"I was a little disappointed after years of seeing it move from local to regional to national bands on the stage to be playing in a cafeteria mess-hall tent with the lights on," he says. "But I enjoyed it, especially being up against Night Ranger and Rick Springfield. We had one of the biggest crowds on the local stage. We had fun, sold CDs, and had a good show. We have a large, young female following right now, and they were rocking out. Then there were a couple of young guys with baggy pants hanging around their asses and backwards baseball caps, who didn't look like our usual kind of fan, but they were digging it. I think there were a few people there who didn't know who we were, who just happened to be walking by on their way to see Night Ranger, but we gave it everything we could, and I think we acquired a few more fans."
Playing on a summer night at 8 is one thing, but playing at 4 p.m. is quite another. Ask The Hillary Step, who scored that unforgiving slot on Saturday. "It was really, really hot," singer/guitarist Brad Hodgson emphasizes repeatedly. "I kept pouring cups of water over my head. I almost fainted. It was ridiculous." Perhaps the heat scared away fans, because Hodgson reports playing in front of a scant crowd. Not surprisingly, he longs for the Spirit Fest of yesteryear.
"I'm anxious for the stage to come back and for a radio station to support it," he says. "It's like Christmas when you're older and you find out there's no Santa Claus. Before, everything was so advertised and exciting, but now there wasn't any radio station to get behind it, and you didn't hear much about it at all."
Faring better on Saturday night was the jazzy rap/rock sextet Shudderbug, luring in a sizable crowd whose members mostly were too young to be nostalgic for the commercial rap of the early '90s or for the ordinary stylings of jaded former Eagle Joe Walsh. The band also benefited from cooler temperatures, breaking only a mild sweat despite accentuating each of its raucous choruses with plenty of jumping.
"Honestly, it's hotter in clubs, with all the stage lights beating down on you," says Adam 'AC' Schlicht, one of the group's vocalists. "And at least there was a breeze. There were a good 150 people there, and we sold about 15 CDs, so we were actually incredibly happy with it. It was one of our better shows. Hopefully, they'll have us back next year, and they'll have the rock stage."
Sunday's overcast skies offered welcome respite to the evening's openers, The Daybirds, whose breezy Beatles-esque concoctions entertained about 50 scattered onlookers. Meanwhile, one area group took advantage of an opportunity to perform on one of the big stages, with the added bonus of a hip crowd that rushed to the front to secure positions for headliners Guided By Voices and Kottonmouth Kings.
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