When does a Fitbit give you too much information? As a longtime Sunfest attendee, I realize that a lot of walking is involved, especially on the weekend days when the third stage and the Art District is open, but I was not prepared for my step-counter to inform me that I’d covered 10 miles for each of the last two days. Then again, I was at the festival for eight hours each of those days, so I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised that I more than doubled the 10,000 step daily target on Sunfest Saturday and Sunday. Even heeding the advice of Leslie Grey Streeter of the Palm Beach Post to wear comfortable shoes to the festival didn’t save me from aching feet Saturday night.
But was this year’s Sunfest worth the soreness? I would say, more than I initially expected. Most of the performers I’d seen before were even better the second time around, and two recommendations for groups I hadn’t seen, made by fellow music journalists Bill Meredith of the Palm Beach Arts Paper and the aforementioned Leslie Grey Streeter, were right on the money.
So Empress K of Reggae Reflection and I have lots of good stuff to report on, both for our blogs and the online magazine for which we were shooting, Island Stage. (Not to mention this blog’s parent publication Type M for Music, which should be going again by month’s end.) Between the two of us, we photographed and listened to almost half of the 50 bands. So there’ll be lots of pictures and reviews on all of our sites in the coming days and weeks, but for now, here’s a summary of the highlights of this year’s edition of Sunfest:
Day 1: Award-winning Canadian folk-rock The Strumbellas got things off to a pleasant start, and later it was time for a pair of returning headliners, as Snoop Dogg rapped to an overflowing crowd at the Tire Kingdom stage while Weezer pleased the Ford stage patrons with its upbeat style of alt-rock.
Day 2: Both of this night’s headliners were delayed by concerns of inclement weather, but after half an hour of scary skies, eclectic musician Ben Harper took to the Tire Kingdom stage with his longtime backing band The Innocent Criminals, reunited two years ago after an eight-year separation. And thirty minutes later on the Ford Stage, the weather delay was also over for rap duo Macklemore & Ryan Lewis, so Sunfest patrons there were graced with that group’s mix of pop, hip-hop, social consciousness and fun.
Day 3: Like the headliners of the first night, reggae’s crown prince Ziggy Marley was a repeat Sunfest performer. Fresh off a win in the Reggae category of the Grammys, Ziggy performed an excellent mix of hits, new material and his legendary father’s classics, while over on the Ford stage, local rap star Flo Rida electrified his audience with a high-energy hip-hop show.
Day 4: The first of the long days proved to have a diverse mix of music. The afternoon’s sets on Tire Kingdom stage were performed by a pair of ‘80s classic-rock groups: power-rocking hit-maker Night Ranger proved that “(You Can Still) Rock In America” while Canadian group Loverboy was “Working For The Weekend.”
Over on the Ford Stage, rock-reggae ruled the day, with up-tempo performances by Stick Figure and Dirty Heads. By evening, the Tire Kingdom schedule had moved on to alt-rock, with shows by Filter and the stars of this year’s Inauguration, 3 Doors Down. Meanwhile, the trek down south to the JetBlue stage yielded pleasant results, with the laid-back R & B of YouTube sensation Tori Kelly.
Day 5: Another long day filled with diverse music. L.A. group Ambrosia made it big in the late ‘70s with its version of the California Sound, but actually started as a progressive-rock band years before. Similarly, Christopher Cross might have been firmly in the soft-rock genre in the early ’80s, but the jazz touches exhibited on some of his tracks recorded back then have now achieved full blossom in concert. Georgian jam-band Widespread Panic is a genre-bending mix of influences, while Alabama group St. Paul and the Broken Bones is a horn-driven homage to the soul music of the ‘60s.
Both of the final acts we saw at Sunfest 2017 were veteran performers, but the longevity of ‘90s alt-rock outfit blink-182 doesn’t even come close to the career of legendary British soul artist Steve Winwood, who debuted in the early ‘60s.
So, as you can see, we have lots to do to justify the wear and tear on our rubber soles. Stay tuned…
The Music Type 