Camden Comes Alive: XPoNential Music Festival 2016 Review, Photos & Videos
By Jake Krolick Jul 29, 2016 • 1:58 pm PDT
Photo by Jake Krolick
Words, Images & Videos by: Jake Krolick
XPoNential Music Festival :: 7.22-24.16 :: Camden, NJ
View Jake’s gallery after his review.
The 2016 XPoNential Music Festival landed the weekend before the DNC conference in Philadelphia. The vibe leading up to the festival was electric both socially and politically. We live in strange times with terrorism and political idiosyncrasy clouding headlines. For two days planes circled Philly and the festival towing banners which spouted hatred and conservative rhetoric. If ever there was a time to come together as a community, this past weekend was it. The XPoNential Music Festival is built on the love and community surrounding the WXPN radio station. The station shined through this weekend as the festival exemplified everything it has done for music locally and nationally. This year was once again a celebration of the station, its on-air personalities and the community who proves time and time again how intensely they are in support of their beloved WXPN.
By now you may have heard about Friday’s Father John Misty solo set. Josh Tillman started with a six-minute speech filled with “Entertainment Tyrants,” some f-bombs, several blows to the Battleship New Jersey, and a knock to the gut of entertainment itself. Tillman eventually played a fairly decent ten-minute, freestyled ballad and a cover of “Bird On A Wire” by Leonard Cohen before ending the set 30 minutes early. The current social/political climate, as I said early, is really concerning and is causing people to react. Whether what Tillman did at the WXPN Festival was right or wrong, he got a dialog going that ran around the festival and beyond. It seemed fitting that there was some division on this issue, similar to our country.
Some folks cheered what Josh said while others booed. Tillman’s statements provoked response, it’s just that most paid to escape those notions, even for a few hours. I could appreciate parts of his statement, but like others feel that it was a shame he ended the set early. Knowing how much support and care WXPN has offered to these artists throughout the years just made his actions feel like a slight against the station. There’s a nuance to this community and WXPN is our family. Like anyone, when your family is slighted you take offence. Does it mean I don’t love Father John Misty’s music? Of course not. I enjoyed the reactions from other festival performers over the next days. We would hear artist after artist say how important entertainment was at this time, how lucky they are to be performers, and how much love they had for the entire WXPN community. It started with The Suffers’ singer Kam Franklin immediately after Tillman’s Set Friday and didn’t end until Brandi Carlile on Sunday evening. With temperatures hovering around 95 degrees all weekend, you had to dig deep to plow through an upcoming 20 sets of music.
Friday started with a bang from Austin’s rock darlings White Denim who played with sincerity and emotion. Sure, the early sing-along of “Ha Ha Ha Ha (Yeah)” led by singer/guitarist James Petralli was fun, but the ending of the set was magic with the three-song punch of “Holda You,” “Anvil Everything” and “I Start To Run” spanning all that has made White Denim great. After Father John Misty’s statement the crowd was pretty ragged with some visibly pissed off and others saying that they were glad that it was over. This crowd needed a pick me up. Kam Franklin and The Suffers were ready to change the mood. They were the first in a long line of bands who addressed “The Set” with Franklin simply stating, “To perform is a privilege…it is our honor to be here. To get to do this full time is amazing.” Franklin went on to say that the first city to support them was Philadelphia thanks to WXPN. The Suffers are a young band with one album and a ton of road time ahead, but what I saw singer Kam Franklin do for the crowd was just shy of brilliant. They read the uncomfortable situation and wholeheartedly answered the call with soul dipped in a multitude of musical styles from reggae to rock and all in-between. This was the first time in years that I saw the entire Marina Stage crowd on their feet, dancing and cheering.
Over at the BB&T Pavilion Kurt Vile & the Violators hung in mostly material from 2013’s Wakin’ on a Pretty Daze and 2015’s B’lieve I’m Goin Down. Vile was at his best while playing behind his hair and kicking out a leg through “Goldtone” and “Pretty Pimpin.” The sound at the pavilion didn’t do his songs justice and it was hard to hear the vocals through much of the show. It wasn’t that long ago that Ryan Adams made headlines for not being particularly friendly at the Tower Theater. However, Friday night he was in a jovial mood giving a shout out to all the party people. He announced that he would be playing a festival set this evening which meant close to two hours of some tremendous rock and roll. Early on the set, he lit up with a fiery and angst ridden version of “Shakedown On 9th Street” and a shout out to World Cafe host David Dye. During “Stay With Me” Adams pulled a prank on guitarist Mike Viola by having two people in robes sneak up behind him. “Halloweenhead” made an appearance with Viola mentioning Haddonfield, New Jersey in reference to John Carpenter’s Halloween. Adams followed that up with a wonderful guitar dance through “Cold Roses.”
With the power outage and weather issues, Saturday felt like the main stage was under the curse of Father John. This festival is resilient and despite Saturday’s power and weather issues the show went on with fast lineup changes. The Revivalists frontman David Shaw began their set simply by saying “We believe that entertainment is not stupid.” The New Orleans band shined playing their signature soul rock music highlighted by a pair of upbeat tracks “Keep Going” and “Stand Up” off their latest album Men Amongst Mountains.
