I’m still wrapping my head around exactly what happened up at the corner of 14th Street and Galveston Avenue this weekend. If anything, the 2009 edition of the Bend Roots Revival proved that whatever negative labels the dismal economy has placed on our town do not apply to our music scene.
All four days of Bend Roots went not only smoothly, but also produced one quality act after another—from bluegrass to roots rock to instrumental chaos to straight up rock and roll, festival organizer Mark Ransom sure knows how to pick them.
In the parking lot on Saturday afternoon, Ransom (whose own band, The Mostest played a killer jam-a-thon on Friday night) stopped by to chat a bit a bit about how things were going. With a little fatigue in his eyes yet a smile on his face, Ransom was complimentary about all the acts that had played and also seemed proud of the way the community not only came out in big numbers, but had also been respectful to the neighborhood. Also, it didn’t hurt that the weather was ridiculously warm for the last week of September and that much of the festival was broadcast live on KPOV 106.7FM.
Here’s some video from Bend Roots…
Rising Tide, started things out right on Thursday night with a full set of Grateful Dead covers that even non-Dead Heads could get a kick out of.
Leif James and the Struggle played what had to have been one of their best sets to date on Friday night, getting the PBR swilling crowd up and moving with his soulful roots rock.
Living up to their local hype, Tyler Spencer and his trio, Ruins of Ooah proved just how funky a didgeridoo can be when placed in the right hands.
Stealing the show, as is their wont, Empty Space Orchestra showed us why we’re going to miss them when they get super hugely famous. Here they are doing their set-ending drum-a-thon.
Check back to the front page of tsweekly.com for our mini-documentary from the weekend.