King Nothing
For every endorser or sponsor who decides to abandon a poor-performing individual, company, product or event, there are several more free-spenders and quick-touters who write checks and hoist thumbs upward regardless of the popularity or competence of their beneficiaries. Take Chiefs quarterback Trent Green, who, perhaps as a result of one too many late hits, willingly declared the Foreigner/Bad Company/Night Ranger bill at Sandstone on June 23 to be his “Rock and Roll Fantasy.” Or check out Burger King, which is lending its regal name to this whopper of a group: Foreigner’s Lou Gramm, Billy Joel Band drummer Liberty DeVitto, Mark Farner of Grand Funk Railroad and Steve Cropper of the Blues Brothers. That motley crew, officially known as the BK Rock and Roll All-Stars, also carries Kansas City’s unofficial stamp of approval, having been selected as one of the attractions for the metro’s annual where-are-they-now revival known as Spirit Fest.
This year, Spirit Fest trades in its traditional Labor Day slot for a date near Memorial Day, making extra work for itself in an attempt to create a weekend to remember. Lost in the shuffle was the ability to inform would-be festivalgoers about event headliners well in advance; Spirit Fest’s musical lineup remained a mystery well into May.
“We would’ve liked for it to come together sooner,” publicist Jeff Campbell says, “but the home-run acts hold out until the amphitheaters announce their schedules.”
Choking up on the bat, Spirit Fest scored a double (Double Trouble, who also appeared at last year’s Blues and Jazz Festival) but struck out when it came to locally tied general-interest acts such as Melissa Etheridge (who, having shared Red, White and Boom duty with Bon Jovi, Pink and Enrique Iglesias two summers ago, likely blanches at the thought of playing another area festival) and Sheryl Crow (who, like Etheridge, opted for a solo headlining tour). Recycling last year’s talent from City Market and Beaumont parking-lot shows, Spirit Fest found Sister Hazel and Better Than Ezra. Blues whippersnapper Jonny Lang, who makes pained faces while delivering his solos despite being decades away from dealing with the arthritic fingers that doubtlessly plagued some of Spirit Fest’s headliners in recent years, tops Saturday’s lineup, and .38 Special shoots its Southern-fried blanks at the close of Sunday’s ceremonies.
Last year’s hope-for-the-future act, Snapdragon, saw its debut disc disappear, perhaps because singer Summer Rose dared to mock Eddie “The Root of All Evil” Money in this column. (Money appears again this year; apparently Spirit Fest organizers were receptive to his “I Wanna Go Back” demands.) Steering clear of the curse, Chris Evenson, guitarist for this year’s token still-active act, Sense Field, discusses the other artists on the bill only in general, nonderogatory terms.
“This will definitely be the strangest lineup we’ve ever been on, although we just played with Earth, Wind & Fire in Florida,” Evenson says. Even stranger is its slot; Sense Field plays Saturday afternoon at 4:15, opening for a seven-plus-hour blues block that includes Fast Johnny Ricker, Brody Buster, Robert Bradley’s Blackwater Surprise, Double Trouble and Lang. An emotionally engaging hardcore-lite outfit with a wispy radio hit in “Save Yourself,” Sense Field lacks any trace of blues derivation. “We are more of an orchestral influenced band, if anything,” Evenson says.
Having played a slew of Warped Tour dates, Sense Field is at least familiar with playing its anguished material outdoors, where its lyrical tears evaporate in the potent heat. “The overall tone of the music has a pretty positive and sunny feel to it,” Evenson reasons. “We like the whole drinking-beer-in-the-sun kind of thing. It’s fun!”
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Indeed, a good portion of Spirit Fest’s crowd comes for the whole drinking-beer-in-the-sun kind of thing rather than for any particular headliner. “A lot of people make plans to come in for Spirit Fest way before we’ve announced any talent,” Campbell says. “Spirit Fest is about more than just who’s playing. It’s not just a concert; it’s a festival.”
For the past few years, there’s been another festival at Penn Valley Park, but this summer, the Blues and Jazz Festival won’t be taking place, at least not on the grand scale to which patrons have become accustomed. Spirit Fest picks up the slack somewhat with Double Trouble, Lang, Buster, Leon Russell and Elvin Bishop, as well as with the return of a three-day blues-and-jazz pavilion featuring Millage Gilbert, Cotton Candy and other top local players. However, Campbell reminds, Spirit Fest has always booked the likes of Buddy Guy, Taj Mahal and B.B. King. “We don’t feel like we’re filling a void,” he says. “We’re just filling our mission, which we’ve always done.”
Another popular pavilion revisiting the Fest this year is the reggae tent, which offers Common Ground, Green Card and Az-One but faces the tough task of drawing fans away from Friday night’s Toots & the Maytals-fronted One Love extravaganza at the City Market. Many of the area’s top record-spinners (Billpile, Steve Thorell, Miss Michaela, The Simply Soul Syndicate, Koncept) let the music play at the Electronic Music Showcase. And after a turn on the big stages in 2001, local rock groups return to the sidelines. Oddly, on the same grounds where dinosaurs such as Money and Gramm will roam freely, progressive acts such as Eric and the Stella Link will play a pavilion known as the “Retro and Rock” stage. The “retro” tag accommodates Sunday afternoon cover bands Poster Child and the Bad Dadz, but thanks to space constraints, the stage’s official name pops up in conversation and even on Spirit Fest’s official Web site (www.spiritfest.org) as simply “retro rock,” thus misidentifying 20 of the 22 featured artists. “What the hell is up with that?” wonders Stella Link singer Dave Gaume.
“I have no idea,” answers Gooch, manager of Saturday night act National Fire Theory and booking agent for the misnomered stage. (Campbell attributes the tag to “our program volunteers.”)
