Comments (0) |

Forecastle then and now

Festival's growth belies its relative youth

by walter tunis Contributing Music Writer

Forecastle Festival

July 10-12 at the Riverfront Belvedere, Louisville. $10-$100. www.forecastlefest.com. TicketMaster, 1-800-745-3000 or www.ticketmaster.com.

Among the curiosities worth viewing at the Forecastle Festival Web site is a little video journey called Forecastle Then.

It begins in 2002, when the music, arts and activism gathering was little more than a community event in Louisville's Tyler Park. The inaugural festival had little by way of stage or lighting and relied mostly on park grounds and picnic tables for audience seating. It played to a few handfuls of fans, many of whom were simply bewildered park patrons. The festival's budget that year was less than $500.

The montage sits next to a second video titled Forecastle Now. It recaps last year's three-day gathering at the Louisville Riverfront Belvedere. You get to see the huge stage set up at the foot of the Galt House and glimpses of fans spread all over the festival grounds along Main Street and the nearby Ohio River.

There also were symposiums on everything from filmmaking to green technology. And there was music — tons of it — from the blue-ribbon bluegrass of the Del McCoury Band to the indie rock of Dr. Dog and more.

Forecastle sets sail again this weekend. The destination is again the Belvedere. True to its growth cycle, the lineup promises what probably will be the most majestic Forecastle yet, with tickets for just-before-midnight concerts aboard the Belle of Louisville on Friday and Saturday going for as little as $10 and $15. Three-day festival passes are a beefier $100. Single-day admission is $40.

The festival's keynote speaker will be Christopher Childs, a veteran energy/environmental activist and former national speaker for Greenpeace USA. His talk will be at 2:30 p.m. Sunday. Representatives from the Sierra Club, the Appalachian Trail Conservatory and 35 other environmental groups will be there. There also will be a bio-fueled, interactive caravan of artists, world-beat musicians, puppeteers, activists and even culinary artists called The Sustainable Living Roadshow.

As always, though, the music assembled by festival founder JK McKnight and crew is the main draw. Here is a sampling of a few of the major acts on tap:

Widespread Panic, 8 p.m. Saturday and Sunday: The champion Athens, Ga., jam band will headline with a pair of two-set, three-hour performances.

Guitarist John Bell and company have fashioned studio albums out of a groove-savvy sound for more than two decades, the mostly recent being 2008's Free Somehow.

But like most jam-oriented ensembles, Widespread Panic's reputation stems from its live shows. The band actively releases archival concert recordings on its own label. The newest, which hit stores in June, is the three-disc Huntsville 1996.

The Black Crowes, 6:45 p.m. Saturday: The seemingly tireless Crowes remain in flight with brothers Chris and Rich Robinson at the helm. Although its music has moved away from the R&B/rock matrix of its early recordings, the band still relishes hearty jams built around earthy rock and soul.

As with Widespread Panic, longstanding commercial popularity has eluded the band. Similarly, the Crowes have long acknowledged their place in the jam-band market by following their three most recent studio albums with concert recordings. The most recent of the latter, Warpaint Live, was released in April.

Never content to sit still for long, the Crowes already have two new albums, Before the Frost ... and ... Until the Freeze, ready for release in September. Both are studio recordings but were recorded live in front of a small, invited audience at Levon Helm's Woodstock, N.Y., studios.

The Black Keys, 11 p.m. Friday: From the Black Crowes, Forecastle goes to the Black Keys, the ever industrious Akron, Ohio, guitar/bass duo specializing in primal, neo-psychedelic boogie, rock and blues.

The band is like a modern variation of Cream. Sort of. Guitarist/vocalist Dan Auerbach and drummer Patrick Carney built nicely on that sound with last year's ultra-cool, Danger Mouse-produced album Attack and Release. Auerbach also issued an impressive solo debut called Keep It Hid in February.