aside, I was already a fan of their music and had high hopes for their performance), as they took a mostly indifferent crowd and turned them into fans hungry for more, bringing some onstage during their set to play percussion. The fact that their friend April Smith (who’d already played earlier on the main stage) joined them a few times certainly added to their set. Ra Ra Riot and Royal Bangs brought really enjoyable, tight sets to the main stage, but the real standout was clearly Ida Maria, whose caustic (drunk) set inspired a lot of shrieking and chearing from the crowd, most of whom lined up for autographs at the merch tent afterwards. The local bands who played earlier in the day all did a great job, bringing the energy up despite a slow build to the crowd. It would have been great to see some more bands from Maine play, or maybe an additional small/acoustic stage to get even more great local artists involved, but all in all KahBang got off to a great start this year, and everyone involved deserves congratulations (and your attendance next year!) Check out the KahBang Music Fest ’09 photo gallery.
I’m not sure how it happened exactly, but a really great music festival has been brewing (and selling out of presale tickets) up in Bangor, Maine, and news about it seems to just be drifting down here to Portland today. On Saturday, August 15th, KahBang ’09 will take place in Downtown Bangor and the Bangor Waterfront. It sounds like more bands may still be added, but the lineup so far is full of strong national acts: Matt & Kim, Ida Maria, the Gay Blades, Ra Ra Riot, April Smith, and more. There are supposed to be a total of 15 bands playing, so there are definitely more to be announced – hopefully some of those are locals who can get a chance at some great exposure by sharing the stage with these higher profile national acts! Since it doesn’t seem to say it anywhere on the site, I should mentioned that tickets are $27.50 each (presale saved you $5, too bad I didn’t hear about this festival existing before presale was over), but I had to create an account and login to buy tickets before being able to find that out. Not too high of a price to pay for the festival, but it would probably make sense to make that info a little easier to find! Let’s hope this endeavor is able to be successful and grow to be as big as some of their inspiration (Bonnaroo, Coachella, etc.). It would definitely be great to have something that big right here in Maine every year. |
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