Room to grow evident as Evermore festival opens
Music continues today and Sunday at American Legion Mall
If organizers of the Evermore Music Festival are correct in predicting a five-year ascent to big-league stature for the event, anyone who attended Friday's opening day of year one will have quite the story to tell.
They can say the weather didn't cooperate. After rain showers and a threat of lightning put performances on hold for an hour in the afternoon, steady rain returned at night.
They can say American Legion Mall, which hosts tens of thousands of music fans during Indiana Black Expo Summer Celebration, looked the part of a successful music festival: a main stage at the south end of the mall, an eye-catching inflatable bandshell (on loan from Southern Indiana's Hyperion festival) serving as the second stage at the north end plus beverage tents in between. A third stage and food trucks were stationed on the Meridian Street side of the mall.
Indianapolis acts ready to launch Evermore festival
And they can say they were among just 50 to 100 paying customers who witnessed opening day of Evermore. The meager attendance figure doesn't indicate strong sales for three-day passes, which were priced at $59. It doesn't indicate a successful push on college campuses, which Evermore organizers said would be key to the festival. And it doesn't indicate fans of local acts are willing to spend $24 for a single-day festival ticket.
Music continues today and Sunday, when two bands at least known to radio listeners -- Atlas Genius and Guster -- are the headliners. For more information, visit EvermoreMusicFestival.com
Regardless of Friday's weather or times when Evermore crew members outnumbered spectators, musical highlights were easy to find.
Ghost Gun Summer showed off its advanced team-rapping skills before heading out for a three-week tour of the West Coast.
The quintet of Indianapolis MCs, accompanied by DJ KNags and a live drummer, bookended their performance with collaborative party songs "Jet Ski" and a new tune possibly titled "Hooligans."
Individually, John Stamps performed "G Baby" with its promise of being up by "the crack of noon." Grey Granite posed existential questions: “Are you following the music? Are you following the traffic?” And Sirius Blvck used clean diction to dial in community when rallying "me, myself and all my friends."
Top Five Live: Carrie Underwood will share stories
Visiting from Columbus, Ohio, pop-rock band Vesperteen delivered inventive, anthemic arrangements suggestive of Queen and INXS.
Led by vocalist-drummer Colin Rigsby, Vesperteen specializes in huge melodic hooks and spotlights for keyboard and electric guitar. It wouldn't be a surprise to see Rigsby and band mates follow the lead of fellow Columbus act Twenty One Pilots into mainstream fame.
Singer-songwriter Brett Wiscons previewed songs from his upcoming album, "The Heineken Sessions Deluxe." "Sarazona" radiated an Eagles vibe, while Wiscons sang about life as a patient musician on "Side Stage" -- a song he co-wrote with Hootie & the Blowfish guitarist Mark Bryan.
Saturday schedule
Stage 1
12:15 p.m., Flannel Jane
2:15 p.m., Stay Outside
4:15 p.m., Bybye
6:30 p.m., Dream Chief
9 p.m., Atlas Genius
Stage 2
1:15 p.m., Bullet Points
3:15 p.m., Warrior Kings
5:15 p.m., Awake the Wilde
7:45 p.m., The Pass
Stage 3
12:15 p.m., Kel McCarthy
4:30 p.m, Ant-B
6:30 p.m., Stereo Smiths
Sunday schedule
Stage 1
Noon, Brandon Kent Stanley
2 p.m., Against the Clocks
4 p.m., Cranford Hollow
6 p.m., Hyryder
8:30 p.m., Guster
Stage 2
1 p.m., Bubbles Brown
3 p.m., Julia Kahn
5 p.m., Audiodacity
7:15 p.m., Shiny Penny
Stage 3
4 p.m., Flatland Harmony Experiment
6 p.m., Russ Baum and Huck Finn
Call Star reporter David Lindquist at (317) 444-6404. Follow him on Twitter: @317Lindquist.