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Our friends at the Picnic Music + Arts Festival are gearing up for their 3rd Annual event, happening exactly one month from today on August 28!  Last year was a little wet at times. If you’ve been keeping up, you’re probably already excited about the extensive list of great local vendors and artists, or perhaps the prospect of snacking on tasty goods from Skinny Cart BBQ and Verbena Cafe, but now there’s even more reason to get psyched: the music lineup has just been announced! Foam Castles (who we profiled 2 months ago played our OFFStage @SPACE show last night) kick it off bright and early. Some more OFFStage alums (Same Basic Bear, Domino Harvey, Phantom Buffalo) will also be getting in on the outdoor action. 11:00 Foam Castles 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? This 4th Of July weekend will bring a new festival to Maine. the Nateva Music & Camping Festival will take place in Oxford, Maine on July 2,3,and 4th. The event, sponsored by Port City Music Hall, has tickets on sale now, but what exactly do you get for your (currently lowest price) $159? Only one band has been announced so far, but it’s a big one, and probably enough of a draw to get things off to a strong start: The Flaming Lips. Hey, it got my attention! The festival is described as heralding “world class artists in the true Jam Band tradition – as well as a sweet mix of Country, Folk, Reggae, Classic Rock and Indie Artists too,” so it’s interesting that the first band announced happens to come from the last category thrown in there (though the Lips certainly have a certain jam/hippie sensibility that gives plenty of room for crossover). Join their email list to find out which other acts will be joining the lineup.
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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