Over on the Marina Stage Darlingside’s quartet featuring Don Mitchell, Dave Senft, Harris Paseltiner and AuyonMukharji gathered around a single microphone. These men deftly showcased humor on “Harrison Ford” a song about their so-called mentor. They offered poignancy as they passed the melody around on “Go Back.” Their arrangements were marked by clever vocal interplay and some serious strumming, plucking and picking. When they landed on “White Horses,” the crowd was in the palm of their hands. Despite the intense sun and heat, people were moved to emotion and cheered with gusto. The power on the mainstage went out four songs into The Felice Brothers set, but that barely stopped the action as the band took the show to the ground playing an unscripted and much unplugged set in front of the stage. Surrounded by their fans knee-slapping and dancing they ran through a spirited “Cumberland Gap” and ended with “Frankie’s Gun.”
The crowd had built into a sweaty mass well before The Record Company took the stage. By the time frontman Chris Vos said, “If you see us at the festival later, don’t be shy come chat, we love making new friends,” they already had several thousand. Surrounded by ass-shake, Vos, bassist Alex Stiff and drummer Marc Cazorla channeled their best John Lee Hooker on “Rita Mae Young” before absolutely rumbling the marina with the crowd favorite “Off the Ground” to finish the heated and highly anticipated set. The mainstage took a second hit of the day in the form of a debilitating storm that temporarily took out the Preservation Hall Jazz Band and shut down the Wiggins Park portion of the festival. WXPN scrambled and got the Preservation Hall Jazz band slotted to play after Chicano Batman at the BB&T pavilion. There are some wild tales of storm survival floating around. I was hunkered down with a boisterous crew in the Green Mountain Energy Tent before making a dash to the BB&T pavilion, where I caught the end of Chicano Batman whose layers of Latin soul mixed with 60’s psychedelic rock helped start the drying process.
The sun reappeared to preemptively scald the moisture away before Gary Clark Jr. and Alabama Shakes turned up the heat on the waterfront. These two musicians complemented each other so well in both musical styles and manner. Clark Jr. opened his set with a long slow burning intro on “Bright Lights.” Clark is more the “I’m a bad mother-fucker who is gonna put a hurting on this guitar until she screams with pleasure” type than a showy performer. His cover of Elmore James’ “I Can’t Stop Loving You” picked up the tempo and by “Don’t Owe You a Thang” the BB&T pavilion was sweating again.
“Here’s how it’s going to work,” Alabama Shakes frontwoman Brittany Howard told the crowd. “I’m gonna give a bit, and you’re gonna give a bit back.” Oh boy, and that she did…from the moment she walked on stage to the moment the show ended Howard performed. Unlike Clark Jr., Howard wore her emotion on her sleeve or in her case her wonderful way of contorting her mouth during the high and low points of her singing and guitar work. Make no mistake Howard is not just a one-trick pony blues singer. She’s got depth, range and is clearly not afraid to experiment. Take her opening choice “Future People,” this song would be just as comfortable coming from Jim James or Eddie Vedder crooning on it; it’s the ageless quality of her songs that gets me. For instance mid-way in “Gimmie All Your Love” could have easily been a Sam Cooke tune, but at the BB&T pavilion it became a sing-along with air guitar and 25,000 new friends. Howard is a visionary, a supreme otherworldly rock and roll goddess. Before it was over Howard ran through a three-song encore beginning with the blue flames of “Gemini,” Touching on the vibe filled “Sound & Color” and landing in the grace of “Over My Head.”
It’s such a great thing when the hosts of the festival can roll with the punches and make miracles happen. With the troubles from Saturday behind them and some strategic movement, Sunday went from relaxed to packed with performances – no one was complaining. Oliver John Rodgers or OJR is described by some as “Country on Acid.” Rodgers and company tossed us the hardest, heaviest set shredded on guitar all weekend. Their whole set was excellent, but its peak was the finale “Numb.” Rodgers exclaimed, “we’re going to psych this song out a little bit” and then took two and a half minutes to work up a jam that dragged “Numb” through a sonic field of multicolored cymbal smashes and guitar riffs which mushroomed out over the Marina Stage. The Districts are a ridiculously solid band for being only three years out of High school. They played a fast set with the early highlight being “Long Distance” before letting fly a few new tunes on the River Stage including “Airplanes” and an impassioned “Fat Kiddo.” Both new songs included some intoxicating guitar work from Rob Grote and Pat Cassidy.
WXPN hooked David Wax Museum up with a sweet new spot on Sunday which they took full advantage of. The husband wife combo of David Wax and SuzSlezak is really unbeatable. They played their most gracious hearts out on “Harder Before It Gets Easier” showcasing their brand of Americana steeped in traditional Mexican music. Before their set was over they gave a special shout out to their young daughter who was next to us in the crowd and who is normally in bed due to the lateness of most of their shows. Between the David Wax Museum’s gracious ability to rotate a schedule and the lovely, talented and mighty feisty Mavis Staples – it was an afternoon love fest at WXPN. All afternoon through, many in the crowd were hyping Low Cut Connie. By the time lead singer Adam Weiner hopped onto his piano called Shondra the crowd had built to a frenzy. Weiner was an animal jumping on his piano bench singing, dancing, and banging the piano keys with his feet. Low Cut Connie has similarities to J Roddy Walston and the Business meets Mott the Hoople except they sing songs with some serious Philly references. “This song is dedicated to the Schuylkill River,” said Weiner before the band got wildly into “Swimming In Dirty Water.” Before they ended their set they did a stripped down version of Prince’s “Controversy” that sent Weiner deep out into the crowd to hang with the masses. Our numbers dwindled by Sunday evening but those in attendance would tell you our spirits soared as Femi Kuti & The Positive Force played a colorful and spectacular ending to a memorable year at the XPoNential Music Festival.