Whatever it’s called, the local-music stage delivers some of Spirit Fest’s best jolts. Rockabilly space cadets Silvermen warm the crowd for Eric’s precise chopping-block rock on Sunday night; Post Orgasmic Trauma, Trophy Wives and Jade Raven form an impressive female-fronted triumvirate on Friday evening; and National Fire Theory, Cyclamatic and the Throttlers should overwhelm Lang’s Saturday night blues hammering with buzzing-chain-saw feedback and potent punk riffage.
Still, even some of the biggest Retro Rock stars wish Spirit Fest could attract some equally hip out-of-towners. “If they had a new-rock station that could bring in the Flaming Lips or Cornelius, or any ‘now’ music, the local acts and the festival would benefit greatly,” Gaume says, recalling that the old KLZR 105.9 modern-rock stage booked Moby, Violent Femmes and Japan’s Boom Boom Satellites. (This year, Sense Field comes courtesy of KRBZ 96.5.) But with touring festivals now gobbling up mid-level to major alternative acts (even the Flaming Lips are spoken for, having been claimed by Cake for a multiband bill that stops in Kansas City on August 1), it’s increasingly difficult to find attractive groups with open dates. Scanning the Midwest concert calendar for the weeks surrounding Spirit Fest uncovers Elvis Costello and Trey Anastatasio, neither of whom could be convinced to play in Kansas City for fewer than three hours (and, presumably, for less than an enormous chunk of the event’s budget); Al Green, who, like many coveted performers, signed on for this weekend’s Chicago Blues Festival; and Andrew W.K., probably the best pick of the bunch — he could’ve really run with the “Kansas City, it’s your party” slogan.
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“The days are gone when music festivals are going to get that amphitheater act that’s going to cost $150,000-$200,000 dollars,” Campbell says. “What you get instead is a great collection of talent.” Or, perhaps, some retro acts that don’t rock and Retro-Rock groups that aren’t retro. Regardless, a decent crowd is guaranteed, given the probability of perfect weather, the cheap ticket prices (lower than the parking charge at most Sandstone happenings) and the newly renovated Liberty — Memorial, not DeVitto. But even if music fans were to skip Spirit Fest, threatening not to attend until the lineup sparkled like the roll call at Los Angeles’ Coachella (Björk, the Strokes, Foo Fighters), low attendance would probably endanger the event’s future more than scare its organizers into scoring dream bands. The Burger King All-Stars might be on site, but at Spirit Fest, you’ve gotta have it their way.
Spit Shine
Billy Smith, Season to Risk bassist and occasional concert promoter, spent a brief tour of duty with Spirit Fest as a talent booker, but he became frustrated with the emphasis on behemoth barnstormers. What he wanted — what he thought Spirit Fest should be — was a showcase for local musicians. But rather than devoting his energy to showy, ineffectual gestures such as picketing outside Liberty Memorial or boycotting Burger King, Smith used his connections to make his rock and roll fantasy a reality — and a much more appealing one than Trent Green’s. Smith’s Spit Fest, at the Madrid Theatre on Sunday, June 2, embraces the genres Spirit often ignores: punk (Tanka Ray, Sister Mary Rotten Crotch); raw rock (Gadjits, Cretin 66) and inventive post-hardcore (Season to Risk, Casket Lottery).
“I used to go to Spirit Fest all the time, but mainly for the funnel cake and the hot chicks,” says Jimmy Fitzner, whose band Tanka Ray will be playing its last show with longtime guitarist Robert Paulson. “Outdoor fests are for B.B. King and Journey.”
In the past, outdoor fests were also for Season to Risk, who played Spirit for several years. “We had some incredible and memorable shows,” singer Steve Tulipana says. “I think it is a great opportunity for local bands. I just feel that Season to Risk has done it gratis for too long, and it’s time for some other bands to make something of it and have their own moments and memories.”
Some observers, noting Smith’s split from the Spirit camp, the overlapping schedules of the events and Spit Fest’s seemingly unfriendly name, theorize that the Madrid show is designed to draw audiences away from Liberty Memorial, but Tulipana disagrees. “I don’t see Spit Fest competing with Spirit Fest as much as complementing it,” he says. “I have heard numerous people say they are going to attend both at different times of the day. The Madrid is just offering a better environment and an escape from the elements to see some other local music.”
Hydrafader opens the festivities at 1 p.m., followed by a new group every hour on the hour in this order: Elevator Division, Overstep, the People, Onward Crispin Glover, Tanka Ray, Season to Risk, Thestringandreturn, Casket Lottery, Sister Mary Rotten Crotch, Gadjits and Cretin 66.
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Last But Not Least
Surprisingly, there’s room for a few standout non-festival-related concerts as well. …And You Will Know Us by the Trail of Dead brings its enthralling live show — half demolition derby, half virtuosic display — to El Torreon on Thursday, May 30. The innovative artcore outfit dazzled onlookers earlier this year at the Bottleneck, simultaneously destroying its instruments and using them to create spellbinding epics. Secret Machines, a group that shares Trail of Dead’s expansive musical vocabulary and expertise at crafting subtly shifting widescreen soundscapes if not its appetite for destruction, opens the show.
Meanwhile, the Madrid Theatre offers a promisingly packed weekend calendar. Between the Puerto Rican Power salsa show on Friday night and Spit Fest on Sunday, the Madrid hosts a Brazilian carnival on Saturday evening, with traditional samba music from the Malaqa Band. If you haven’t yet visited the beautifully restored venue at 3810 Main, you’ll know it by the trail of duds — a string of misguided parking-space-hoarding picketers often lines the sidewalks to annoy concertgoers.
